LaunchBox 14.1.0 Beta Thread

[MysterNybble]

It's that time again 😝!

There's quite a bit in this one, particularly around storefronts, plugins, and emulator configuration, along with another round of fixes across LaunchBox and Big Box. Unlike previous beta rounds I tried really hard to cram almost everything I wanted in this release in this beta so it's a big one, but hopefully follow up betas are just refinements.

tl;dr; basically, everything changed but not in the way you might immediately notice. your existing storefront integrations are moving into plugins, MAME and RetroArch use the new emulator plugin settings support, lots more plugin related things, Big Box gets trackball/spinner support, and the usual dump of bug fixes and QoL improvements

Prove to the world you can read by.... including the following when providing your testing feedback:

• The program you are referring to that you have tested: LaunchBox or Big Box
• Your hardware specs and OS
• What you were doing in the app and how you were doing it
• Which theme you are using
• The type of input you were using during your testing: controller, keyboard, mouse, trackball, etc.
• List of community plugins that you have installed
• If you have a crash (LaunchBox or Big Box crashes to your desktop / close without notice), we'll need the whole crash report, which includes Windows event logs (a lot of times its multiple logs related to the same crash) and the mini memory dump that is stored in your Logs folder. The dumps may be large and include private data, so reach out if you want to share privately
• Your LaunchBox and/or Big Box debug logs (which are on by default during beta now)

HIGHLIGHTS

The biggest change is how LaunchBox handles storefronts. Amazon, EA, Epic, GOG, Steam, Ubisoft, and Xbox are now plugins. They will appear in the Plugin Manager, can receive updates, and help us organize our codebase. We took great care to ensure your existing games, connections, and settings carry over automatically.

This also opens up more possibilities for plugin developers, including additional storefronts, metadata and artwork sources, achievements, play time, game discovery, notifications, and expansion for the existing emulator plugins. For this first beta, though, a big part of the test is simply whether everything you already use continues behaving as expected as the API IS NOT FINALIZED AND WILL CHANGE - I AM NOT DONE MESSING WITH IT.

There are some more immediately visible additions, too: new MAME and RetroArch settings, arcade trackball and spinner navigation in Big Box, and refreshed LaunchBox leaderboards.

Please keep this thread focused on the 14.1 changes and anything that starts misbehaving after updating. General feature requests and unrelated issues can continue through our usual feedback and bug-report system.

Here’s where we could especially use your help with Beta 1:

• Existing storefront libraries and accounts: Upgrade an existing installation and check that your accounts, games, badges, filters, and saved launch settings carry over. Check each store’s import setting, including None, Installed Games, and All Games. Turning off automatic importing should still leave your existing games available to launch.
• Storefront imports and artwork: Try both automatic startup imports and manual imports, including a fresh setup through the welcome wizard if you have a separate test installation. Confirm that the expected games appear, progress remains understandable, and artwork arrives. Large Steam libraries are particularly useful here: temporary rate limits should now trigger a wait and retry instead of immediately abandoning the affected work.
• Installing, launching, and returning from games: Test several stores in both LaunchBox and Big Box, including with the store’s own client initially closed. Check installation status, startup and shutdown screens, play time, and returning to the frontend after exiting. Try startup screens both enabled and disabled, and let us know if Play becomes unresponsive, the mouse cursor disappears, or another window unexpectedly stays in front.
• Plugin Manager and settings: Try updating a plugin, restarting, and confirming that its settings and accounts remain intact. Explore Configure and the new Options > Plugins section. Disable and re-enable a plugin across restarts, and check that the displayed status matches what actually happens. Repair should preserve the installed version when a matching release is available.
• MAME and RetroArch settings: Open Edit Emulator > Plugin Settings. For emulators you already had configured, “Let LaunchBox manage these settings” should initially be off, and games should launch as before. Turn it on to try the new options, including per-platform settings. Emulators newly installed by LaunchBox start with management enabled.
• MAME displays and inputs: Try monitor assignments, Borderless Fullscreen, screen effects, and the available light gun, trackball, and input-provider options. Borderless Fullscreen is especially worth testing with startup and pause screens.
• RetroArch configuration: Try screen effects, integer scaling, aspect ratio, fullscreen modes, run-ahead, rewind, and internal resolution where supported. Check that your existing custom command lines and RetroAchievements configuration still work.
• Trackballs and spinners: In Big Box Options > Mouse, enable Trackball/Spinner Navigation and try the Optimize For choices and sensitivity settings. Browse wheels, lists, walls, and Options. We’d particularly appreciate testing with dual spinners or mouse wheel spinners, and confirming that frontend navigation stops while a game has focus.
• Big Box navigation and game handoffs: Scroll quickly through artwork-heavy views, switch platforms, and let videos start and stop. Check taskbar hiding, Alt-Tab, multiple monitors, and returning from games. If you launch emulators through scripts or wrappers, confirm that play time and shutdown screens follow the actual game.
• Metadata, media, and editing: Try bulk downloads and Edit Game’s Download Images and Media dialog with the available sources. Stop and resume Bezel Project downloads, and try EmuMovies batches where some media is unavailable. When editing games, change titles or media and use Previous/Next, then confirm the changes saved and the artwork remains attached to the right game.
• Achievements and leaderboards: Check the refreshed LaunchBox Leaderboards card and the game/player leaderboard windows. If you change your RetroAchievements account, confirm that progress refreshes instead of retaining the previous account’s results.
• Plugin and theme developers: we’d also appreciate compatibility reports from your existing work. I wouldn't recommend trying to make new plugins during this beta with the new capabilities, but do as you will.

