Game Management (to boost performance)

[Former user]

Hi Jason,

I am a premium end-user of Launchbox/Big Box. I have a 10TB External HDD that I use to manage all the games I own. Having an external HDD is very helpful for my home theater setup & everything works great. It is also less expensive for those who have setups that only accept a 2.5" internal HDD.

However, I recently discovered that the read/write speeds of the external are very poor (for a USB 3.0 even) & cause major slow-down on many games. After switching ports & wires & various other testing, the solution was embarrassing & simple - move a game with this symptom to my local SSD (my main computer drive) & it works like a charm. I noticed this is a common problem that people who emulate games have.

That leads to my feature request below:

Is it possible to have an advanced optional setting in Launchbox & Big Box that can 1.) make a copy of the game I choose to play, 2.) put the copy of that game somewhere in Launchbox's local folder (for that game's platform) that is located on my SSD, 3.) have the option to right-click a game in Launchbox & delete the copied version of my game (for instance, when it is no longer being played, & 4.) An option to view a list of copied games on my local drive with the ability to delete selected or all copied games for space management?

While this may seem trivial or even simple, a feature like that would save me a lot of money in buying internal secondary HDDs while only using my local SSD sparingly, keeping my game performance optimal, allowing me to keep using my external drive to the fullest, & use Launchbox without the temptation to use emulators directly at all.

I think this will be a great feature for those struggling with this kind of problem.

Also, if there is something like this already in the works, Thank you! Or, if an equivalent of this already exists & I missed it, I would be happy to know that too.

Thanks for reading & for such a great product & community.

Bruce

Launchbox version: 8.1 Windows 10 Home No issues so far No step necessary No errors

[Marcos González Troyas]

I also have my collection on a slower storage, in this case a 12TB NAS. And I have my games compressed. I manage this issue with a modified script, but there's a launcher tah does exactly what you ask and could be of inspiration:

http://www.rlauncher.com/wiki/index.php?title=7Zip

[Bruce McCloud]

Hi mgtroyas,

I am the original poster of this & wanted to thank you for mentioning Rocket Launcher. I spent the whole weekend looking through Rocket Launcher & want it for a sleuth of other reasons. :) As for my problem/suggestion, Launchbox alone actually solves this problem for me. For anyone reading, the method I'm sharing works if you have a slow external HDD like I do, have Launchbox installed on a faster local drive, & have a drive that is from a good well-known brand like Samsung.

If you meet that criteria, then onto my solution! All I needed to do was compress my games using 7z & re-add the metadata based on that update (since Launchbox can read 7z files, which I didn't know until the other day & a lot of testing!)

If you open Launchbox's application & go to Tools > Manage Emulators, there is a checkbox option below that says "Extract ROM archives before running." Launchbox will take the 7z file, unzip it, & put it in a Temp folder located in the Launchbox files. That allows me to play my game at optimal drive speeds. <3

Only thing you have to be careful about is writing too much to an SSD. It shouldn't be a problem if you have a good SSD brand like Samsung that has a long life span, but I wouldn't recommend this method for anyone using cheaper off-brand SSDs & other drives.

Other than that, it solves my problem entirely. I apologize not catching that option sooner & hope this is a help to others in a similar boat.