AstroBob Posted 4 hours ago Posted 4 hours ago Version 14.1 - Released October 31st 2026 Release Summary Release Summary: https://feedback.launchbox-app.com/changelog/launchbox-for-windows-141 Full Changelog: https://www.launchbox-app.com/about/changelog New Features: Big Box can now be navigated with arcade trackballs and spinners, including dual spinners and mouse wheel spinners, with adjustable sensitivity under Options > Mouse Big Box themes can now show RetroAchievements progress and estimated time to beat or master a game on screensaver views Amazon, EA, Epic, GOG, Steam, Ubisoft, and Xbox support now comes from storefront plugins installed with LaunchBox, with shared account and import screens and support for additional stores; your existing accounts, settings, and games carry over automatically LaunchBox quick filters can now exclude values; click a value to include it, again to exclude it, and once more to clear it, with active filters shown at the top of the menu and in the filter button's tooltip and exclusions preserved when saving filters to a new playlist Managed plugins can now be enabled or disabled from the Plugin Manager, and supported plugins can be configured there or through searchable settings under Plugins in Options; enabling or disabling plugins takes effect after restarting Emulator plugins can now add settings to Edit Emulator, starting with MAME and RetroArch, with global and per-platform options; automatic settings management stays off for existing or manually configured emulators and is on for emulators newly installed by LaunchBox MAME settings include monitor selection, borderless fullscreen, screen effects, and light gun and trackball options; RetroArch settings include display modes, screen effects, run-ahead, rewind, and 3D upscaling Plugins can now supply metadata and media alongside the LaunchBox Games Database and EmuMovies during imports and media downloads, with an option to prioritize plugin metadata in the bulk download tool Plugins can now provide additional achievements, play time, and last-played information for supported games while preserving existing game statistics; achievements appear in separate tabs in LaunchBox and Big Box Expanded the plugin SDK with optional emulator and storefront capabilities, game discovery, localized notifications, separate plugin data and credential storage, and shared services for reading achievements, profiles, activity, leaderboards, game catalogs, metadata, and media; existing emulator plugins can keep using EmulatorPlugin Automatic imports can now download selected EmuMovies images, videos, manuals, and music under Options > Automated Imports Media, while preserving existing media and respecting download limits LaunchBox can now show announcements and offers through its notification system, with links and buttons for more information Improvements: LaunchBox Games Database features now use Unbroken Account sign-in through your web browser for cloud sync, ratings, and MAME high scores; you will need to reconnect your account once after upgrading LaunchBox and Big Box start faster and use less temporary memory when loading large libraries, with fewer redundant data loads and file writes and a smaller LaunchBox Health recovery helper RetroAchievements now comes from a managed plugin installed with LaunchBox and can be updated through the Plugin Manager; your existing account, game matches, and achievement progress carry over automatically, with shared rate-limit handling to reduce failed loads when the service is busy Game startup and play time tracking do less background work, and games are prepared without blocking the interface when startup screens are turned off Options now focuses its search box when opened, and Options and 3D model settings share a new font picker Big Box keyboard and controller mappings, LaunchBox controller mappings, and LaunchBox Reader mappings now warn when an input is already assigned to another action, offer to replace it, and highlight existing conflicts MAME high scores now support 990 more games and leaderboards for 1675 more clone and regional versions, with score reading fixes for existing games; the new LaunchBox Game Pulse reader replaces hi2txt, reads scores about 15 times faster, and can be updated independently through the Plugin Manager The Plugin Manager now provides clearer loading errors and compatibility information, with more precise version requirements and checks for incomplete or altered downloads; storefront and RetroAchievements plugins also include descriptions and support links MAME leaderboards have refreshed Game Details cards and game and player windows, with Weekly, Monthly, Yearly, and All-Time views, your rank and score, a My High Scores link, and clearer sign-in and game-page links Steam games whose files are unavailable now show as Missing and count as not installed; the Game Details button opens Steam to install or repair them, and Installed status returns when their files are back Steam play time and last-played dates no longer overwrite longer play time or more recent dates recorded by LaunchBox Startup storefront scans show clearer progress, skip stores with no library games when refreshing installed status, and stop waiting after 30 seconds for unresponsive checks while preserving known installation state Auto-populate playlist rules now use a single Achievements field with a source selector; existing playlists continue to work Storefront names in filters, badges, and Manage Storefronts now match their plugins, and the Audit window includes columns for every storefront Manage Emulators, Edit Emulator, and Add/Edit Game open faster, with images shown sooner in Edit Game The popped out game details