LaunchBox 13.23 - Beta Thread

[faeran]

Hey All,

We are back with another beta round! Thanks to everyone helping us test the latest beta builds. Your feedback is super valuable, so please include the following info when reporting any issues:

📝 When submitting feedback, include:

• Your Windows version
• A clear description of the issue
• Whether the issue can be consistently reproduced
• The steps to reproduce it

🎮 How to Join the Beta

To opt into the beta:

• In LaunchBox, go to Tools > Options > General > Updates
• Enable Update to Beta Releases

When a beta is available, you will be prompted at startup or can check manually via Menu > Help > Check for Updates

🔌 A Quick Note on Plugins

Some beta builds include early versions of official plugins that are not yet live in the Plugin Manager. Because of this:

• You may see update prompts for plugins that are actually newer in the beta

Please avoid updating plugins while using a beta if you are planning to provide feedback. This helps us get accurate data and avoids breaking improvements

🎞️ VLC is now considered legacy

If you are reporting any issue in either LaunchBox or Big Box, you must first ensure your video engine is set to Windows Media Player.

• For Big Box: Go to Options > Video and set the Video Playback Engine to Windows Media Player

• For LaunchBox: Go to Tools > Options > General > Video Playback and do the same

Note that these settings are separate. Changing the setting in one does not affect the other. Always re-evaluate the issue after changing this setting before submitting a report.

 

Beta 1:

• New Premium Feature: Added a new Screensavers feature to Big Box, letting users discover games with fully themeable views and interact directly with the games shown
• Improvement: Platform detail views in both LaunchBox and Big Box now display numerical counts for games that are beaten, completed, or mastered, based on Game Progress Tracking stats
• Fixed: RetroAchievements were not loading in Game Details when using a List View, resulting in no achievement data being shown
• Fixed: Removed the outdated Change Badge Images option from the Badge menu in LaunchBox, which no longer applied after the media manager overhaul in version 13.21
• Fixed: Legacy Big Box themes using Old Default theme code had a stray completed graphic that would always show, regardless of user data
• Fixed: Selecting a game too quickly in Big Box could prevent LEDBlinky from displaying the correct lighting behavior
• Fixed: A specific crash related to the MAME High Score system is now caught with error handling, and logging has been added to help identify the root cause

The screensaver feature is a bit of a work in progress, but the core principles are there. The view itself is designed to be an alternative to Attract Mode. It cycles through games, giving you another avenue to discover games in your library. There's an action button that allows you to quickly navigate to the Game Details page of the game you are looking at. The default theme currently comes with 3 completed views, and 1 placeholder. By release, all 4 views should be filled in for the default theme. Each theme will have the ability to have up to 4 distinct screensaver views, and theme devs have the full breadth of game bindings at their disposal when building out these views. More detailed theming info for theme devs will be coming soon.

[C-Beats]

This beta uses an older .NET runtime (9.0.5) which should also correct the issue of not being able to use LaunchBox from a networked drive. We'll update the changelog in the next beta to reflect this but would appreciate if some one who was having this issue in 13.22 could chime in and verify it's resolved in this beta.

[SqHd]

Does anyone else turn on BigBox just so it goes into screensaver mode? Or am I ill? 😅

[C-Beats]

44 minutes ago, SqHd said:

Does anyone else turn on BigBox just so it goes into screensaver mode? Or am I ill? 😅

I mean Faeran and I have been while developing/testing the feature. Does that count? ;D

[arcademode]

Just downloaded to give that screensaver feature a try but didn't see it in the menu anywhere.  Does it only work on the default skin or something like that?

[faeran]

1 hour ago, arcademode said:

Just downloaded to give that screensaver feature a try but didn't see it in the menu anywhere.  Does it only work on the default skin or something like that?

Should be as simple as: Options > Screensaver

It's below Attract Mode.

[LordPato]

Just got 13.23 beta as 13.22 wasn't loading at all (NAS Installation).

Now, even though it installs completely and it "loads" it is stuck at "Loading Interface" It has been like that for the past 30 min. With 13.21 it loaded within 1 min.
Tried several times (new install on a new location, also NAS) and same results. 

What I can see is that all folders are being generated (updates, data, logs, etc) but it stays stuck at that point.

Any clues on how to proceed?

Windows 11 24H2 (26100.4652)

[LordPato]

Please disregard. Fixed it by adding the NAS to the trusted Local Internet:

[5thWolf]

I was asked to test this beta by @C-Beatsspecificly to test the issues that began arising from updates after 13.19. Mapped network drives began having issues as we began discussing in this thread.