Full Changelog:

• New Feature: Amazon, EA, Epic, GOG, Steam, Ubisoft, and Xbox support now comes from storefront plugins that are installed with LaunchBox and listed in the Plugin Manager, with shared account and import screens and support for additional storefront plugins; your existing accounts, import settings, and games carry over automatically
• New Feature: Big Box can now be navigated with an arcade trackball or spinners, with smooth wheel movement and separate sensitivity settings; turn on Enable Trackball/Spinner Navigation under Big Box Options > Mouse, which turns off Enable Mouse, and use Optimize For to choose trackball or spinner navigation, including support for dual spinners and mouse wheel spinners
• New Feature: Managed plugins can now be enabled or disabled from the Plugin Manager without uninstalling them; LaunchBox restarts to apply the change when you close the Plugin Manager, and disabled plugins are not loaded in LaunchBox or Big Box
• New Feature: Supported plugins can now be configured from the Plugin Manager using a new Configure button, including account connections, multiple settings forms, and localized validation messages
• New Feature: Plugin settings and account connections now appear under a new Plugins section in Options, grouped by what the plugin provides, with searchable settings and support for sharing an account across components in the same plugin
• New Feature: Emulator plugins can now add a Plugin Settings page to the Edit Emulator window, starting with MAME and RetroArch, with options for all platforms or per platform; "Let LaunchBox manage these settings" is off for emulators you set up yourself or added before this update, and on for emulators LaunchBox installs from now on
• New Feature: MAME settings include choosing monitors for one or two MAME windows, a Borderless Fullscreen mode that lets the pause and startup screens appear over the game, screen effects, light gun and trackball support, and input options, showing only what your MAME version supports
• New Feature: RetroArch settings include CRT, handheld LCD, NTSC, and scanline screen effects, integer scaling, aspect ratio, borderless or exclusive fullscreen, run-ahead, rewind, and internal resolution upscaling for 3D systems
• New Feature: Plugins can now supply game metadata and media alongside the LaunchBox Games Database and EmuMovies in import wizards, Download Metadata and Media, and Edit Game's Download Images and Media dialog, with an option in the bulk tool to prioritize a plugin's descriptive metadata
• New Feature: Added support for independent achievement plugins, allowing additional sources to provide achievement lists and progress for games with a matching storefront or RetroAchievements ID, shown in their own tabs in the LaunchBox and Big Box achievement popups
• New Feature: Added support for independent game activity plugins, allowing additional sources to supply play time and last-played information while preserving existing game statistics
• New Feature: Game discovery plugins can now help the Windows game importer recognize games and exclude non-game applications
• New Feature: Expanded the plugin SDK so emulator plugins can implement only the capabilities they need, such as installation, updates, BIOS setup, import options, launch preparation, achievements, and save management, instead of deriving from the EmulatorPlugin base class, which existing plugins can keep using; storefront and emulator integrations can also use new shared game launch, process tracking, and game installation or removal capabilities
• New Feature: Plugins can now publish localized LaunchBox notifications with action buttons and progress updates for long-running tasks
• New Feature: Plugin developers can now use dedicated data storage, a private files folder, and credential storage protected by Windows for the current PC, each scoped to their plugin
• New Feature: Big Box themes can now show RetroAchievements progress and estimated time to beat or master a game on screensaver views
• Improvement: The Plugin Manager now shows plugin loading failures, compatibility restrictions, and recent plugin errors to help identify plugins that need attention
• Improvement: Managed plugin packages now support more precise LaunchBox version requirements and checks for incomplete or altered downloads before installation or updates
• Improvement: The community leaderboards on the Game Details panel are now a single LaunchBox Leaderboards card with Weekly, Monthly, Yearly, and All-Time tabs, your own rank and score, a highlighted player row, and a Log In button that connects your Games Database account and enables MAME high score uploads
• Improvement: The game and player High Score Leaderboards windows have a new look with clearer tabs and score columns; game leaderboards also show the game's clear logo over a blurred background and include a View Game button that opens the game on the LaunchBox Games Database
• Improvement: Steam play time and last-played dates no longer overwrite longer play time or more recent dates recorded by LaunchBox
• Improvement: With startup screens turned off, LaunchBox and Big Box now prepare games in the background so the interface stays responsive while a game starts
• Improvement: Automatic storefront imports at startup now show which storefront is being scanned and the current step
• Improvement: Refreshing installed status at startup now skips storefronts with no games in your library, avoiding unnecessary storefront checks