window now remembers its position and size and reopens within the available screen area, including after a monitor is disconnected When you run the installer and pick your existing LaunchBox folder, it now offers to update that installation instead of creating a new LaunchBox folder inside it The installer now verifies Microsoft's Visual C++ and .NET Framework prerequisite downloads before running them, checks installed runtime versions more accurately, and handles required restarts consistently LaunchBox artwork caching is faster and uses less temporary memory Big Box uses a smaller image cache for games without artwork by sharing missing-image placeholders; artwork added later replaces them after restarting, and refreshing the cache removes old duplicate placeholders Help > Report Issue now opens the LaunchBox feedback site in your web browser The update welcome screen now highlights major changes and includes the full changelog View Images (Ctrl+I) and image cells in the Audit window now always open images fullscreen, like other image viewers, and the "Always go fullscreen when viewing images" option has been removed Updated translations throughout LaunchBox and its storefront, MAME, RetroArch, and RetroAchievements plugins RetroArch save scans now read emulator settings once per scan, reducing repeated work in large libraries Fixed Edits made while a library save was running could be lost; changes now remain pending until they have been successfully saved LaunchBox could freeze when filtering or refreshing the game list while artwork was being cached in the background Refreshing the game list could fail while Grid View was still loading games Rapidly changing the selected game could send plugins a different selection from the one used to update Game Details Per-game startup screen overrides now let you control automatic closing when the game window appears, including through Bulk Edit, and newly enabled overrides inherit this setting from the selected emulator Changing a game's default version could remove the previous version, mix up its saves, or lose edited details and launch settings; supported versions and their saves are now preserved, and switching away from a ScummVM version asks before discarding its unsupported settings Save Management now keeps tracked saves visible after editing the default version's path and supports managing saves for newly added versions before saving Edit Game Big Box could fail to show game images in Boxes and Thumbnail views when the CoverFlow image quality setting was missing, blank, or invalid; it now falls back to the default quality LaunchBox could restore the last selected platform at startup and then jump to the first entry when a plugin refreshed the library Big Box could reopen on an older platform instead of the last one selected, especially with cloud sync disabled Big Box could crash on its first launch before any Big Box settings had been saved LaunchBox could crash during automatic storefront imports when its local Games Database file was missing or could not be opened LaunchBox or Big Box could crash at startup when Windows denied access while waiting for a previous session to close; they now show the already-running message and exit cleanly Updates could leave VLC without its plugin cache and delay media playback startup; the installer now attempts to rebuild the cache on every install and update A platform whose games file could not be read at startup could be deleted or overwritten by a later save, along with its sidebar organization; unreadable platform files and untouched platforms used only to group playlists and categories are now preserved Failed update downloads could leave the download window open indefinitely or attempt to install an unavailable update; failures now show an error and return to LaunchBox so you can try again Changing a RetroAchievements username could leave stale achievement progress, and filtering or editing game Progress could crash LaunchBox RetroAchievements matching could fail without the 32-bit Visual C++ runtime or show errors for games without an application path; failed archive extraction could also clear saved matches and progress, which are now preserved for a later scan Steam games with stats but no achievements, such as ULTRAKILL, were shown as having achievements, and manual corrections were undone every time LaunchBox started MAME high scores could upload factory scores or invalid table entries as your own; these are now filtered out, and a first session uploads only your highest new score when it can be distinguished from the game's defaults, including games with known empty factory score tables The MAME leaderboard card could appear for games that do not support high scores Repaired unreadable MAME factory score tables for Ikaruga, Astro Blaster (version 2), Japanese Shadow over Mystara sets, and Super Volley '91, and added missing tables for 50 games so their first-session scores can be identified Epic Games imports could miss installed games or leave them unchecked, and an unreadable installation manifest could prevent other installed games from being found Steam connections now verify your Custom URL and Web API key before saving, preserve your saved account if reconnecting fails, and handle unavailable profiles during playtime and achievement refreshes without plugin errors Storefront imports could offer a retry after a timeout had disabled the store for that session; the import screen now explains when LaunchBox must be restarted Plugin Manager type filters now include storefront and achievement plugins and correctly categorize plugins that provide multiple features Unavailable Reader settings could prevent manuals from opening or