X-bEnCH 0.3 Alpha

[JimNeray]

X-bEnCh, the game launcher (& More) is back in 2k+12 with a new release.

What's new ?

- Curt Cool as joined the team as musician so there's 3 new cool songs from Curt Cool (Menu, launcher and setup).
- Can now use manual/script launch list as like as whdload/exe.
- New "Floppy look" loading screen when launching a game/tool.
- The suffixe .slave or .exe in now blanqued in the list launcher.
- Fadding/Unfadding effect added.
- Sliding color effect added on the main menu text.
- Code optimised (Faster and smaller)
- Resolved some bugs.

You can download this release here: http://xbench.online.fr/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=32

A short short video is available here:
[ Show youtube player ]

[attila06]

I have tested this new version quickly this evening, to my point of view:

I like the new musics in the menu and the launcher, less the setup one.
New launcher look, no more .slave
Faster games select.
Good job Jim, go on

[phx]

Originally Posted by JimNeray

- Code optimised (Faster and smaller)

You may want to enable the optimizer for the next release.
A reassemblation of xinit.exe with a simple peephole optimizer saves more than 1000 bytes.

[JimNeray]

Originally Posted by phx

You may want to enable the optimizer for the next release.
A reassemblation of xinit.exe with a simple peephole optimizer saves more than 1000 bytes.

You're right PHX

But remember that's still just an alpha release

[Bloodwych]

I gave this a quick test and it has some nice features - very powerful scanning engine that can search all subdirectories in a given path or assign.

I did find it changed the Workbench colours when starting and left them changed when exiting. Although I'd imagine this is more of a boot time launcher.

Also, it desperately requires a method to jump quickly to letters of the alphabet - by either using left and right to jump to A then B then C etc or sorting games by letter. The long list takes a long time to navigate.

Also seems to take quite a bit of memory. It is however alpha and its nice to see it moving along.

Anyway, always nice to see free projects like this and appreciate the work.

[JimNeray]

Originally Posted by Bloodwych

I did find it changed the Workbench colours when starting and left them changed when exiting. Although I'd imagine this is more of a boot time launcher..

For sure but i will correct this issue in the next release

Originally Posted by Bloodwych

Also, it desperately requires a method to jump quickly to letters of the alphabet - by either using left and right to jump to A then B then C etc or sorting games by letter. The long list takes a long time to navigate.

You're right. I had this to my long long long todo list

Originally Posted by Bloodwych

Also seems to take quite a bit of memory. It is however alpha and its nice to see it moving along.

When the screen turn to black after the floppy loading screen, nearly all used ressources are freed. In the next (0.4) release this will be more optimised and will take very very few memory.

Originally Posted by Bloodwych

Anyway, always nice to see free projects like this and appreciate the work.

Thanks for your comment Bloodwych