• Your Windows version
  • Windows 11
• A clear description of the issue
  • ALL THESE WILL BE BASED ON MAPPED NETWORK DRIVES
    • Massive initial start up time increase, about 10x longer
    • As the discussion here, ROM paths seem to only show exact path "E:\emu\system\game.rom" and no longer what it use to be before 13.20 which was "..\system\game.rom" (this was perfect for network drives when multiple PCs accessed it but used different drive letters)
    • The "Completed" checkbox in metadata is gone. Killed the green checkbox in all my games I marked complete
      
• Whether the issue can be consistently reproduced
  • Always
• The steps to reproduce it
  • Normal Launch

[5thWolf]

• LB not launching at all (Net Drives) fixed
• LB seems about 10x slower then normal when launching, after full load up performance is fine. This is on every launch.
• Just tested Big Box. It Launched very fast compared to LB, And the Screensaver seems really nice. I hit "A" to explore the game it was on and it gave a great menu system to explore the game your looking at
• This version of LB did fix the issue of mapped network drives having ROMs being added as "\\game-nas\emu\system\game.rom" which didn't work at all. Now adds them as "E:\emu\system\game.rom" which works fine on mapped drives. However we still prefer how it was before 13.20 as "..\system\game.rom" (this was perfect for network drives when multiple PCs accessed it but used different drive letters). Maybe there could be an option for people to choose how they want the pathing to files to be?

Edited Sunday at 10:58 PM by 5thWolf

[JoeViking245]

18 minutes ago, 5thWolf said:

The "Completed" checkbox in metadata is gone. Killed the green checkbox in all my games I marked complete

Version 13.22 - Released July 3, 2025

Quote

• Fixed: Removed the old Completed checkbox in the Add/Edit Game window, as its functionality is now fully integrated into the new Game Progress system
• Fixed: Removed the old Unplayed/Completed badges, since the new Progress Badge handles all that and then some

 

More information about the new Progress Badge (Game Progress Tracking) can be found here: Game Progress Tracking - LaunchBox

[5thWolf]

Oops missed that badge part 😋

[5thWolf]

I just played with the progression system. I like it! Great job on it's addition!
Never got a chance to since 13.22 doesn't work for us.

[Fursphere]

Screensaver feedback - 

Just turned it on for fun.   Doesn't seem to use the marquee screen.    That's a bummer.    And I'm not sure what images 'categories' its pulling from, but it seems I'm missing a lot of them.  

[C-Beats]

9 hours ago, Fursphere said:

Doesn't seem to use the marquee screen.

Nice call out! We'll get that addressed and make sure the game loads on the marquee as well before final release.

[faeran]

9 hours ago, Fursphere said:

Screensaver feedback - 

Just turned it on for fun.   Doesn't seem to use the marquee screen.    That's a bummer.    And I'm not sure what images 'categories' its pulling from, but it seems I'm missing a lot of them.  

This will depending on the theme/view you've chosen to use, but the default ones will use the most basic of images: A background or screenshot, a clear logo. Some use a box image, some use a video.

[Fursphere]

15 minutes ago, faeran said:

This will depending on the theme/view you've chosen to use, but the default ones will use the most basic of images: A background or screenshot, a clear logo. Some use a box image, some use a video.

I'm using the default theme / default view.   (semi-required when playing with Beta releases...  lol)

I only had a few minutes to play with it, but I mostly saw just clear logos (large).   Some had a background image (fan art category maybe?  I have no idea), but most didn't.   Didn't see a single video play.   This is probably my biggest gripe about BigBox after all these years of using it.   I am still 100% clueless about what media categories its pulling from without firing up a theme editor and digging around.   Can you put that in the GUI?   (This theme uses the following media categories......  and have it read the actual theme configuration to pull those values out).

Oh here's an idea - show the media categories (dynamically based on currently selected theme / view), and then have an option to flag those in BB "Download this media category next time Launchbox is run"  (For current platform or all platforms)

And even though my cab is 100% keyboard setup (IPac encoder), it was showing "Press (Gamepad) Button" - which...  is sub optimal at best.   I wish it would use button labels instead (Press Select - the function, not the button or key currently assigned to Select - for example).  

Also, the after some time in BigBox screensaver move, the Windows screen saver kicked in.   As far as I can recall, BigBox has never allowed the Windows screensaver to activate while in BB attract mode.   But BB screensaver mode appears to allow Windows screensaver mode to activate.  (I just turned off WIndows screensaver to solve that).   Probably an edge case, but I figured it was worth mentioning.  

[C-Beats]

34 minutes ago, Fursphere said:

I am still 100% clueless about what media categories its pulling from without firing up a theme editor and digging around.

The media types that are used by all themes in either app are: Box Front (group), Clear Logo (type), Backgrounds (group), Screenshots (group), and Videos (group). Anything else is WILDLY theme dependent or never used at all.

[Fursphere]

2 minutes ago, C-Beats said:

The media types that are used by all themes in either app are: Box Front (group), Clear Logo (type), Backgrounds (group), Screenshots (group), and Videos (group). Anything else is WILDLY theme dependent or never used at all.

Thats awesome.    But I feel I should have to ask that question on the forums directly to the Dev team... the application should tell me?  

Hell, I've probably asked the question before and forgotten.   lol

[C-Beats]

Given that overwhelming number of settings and possibilities of a theme dev getting the app to consistently tell you which image type it needs would be pretty cumbersome with high shot of being inaccurate. Not even sure how you'd want to see that in the UI. Nothing else though can toss in the feature request and maybe some one can conceptually tackle all of those questions if you don't currently have the answers yourself.