cause errors in Options; manuals now fall back to the Windows default app, and unavailable settings pages preserve saved settings Moving platform media folders, changing game titles (including capitalization-only changes), or swapping media types in Edit Game could delete or misname images and videos; Previous/Next could also trigger file-in-use errors, and failed moves now leave original files intact Restoring a save state into another slot could delete the state already there; LaunchBox now asks for the slot first, backs up the save being replaced, and restores it if the operation fails, while Set as Active in Edit Additional App restores the selected backup Restoring RetroArch Saturn saves could overwrite files belonging to another save or core; restores now use only the selected save's companion files and back up existing files, while new backups preserve older save sets Save Management now tracks saves made with the emulator and core chosen through Launch With, preserves them during metadata repair, and uses their original emulator for restores and deletion so deleting a PCSX2 save preserves other games on its memory card Save Management could miss changed saves, show the wrong backup as active, or fail to back up and restore saves for games with multiple versions or discs; changed saves are now backed up correctly and duplicate save listings are removed Restoring a GameCube save in Dolphin could add a second copy instead of replacing the existing save, restored Wii saves included an extra LaunchBox file, and Dolphin save states could be restored into slots Dolphin does not use Launching Dolphin could fail when its RetroAchievements settings file was in use even though no settings needed changing; unchanged settings are now left alone, and required updates retry brief file locks PCSX2 save backups could fail while a memory card was in use or accept incomplete save data; busy cards are now deferred for a later backup attempt, incomplete saves are rejected, and unreadable saves no longer prevent Save Management from showing healthy saves ROM scans now skip unreadable folders and repeated folder links, and automatic imports pick up games added while an import is already running Downloaded images could have missing or incorrect file extensions, leaving artwork unavailable in LaunchBox and Big Box or causing repeated downloads; images now use matching extensions, with WebP images converted to PNG PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 imports could stop at inaccessible folders, and RPCS3 imports could miss games in current, portable, or custom configurations, including registered external game folders and ISO files ROM imports could stall on "Saving games" with slow or unavailable storage, report success without adding games when forcing duplicates, or show errors during simultaneous title lookups Emulator BIOS checks could leave LaunchBox unresponsive when launching or importing games or opening Dependency Files, especially with large or duplicate files in the BIOS folder A controller button assigned to several actions could trigger all of them with one press; each press now triggers one action, and button combinations take precedence over their individual buttons Controller mappings to focus LaunchBox or Big Box could display an incorrect already-running warning; they now restore the running window directly Automatic imports could leave the progress bar stuck on Applying metadata or interrupt you with a metadata download prompt; background refreshes now keep progress separate and use existing metadata if a refresh fails Platforms added by automatic ROM imports could also appear at the top level of the Platform Categories sidebar, and platforms named with an alternate name such as Virtual Boy were not placed in their category or given platform details Drag-and-drop ROM imports could default to a custom platform's Scrape As system instead of the matching library platform or selected custom platform Renaming an unrecognized folder inside a monitored games directory could cause an error during automatic imports Related Games details windows could open behind LaunchBox or edit the wrong game, and closing the popped out details window could leave its pop-out button missing until restarting Placeholder images, fallback platform logos and banners, and double jewel case spine logos could fail to load or show errors during startup Closing a crashed embedded browser or failing to load the RetroArch netplay lobby could show an additional error Plugin loading could report errors for native DLLs, and closing Big Box Options could tell plugins that the theme changed when it had not Plugin load errors now identify Windows policy blocks, unsafe-file reports, and unavailable reputation checks instead of incorrectly advising you to unblock the DLL Leaving Big Box game lists, Discovery pages, or video views could cause errors or leave resources loaded in the background; startup video sessions now also clean up their temporary files after playback or shutdown Background media downloads could report completion too early, lose queued work after restarting, or repeat searches and Bezel Project downloads; queue saving and pause/resume handling are now more reliable Downloading bezels for many games at once could leave some games without their bezel Some library and media queue files could load incompletely, and playlists with missing IDs could fail to load; valid compact dates written by external tools are now accepted, and startup data errors appear in front of the startup screen LaunchBox and Big Box could fail to regain focus, resume playback, or refresh game details after switching windows or closing a game; Big Box could also respond to