• Improvement: Auto-populate playlist rules now use a single Achievements field with a source selector in place of separate achievement fields; existing playlists continue to work
• Improvement: Storefront names in filters, badges, and Manage Storefronts now match their plugins, such as Ubisoft Connect, Xbox, and EA app
• Improvement: The Audit window now has columns for every storefront, including Amazon Games and Xbox
• Improvement: The Options search box is now focused when the window opens, allowing you to start typing immediately
• Improvement: Manage Emulators and Edit Emulator open faster because emulator versions are no longer looked up twice when checking for updates
• Improvement: The Add/Edit Game window opens faster and shows images right away instead of appearing empty while they load
• Fixed: Repair in the Plugin Manager could replace a plugin with an older version; it now reinstalls the same version, explains when repair is not available, and offers a compatible version when the installed one does not support your LaunchBox version
• Fixed: LaunchBox could crash when filtering games by Progress or changing a game's Progress from the Game Details panel
• Fixed: Manual ROM imports could report games as successfully imported without adding them when "Force importing duplicate games" was enabled and combining ROMs was turned off
• Fixed: Xbox 360 imports could miss games after encountering an inaccessible folder; the scan now skips those folders and continues
• Fixed: Changing your RetroAchievements username did not refresh achievement progress throughout the library, leaving progress from the previous account until a manual scan
• Fixed: Using Previous or Next in Edit Game could leave images or videos missing or incorrectly named after changing a game's title; media changes now finish saving before moving to another game
• Fixed: Bezel Project downloads could repeatedly download the same repository and exhaust resources when interrupted by other media downloads; stopping and resuming now preserves unfinished games and cleans up interrupted downloads
• Fixed: Scrolling Big Box wheels quickly could stutter, leave artwork blank, or freeze Big Box for several seconds; artwork now loads more smoothly with fewer interruptions during navigation
• Fixed: Unresponsive storefront discovery or installed-state checks could hang startup or importing games; checks now stop waiting after 30 seconds and preserve existing installed status
• Fixed: An error message about a damaged data file could open behind the startup screen while games were loading, leaving LaunchBox looking frozen
• Fixed: Installing or updating LaunchBox could fail when a component folder was briefly in use by another program, such as antivirus software
• Fixed: Double-clicking a game or repeatedly pressing Enter or a controller button could launch the same game or emulator more than once in LaunchBox and Big Box; with startup screens off, LaunchBox now shows the busy cursor while the game starts
• Fixed: Epic Games metadata could skip filling in a missing developer when the game already had notes, or replace an existing developer when the game had no notes
• Fixed: LaunchBox and Big Box could remain behind other windows or only flash in the taskbar after a game exited, instead of returning to the foreground
• Fixed: LaunchBox could show out-of-date information after returning from a game, with the details video still paused and play time not updated; returning now restores the window, resumes the details video, and updates play time
• Fixed: Slow or unresponsive game processes could briefly stall LaunchBox and Big Box or delay detecting that a game had closed
• Fixed: Emulators started through a launcher or wrapper could lose their shutdown screen and accurate play time tracking when the game window belonged to a child process
• Fixed: A custom --appendconfig in a RetroArch command line was ignored when RetroAchievements login was enabled
• Fixed: Steam imports and metadata updates could report errors or leave artwork missing when Steam temporarily limited requests; LaunchBox now waits and retries automatically
• Fixed: Steam posters and banners failed to download for some games after Steam changed where it stores artwork; LaunchBox now looks up an alternate image location when the standard one is unavailable
• Fixed: Installing or uninstalling a Ubisoft game from LaunchBox could also ask Ubisoft Connect to launch it
• Fixed: Bulk EmuMovies media downloads could get stuck searching and downloading the same games repeatedly when a media file could not be found
• Fixed: In Edit Game's Download Images and Media dialog, EmuMovies music was preselected based on whether the game had a manual instead of music
• Fixed: Big Box could stop hiding the taskbar after a game was played, leaving it visible over Big Box
• Fixed: The game startup screen could appear in the taskbar and Alt-Tab while a game was running, or jump to the primary monitor when activated
• Fixed: Switching to Big Box with Alt-Tab while a game was running could show a black startup screen instead of Big Box
• Fixed: The Windows mouse cursor could stay hidden after a startup screen closed or after LaunchBox or Big Box exited
• Fixed: Big Box could crash sometime after leaving a screen that was playing videos
• Fixed: A notification that failed to display could leave a stray Notification Center entry, and notifications arriving together could show overlapping pop-ups

