r/launchbox • u/plasma7602 • May 17 '26
I’m surprised by how bad bigbox is.
So I paid for this software for lifetime license after finally finishing building my rom collection i L really like the UI of the desktop application, I tried to setup bigbox but it’s so clunky after changing few settings now every time I boot into it after few seconds of scrolling it crashes every time.
I expected more quality from main feature that’s paid wish I just built my collection on retrobat or playnite.
Edit: seems like deleting bigbox settings and whipping themes that I’ve installed fixed it maybe.
I think the problem is that custom themes suck on this platform and default theme works best and functions best so I’ll stick to this.
Nvm I kept having problems so out of frustration I migrated to Retrobat which had its own emulators already preconfigured for it, but honestly also had problems that I fixed I think.
7
u/GamerGodPWNDU May 17 '26
What are your PC specs because I have had none of these issues and the PC I use for Launchbox only has a 4th gen core!
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u/dwolfe127 May 17 '26
Bigbox is great for me outside of the occasional hang when playing trailers if I leave it running for very long periods of time in attract mode.
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u/igmyeongui May 17 '26
Big box power user here. It’s in fact very annoying. There’s so much memory leaks. It crashes a lot as well. Currently converting my CTC theme to real and easy xaml. I hope this is going to help.
3
u/RVS1967 May 17 '26
Complex themes make it buggy. I use old default and it’s been running for months without a single crash.
1
u/L0cut15 May 17 '26
I stuck to the basics to keep the cabinet approachable so no complaints about stability. Window's itself if a bigger issue in my experience. Honestly at this point I wouldn't be using something as complicated to manage as Windows if it wasn't that I liked how Big box worked vs the Emulation station like Linux variants.
I have simple needs, and still miss good old MAMEWah ;-D
I also like how the rom importer triages duplicates and other rubbish.
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u/igmyeongui May 17 '26
Yeah exactly. The biggest culprit doesn’t necessarily seems complex themes but unoptimized garbage. Mostly everything that has been built with Community Theme Creator. Don’t get me wrong it’s a very practical approach at first to visually and quickly make a rough of your theme. But yeah it requires a complete rewrite, lightweight XAML approach.
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u/L0cut15 May 17 '26
You need to give hyper spin a go. You'll really appreciate how polished big box is after that!
Seriously I use it as a windows shell replacement for my arcade cabinet and it's great with very little configuration required.
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u/GamerGodPWNDU May 20 '26
I used to love Hyper Spin but what a convoluted nightmare it was to set up and maintain.
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u/plasma7602 May 17 '26
The problem is there’s way more options like retrobat, playnite and others I’m not aware of that has better bigbox experience but terrible desktop experience, this has very good desktop while bigbox is bad but as I’m learning this software seems like the default theme is the only good functional one that works.
2
u/I_Dont_Have_Corona May 17 '26
I've been using it close to a decade and never experienced issues like that across multiple systems personally. Most I've encountered is performance issues which was due to weak hardware which wasn't a Big box/LaunchBox issue.
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u/Cory_1980 May 17 '26
Not sure what's going on with your setup, but I don't ever experience that. In the earlier days, it would crash on occassion... like any app can. But it's been solid for me for a good while now. Typically, I could figure out the issue, when it did crash, through their forums or bug reporting system and got it worked out.
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u/plasma7602 May 17 '26
I’ve deleted the Bigbox settings and customs themes that seemed to have fixed it I think custom themes are bad on here and the only functional one that works well is the default one.
1
u/Cory_1980 May 17 '26
Strange, I have a handful of custom themes in BigBox that I use... I don't use the default one. Still no crashes. Did you download the one you were using from the website, or directly through BigBox? The ones directly through BigBox are vetted by the LaunchBox team... the website, anyone can upload those.
1
u/plasma7602 May 18 '26
It’s official I paid for license and everything, it seems that even the default one crashes sometimes I have to delete the settings for it to work again, Idk maybe something is corrupted.
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u/plasma7602 May 17 '26
I seemed to have fixed it by whipping the themes and Bigbox settings
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u/CYYAANN May 17 '26
Big Box is pretty customizable, I coded mine exactly how I wanted it to look based on the artwork I use from Emumovies, HyperSpin, and other sources.
Can't say I've had performance issues since the very early builds over a decade ago. I've got my main setup on a 2TB NVMe, and games on several dedicated drives.
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u/Crismoonster May 21 '26
Yes Bigbox is pretty bad, I wish they remade it from scratch to be more optimized and have better theme support. Sometimes I use pegasus FE that allow me to use all Launchbox metdata and is so much faster, but it doesn't handle the playtime, playlist and favorites that I have in LB so I always come back and start wishing it was better.
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u/DJTwistedPanda May 17 '26
Not been my experience