controller navigation while another application was in front With startup screens off, LaunchBox could ignore "Restore LaunchBox when exiting games", restoring when it was disabled or staying hidden in the system tray when it was enabled Arrow keys and Enter did nothing after LaunchBox opened until you clicked a game; the games list now has keyboard focus at startup, so the first arrow key selects a game Notifications could be missed during startup or focus changes, take focus from the window you were using, leave stray Notification Center entries, or show overlapping pop-ups Startup screens could appear in Alt-Tab, move to the wrong monitor, or obscure Big Box after switching windows; exiting from the pause menu could briefly expose the main interface before the shutdown screen LaunchBox and Big Box could crash, remain running, or finish closing before saves and cleanup completed; shutdown now coordinates pending work, stops repeated media preview loading, and shows save errors in the Closing window, with controller acknowledgement in Big Box LaunchBox dialogs, welcome screens, and Beta Spotlight could open partly off-screen or hide controls on smaller displays or at higher display scaling; dialogs now fit the available screen area, import controls wrap, Bulk Edit Notes scroll, and the main window keeps its window controls visible at its minimum size Changing a control's style while a scrollbar or expandable panel was animating could cause an error Emulators without saved overrides could ignore global startup settings, and RetroArch could ignore custom --appendconfig options when RetroAchievements login was enabled Large libraries could use excessive CPU while caching images or take too long to save and close; unnecessary work is reduced, backups are faster, and saves no longer overlap Plugin Manager repair could install an older version, and Update and Repair could be unavailable for official plugins in Local/Plugins; supported repairs now preserve the installed version, and older plugin locations can be updated or repaired Big Box video previews restarted when opening Game Details or fullscreen playback; supported views now keep the same game's preview playing as you move between screens and back Big Box could stutter or freeze while browsing wheels and loading large artwork; image loading and animations are smoother, and colorized artwork backgrounds use less temporary memory Artwork and 3D covers could stop loading after using Big Box's Sleep command, including when Windows could not enter sleep Big Box could display transparent PNG box artwork as a 3D box instead of a flat image Big Box could crash when navigating platform or category wheels with no selection or report an error when paging before a newly opened view was ready Big Box could fall back to Default instead of showing a saved custom theme in trial mode; saved themes now remain available for preview, while theme changes and Open Emulator still require Premium Installing or updating LaunchBox could fail when a component folder was briefly in use by another program Repeated clicks or keyboard and controller input could launch the same game or emulator more than once Clean Up Media could stop processing files or empty folders that disappeared or were in use; unavailable items are now skipped so cleanup can continue Replacing all existing metadata in the Download Metadata and Media wizard could switch titles chosen by your region priorities back to the database title and drop them from alternate names, so searching for the regional title no longer found the game Storefront metadata and media downloads could leave missing artwork or incorrect developer details; Steam downloads now retry temporary failures, check alternate artwork locations including Clear Logos cached by the Steam client, and avoid using small landscape capsules as Steam Posters Game process tracking could stall the interface, delay detecting game exit, or lose shutdown screens and accurate play time for emulators started through launchers or wrappers Installing or uninstalling a Ubisoft game from LaunchBox could also ask Ubisoft Connect to launch it Big Box's Default theme showed no controller badges for games that only support a light gun, and LaunchBox's Default theme did the same for games that only support a paddle Badges in LaunchBox's Default theme box view could look blurry or pixelated on high-DPI displays EmuMovies music could be incorrectly preselected in Edit Game's media download dialog The EmuMovies Test button in Options could stay disabled after a failed login or use the previous User ID; credentials can now be tested again when the retry wait ends Big Box could leave the taskbar visible after playing a game, and startup screens or application exit could leave the Windows mouse cursor hidden Browsing for an application path in Add Game opened an unrelated folder; it now opens the selected platform's games folder, including custom folders set in Manage Platforms Badges in LaunchBox's Default theme list view now show tooltips on the correct monitor, and badge tooltips in Game Details appear above the pointer Wheel/yoke badge tooltips now show the controller's name and support level in both LaunchBox and Big Box 3 Quote
Tsik Posted 2 hours ago Posted 2 hours ago Now that's a pretty HUGE update right there 👀 🤩!! Thanks a lot LB team. 😄 Quote
Kefka2b Posted 1 hour ago Posted 1 hour ago Could have been v15 😂, looking forward to updating!! Quote
zugswang Posted 59 minutes ago Posted 59 minutes ago Finally after all these years a significant improvement in loading times for me. Takes approx 25 seconds instead of minutes to load my large setup 👍 Quote
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