PluginHelper.LaunchBoxMainViewModel.PlayGame() continues to play video previews in the background (Bigbox)

[TapeWorm]

Hello, I'm running into a bit of an issue after calling PluginHelper.LaunchBoxMainViewModel.PlayGame() to kick off a game in BigBox.

PluginHelper.LaunchBoxMainViewModel.PlayGame(myGame, null, null, null);

It seems that the function won't pause the platform or game video that is playing if  the Startup Screen is disabled on the game that I'm kicking off.

I'll see the standard "Loading" popup after calling the function, but the video previews and sound continue to play in the background even after a game has launched. The game launches and runs the exact same as if I had selected it in BigBox, aside from the videos continuing to play. Again this seems to happen on games where the Startup Screen isn't enabled.

This also seems to happen sometimes if the Startup Screen is set too short. The preview video will stop playing when the startup screen appears, but it will resume playing if that Startup Screen closes before the game has opened into exclusive full-screen. If I launch the same game by selecting it in the BigBox UI, then the video previews remain pause until I close the game.

I'm wondering if this is a bug, or is there another function that I should be calling to manually pause the BigBox previews when launching a game?

Thanks

 

Edited October 20 by TapeWorm

[Sbaby]

16 hours ago, TapeWorm said:

I'm wondering if this is a bug, or is there another function that I should be calling to manually pause the BigBox previews when launching a game?

Thanks

 

I believe that the plugin is not directly responsible for this behavior. This is not a real bug, but a long known problem, reported by several users over the years. Unfortunately, there is still no official solution.

I personally encountered the same problem with various emulators and had to find a temporary solution myself. I created AutoHotkey scripts that do the following: mute l'audio di LB/BB, minimize LaunchBox and BigBox when starting a game, and force the frontend to remain minimized during the game. When closing the game, they restore the LB/BB audio.

I also addressed the problem of frontend minimization, as in some emulators the game controller would end up interacting with BigBox even in the background, causing chaos during game sessions.

Over time, I was able to optimize these scripts to keep the pause menu working as well, but it remains a problem that should be solved officially. In the meantime, you can try the “Minimize LaunchBox/BigBox at game startup” option in the program's general options. However, in my experience, this setting did not solve the problem.

[TapeWorm]

Hmm, alright. I appreciate the response and providing the temporary workaround that you had implemented. I'll look into possibly mimicking a similar solution via the IGameLaunchingPlugin interface in the OnAfterLaunch+OnExited events.

The games that are causing issues for me happen to be Windows titles which don't have AHK scripts as an option . If the above doesn't work, then maybe I'll configure "additional apps" as an alternative.

In any case, thanks for the help.

Edited October 20 by TapeWorm