Messages

76

General / FBA with AM on a CRT Cabinet

« on: May 26, 2017, 07:38:38 AM »

Is there anyone out there who's successfully integrated Final Burn Alpha with AttractMode and a CRT? If so, I would love to hear how you have everything configured.

The problem I am having is that I can run Final Burn Alpha in full screen with proper resolution if I launch from the FBA GUI, but when I try to launch from AttractMode I inevitably get an error. A pop-up up error message appears reading "Couldn't initialize [NAME OF BLITTER] module'. When you acknowledge that message, FBA continues to load the chosen ROM in a window (not full screen). This happens whatever blitter you choose --even DirectX9 Alternate, which is the one that is supposed to work in full screen without issues.

This also happens whether I go straight into FBA and rely on it to change my resolution, or if I run a batch file where the monitor resolution is correctly pre-set before FBA is even run.

My set-up is as follows:

Windows 10
AttractMode 2.2.1
Final Burn Alpha 2.97.40 (among other emulators)
ArcadeVGA 5000 video card connected to Wells Gardner arcade CRT

I re-pointed all my arcade roms to MAME for now, but FBA does better with a few of them. Metal Slug 2, to pick an extreme example, runs much better on FBA. So I would eventually like to get all my NeoGeo and Capcom stuff pointed back to FBA if I can get it to work properly.

I know this is sort of related to this thread
http://forum.attractmode.org/index.php?topic=466
but in my case I think the ArcadeVGA card with CRT may be presenting me with unique issues. (That is, I suspect my set-up would be working fine if I was using an LCD.)

77

Scripting / Static Displays With Launch Disabled?

« on: April 17, 2017, 09:08:27 AM »

I have a situation where I have two displays for a single emulator. This emulator steams games from a Steam host.

What I want to do is display one layout when the host is available (the standard list of games), and then a static layout warning the host is not available otherwise.

I think I can handle all the network logic outside of AM on start-up (or on reset of AM).

What I would like is the static layout to be truly static, and I could tell AM not to attempt to do anything if the user presses a button while on the static page. As the situation is now, the page shows the error and tells the user what to do to fix it, but the user can still press a button and AM will try to launch a command, fail, and fall back to the static page. I want to prevent that attempt, so when the user pushes a button no sound plays, no command is attempted, all they can do is navigate away from the display.

78

Scripting / Re: Layout fonts look different on crt

« on: April 10, 2017, 03:51:00 PM »

Thanks... but I think I found it.

local list = fe.add_listbox( 9, 75, 311, 385 )
list.rows = 20
list.charsize = 16

So Listbox has a charsize variable... and that's the object on the screen giving me trouble. I'll change that value and see what it looks like.

Thanks again.

79

Scripting / Re: Layout fonts look different on crt

« on: April 10, 2017, 03:33:17 PM »

I think the answer is NO but I need to ask anyway... is there any way to control the size of fonts in existing layouts? In my case the font is correct, there are just some places I'd like it to be smaller (like in the list of games, where longer names get cut off).

80

Scripting / Re: Stream streaming with attract mode?

« on: April 10, 2017, 03:29:54 PM »

I managed to do this. I am away from the machine with the code on it, but what I did is create a new emulator (I didn't use the existing Steam emulator). I did this because the existing emulator is geared toward running locally-stored games, and because it incorporates you entire library. I wanted streaming, and I also only wanted access to a hand-picked subset of games.

Anyhow, when you create a new emulator (I called mine Steam Stream) there is a parameter like "Command" or "Execute" or something... it's the command line that will be run when you try to launch something from this new emulator. The key is you want to specify this parameter to be

%PROGRAMFILES%/steam steam://rungameid/[NAME]

I created a folder containing a list of dummy TXT files, one each for every game I wanted available to stream. The files are named based on the Steam game ID number + ".txt". This is what I used as my "ROMS" folder for this emulator. The files themselves are empty. I just needed to point the new emulator to a list of games to work with. (Also, you need to specify in the new emulator that the extension for the emulator's ROMs will be "txt", or whatever you end up calling them.) Again, these aren't ROMs at all, it is just included because the new emulator expects it and builds the list of games from the folders contents.

Then you need to build a list of games, which I did by hand. Off top of head can't remember if this is a .cfg file or what. But it's the comma-delimited list of games that exists for each emulator. In the case of Steam streaming games, the first column will be the Steam game ID number, and the second will be the plain language name of the game.

I added all artwork using the same naming convention. So if a game had Steam ID 123456, the marquee would be 123456.png, for example.

You need to have the Steam client installed, of course. And you need to be on the same network as the Steam host.

Hope that clarifies. If not, when I get back to my other machine I can get more specific settings or screenshots.

This leads me to my whole reason for coming to the forum...

This set-up works great EXCEPT if your host is off, or is disconnected for some reason, it just hangs. I was hoping someone might have a suggestion about how to prevent users from trying to launch streaming games when the host is not available.

In my set-up, streaming games show up in their own Display. So I was hoping to just disable that Display if the host was unavailable. Alternatively, maybe there is an argument you can add to the Steam command line (above) that quits after failure to connect after X seconds or something.