Thanks for helping us test this one. Given the quantity of changes reports about things still working are just as useful as when they don't. If something does break, more details are more helpful.

We could not do this without all of your help so thanks in advance for any help you provide. It absolutely helps improve every release.

[AzgoRAth]

Hey guys. Thanks for new update. I think I figured out what was causing the issue with multiple monitors that I was having in the previous version. It was the *Use controller in Launchbox* feature where even though bigbox wasnt the main focus window, the LB controller part was still in control. After disabling "Use controller in Launchbox" options and clearing the controls, the problem looks to be fixed now..

[Fursphere]

Trackball and Spinner support for wheel movement.  

• The program you are referring to that you have tested:  Big Box
• Your hardware specs and OS:  Windows 11
• What you were doing in the app and how you were doing it:  Big Box Navigation
• Which theme you are using:  Default
• The type of input you were using during your testing: controller, keyboard, mouse, trackball, etc. : Trackball and Spinner
• List of community plugins that you have installed:  None

Spinner support - *chefs kiss* - you guys nailed this one

Trackball support - Close, but it feels weird.  I'll attempt to explain.   I had to crank the sensitivity up to 300% - 350% to get decent movement out of the trackball on my system.  I suspect that's hardware related. 

Unlike spinner, trackball has both X and Y axis (duh).  Looks like you enabled both.   So at the 'main' bigbox menu (horizontal scroll).   It has a "speed" left to right - you just get a feel for it.   However, if you move the trackball in a slight diagonol motion, the "recent games list" get selected.  

1) It can be tricky to get 'out' of this sub-menu with just the trackball.  You have to move it all the way to the left.  And then "UP" but its not instant.  Like, you have to "PUSH" up more (keep rolling the trackball up longer than you'd expect) to get the selection to finally 'pop' out.  
2) The speed of the sub-menu vs the main system menu is way off.   Lets call main menu 100% (just a feel right?).  When it drops to the recent game menu, it feels like it jumps to 300% - 400% speed.   Its not consistent.  
3) There is a similar issue (though not nearly as bad) when you enter a system menu, and "up down" becomes the title selection and "left right" becomes the alphabetical 'quick search' function - and any diagonal movement tends to switch modes unexpectedly.  

Nothing here is breaking obviously.  It just feels 'off' with the trackball - non consistent.  

I would say giving the ability to selective 'disable' one or the other axis - but then you'd get goofy when you go from Horizontal to Vertical (main wheel vs. system/platform wheel).   
Unless you can have logic to detect which way the wheel spins, and dynamically change it?  (and this would help the spinner too - since it could work in both modes with a single axis)

[AzgoRAth]

I found a bug in the latest beta. BB crashes when I try to open the achievement list for any game.

[MysterNybble]

2 hours ago, AzgoRAth said:

I found a bug in the latest beta. BB crashes when I try to open the achievement list for any game.

Thanks, can you provide the details requested above? Crashes do have special instruction.

[AzgoRAth]

2 hours ago, MysterNybble said:

Thanks, can you provide the details requested above? Crashes do have special instruction.

Program: Bigbox
OS: Windows 11

Specs: ryzen 2700x, rtx 4070, 24gb ddr4 ram, 512gb Sata SSD

Action when crash occurred: Opening Achievement list for any game in BigBox.

Theme: Default

Type of input: controller

List of plugins: only the default ones that come with BBnative-v1-BigBox-20260927T220152549Z-p17580-t17872-C00000FD-03bac667-32b6-45fb-ade5-dfc45a98.dmpnative-v1-BigBox-20260927T220152549Z-p17580-t17872-C00000FD-03bac667-32b6-45fb-ade5-dfc45a98.dmp

logs.evtx logs.zip Debug 2026-09-27 11-59-51 PM.log