Better Support for Low-Resolution '80s Arcade Cabinets

[Sbaby]

Hi,

I understand that we are now in 2025 and that few people still have an 80s cabinet with a 640x480 monitor at home. However, we cannot forget that LaunchBox largely deals with emulators from those years, and a good percentage of us still use a cabinet.

What I find illogical is that there is no way to manage LaunchBox directly from the cabinet because the windows are too large and cannot be minimised sufficiently: every time, I am forced to connect to a remote desktop so that I can view in Full HD, adjust the various options, and then restart. I could overlook this, but the problem also affects gameplay.

Let me give you a concrete example: look at how the online high scores are displayed (see attached image). With this resolution, you can't read practically anything. Wouldn't it be possible to add an option to adjust the fonts, make them larger, or at least display these high scores in a decent way?

[faeran]

23 hours ago, Sbaby said:

Hi,

I understand that we are now in 2025 and that few people still have an 80s cabinet with a 640x480 monitor at home. However, we cannot forget that LaunchBox largely deals with emulators from those years, and a good percentage of us still use a cabinet.

What I find illogical is that there is no way to manage LaunchBox directly from the cabinet because the windows are too large and cannot be minimised sufficiently: every time, I am forced to connect to a remote desktop so that I can view in Full HD, adjust the various options, and then restart. I could overlook this, but the problem also affects gameplay.

Let me give you a concrete example: look at how the online high scores are displayed (see attached image). With this resolution, you can't read practically anything. Wouldn't it be possible to add an option to adjust the fonts, make them larger, or at least display these high scores in a decent way?

I can understand that frustration. The good news, at least with your example, is that's why that kind of thing is themeable. Anyone could create a 640x480 optimized Big Box theme and change almost everything about it, including the MAME High Scores window there. That would definitely be an interesting experiment. However, I would assume not many people have had a desire to do so up until now because even if they are playing on a cabinet, they most likely are using some kind of modern display in it. 

I would definitely be interested in seeing one made though.

[Sbaby]

47 minutes ago, faeran said:

I can understand that frustration. The good news, at least with your example, is that's why that kind of thing is themeable. Anyone could create a 640x480 optimized Big Box theme and change almost everything about it, including the MAME High Scores window there. That would definitely be an interesting experiment. However, I would assume not many people have had a desire to do so up until now because even if they are playing on a cabinet, they most likely are using some kind of modern display in it. 

I would definitely be interested in seeing one made though.

Thanks for reply !
I’m using the official RetroCRT theme and I really like it. It fits my setup perfectly and works great overall, except when I try to view the hiscores

Can anyone help me figure out how to fix this? Do I have the option to edit the theme myself, or should I ask someone else to do it? If so, who?

[faeran]

13 hours ago, Sbaby said:

Thanks for reply !
I’m using the official RetroCRT theme and I really like it. It fits my setup perfectly and works great overall, except when I try to view the hiscores

Can anyone help me figure out how to fix this? Do I have the option to edit the theme myself, or should I ask someone else to do it? If so, who?

Anyone can edit themes, there just may be some getting up to speed with how to using the documentation found here: https://feedback.launchbox.gg/help/collections/8448047-theming

You'll see in this section it calls out the 2 mame high score files that would need to be added into the theme and edited: https://feedback.launchbox.gg/help/articles/9450321-big-box-views#2o0t1cbcppz

[Sbaby]

22 hours ago, faeran said:

Anyone can edit themes, there just may be some getting up to speed with how to using the documentation found here: https://feedback.launchbox.gg/help/collections/8448047-theming

You'll see in this section it calls out the 2 mame high score files that would need to be added into the theme and edited: https://feedback.launchbox.gg/help/articles/9450321-big-box-views#2o0t1cbcppz

Thank you.
Can you recommend any other existing themes with a resolution of 640x480? I tried searching the forum but couldn't find anything.