Messages

31

Scripting / Adding artwork: Forcing it to fade in? Or out?

« on: June 22, 2017, 03:57:06 AM »

Trying to get the ball rolling on tweaking a theme to better suit the idea of being able to judge a game's worth without having to wait for the video to fade in.  Here are the things I need to ask how they might be done:

1. How to cause an artwork element to fade out at a set rate / over a set amount of time.
2. How to cause an artwork element to fade in at a set rate / over a set amount of time.
3. How to delay either of these operations by a set amount.
4. How to detect whether the video (as opposed to only a screenshot) for a given game is available, so that I can base the followup actions on the result of that query.

And, if it wasn't obvious by now, what I'm trying to do is set things up so that the theme loads the screenshot for a given game immediate, waits for a beat, and then fades it out while fading in the video of the game, if it is available. 

32

General / Re: Steps needed to force hardware Video Decoder?

« on: June 21, 2017, 02:32:55 AM »

This apparent oversight led me to briefly test the waters of BigBox.  I had examined various videos of BigBox in action and determined that it did not suffer from the same issue, and indeed, BigBox uses hardware acceleration for videos by default.

Unfortunately, BigBox has major drawbacks that I didn't discover until I had it in front of me.  Specifically, it is hardcoded to load visual assets in a certain timed sequence.  The upside of this method is that you minimize the chances of disk access causing visible stuttering (which is definitely a problem with any AttractMode theme you'd care to name).  The downside is that you have no choice but to wait on those assets to load if you want to see more than just the game logo.  A video snap, for example, always waits exactly 1.0 seconds before loading.  And as we all know, the video assets that have been widely distributed all spend their first second fading in from black.  That is a long time to wait just to get an idea of what the game looks like in action, especially if you're specifically trying to skim through titles to find something interesting.

It's a big enough problem that I consider my purchase a complete waste, on top of other issues like the extremely long loading time, the unresponsiveness of the interface, and the fact that wheels can't be told to have a sub-100ms transition time.  Basically I'm glad AttractMode exists, and just sincerely wish the dev would take those few minutes to flip a switch so the PC version can get videos playing with hardware decoding.

33

Themes / Re: Cosmo's Theme (v.1.1 uploaded!)

« on: June 20, 2017, 05:03:09 PM »

Superb work on these themes.  I'm actually primarily using your original "robospin-like themes" for every system I can, and intend to use this version for the systems not covered.  My current task is to figure out how to force the game screenshot to appear immediately, fading into the video after maybe a second, so that games can be scrolled through at leisure without having to wait on the video every time.  (If anyone wants to point me in the right direction, I'm all ears.)

Another thing I've been trying to do is to tweak the monitor bezel used in this 1.1 theme.  It's very slightly askew, in addition to having that curious wedge along the bottom edge that I have to assume was a famous feature of some bygone physical monitor.  I'm trying to correct both issues.  But if there's an alternative bezel I could try plugging in instead, maybe that would be more convenient.

34

Themes / Re: [download] NEVATO theme

« on: June 20, 2017, 12:06:12 AM »

Greetings.  This is the theme I've decided to stick with for MAME.  It's quite nicely done.

Now the usual post-preamble question.  Is it possible to (add an option to) cause the arcade screen to immediately display the screenshot (if found), and fade into the video once the screenshot has loaded?

The reason I ask: When cycling through the games one by one, looking for something random or interesting, the wheel logo is the only thing the eyes get to pick up on with any speed.  Assuming videos are present, well, all the videos commonly available unfortunately spend a solid second fading in from black, which means if you want to actually see what the game looks like, you have to wait basically a couple of seconds with every tick of the wheel.  It is slow going.

Obviously if the game screenshot can be made to pop up instantly, this problem goes away, and one can scroll through the well quite fast and still get a solid idea of what the game looks like.

35

General / Re: Steps needed to force hardware Video Decoder?

« on: June 18, 2017, 01:38:03 PM »

I am on a Pi and am having issues with getting FFMPEG to show up in AM. Not sure what's up. I posted some output from my Pi, and hopefully that may tell me the issue. It would be interesting (and beneficial) if they were related issues.

For Pi users, there is a preexisting thread covering what's needed here:

http://forum.attractmode.org/index.php?topic=1249.0

For PC users like myself, there is literally zero information to be had.  I don't even know if my question has an answer at all.  I am at the mercy of the likely very few people responsible for developing the app to hopefully drop by the official forums and clear this matter up.

36

General / Re: Steps needed to force hardware Video Decoder?

« on: June 17, 2017, 09:34:14 PM »

Maybe this will help? Not sure. I’m not a pi-pro.

Sadly, that is a resource for the Raspberry Pi.  I'm on Windows.

Hardware Decoder cannot be selected in AttractMode on the Pi unless a certain step is taken (the installation of ffmpeg).  I assume the barrier I'm running into on PC is something similar, even though I definitely have ffmpeg installed already.  Really hoping someone knows the answer to this.  Would desperately hate to have to abandon this frontend.

37

Themes / Theme options for a system menu?

« on: June 17, 2017, 03:13:19 PM »

Surprisingly haven't found a whole lot on this.  I suppose most people scroll through their systems one after another, but I like the idea of having a separate system menu that branches out to the rest, and I have seen examples of this when googling around, though the examples never led to a download link.

Right now I'm using Game Station HD (especially for the useful file info it brings up) and Nevato (modded to straighten the wheel and give more real estate to the background) for MAME, and probably plan to use Cosmo's various robospin-like themes (again, possibly killing the angled aspect of the wheels).  So that's sort of the look I'm after.  Vertical wheel on one side, system info with a video and other art taking up the rest.  Probably most themes follow that structure, come to think of it.

38

General / Steps needed to force hardware Video Decoder?

« on: June 17, 2017, 03:03:58 PM »

Finally found the opportunity to hand reasonable-quality 60fps videos over to the front end.  They are all undemanding 480p in CPU-friendly MP4.  And yet AttractMode can't really handle them.  Frames drop all over the place, causing the audio to quickly and increasingly lose sync with the video.

A glance at CPU usage reveals that it's doing the decoding in software, almost entirely on one core, and it is capping.  So, solution, hardware decoding, right?  Can't seem to enable it.  There's a lot of help on this issue for people using RetroPie, but that's not me.  It would frighten me to learn that you can only hardware-accelerate videos on a $30 toy, using a codec that originated on PC, so I won't go there.

39

General / Filtering clones other than MAME?

« on: June 17, 2017, 12:35:20 PM »

As the topic suggests, I'm hoping there exist ways of filtering clones for other platforms besides MAME.  In MAME's case, AttractMode can make use of certain text files to get this done.  Right now, for example, I'm trying to get my Atari 2600 collection sorted.  There are DAT file resources for the 2600 and others, but I don't know whether AttractMode has the means for processing them.

Barring that approach, I'm looking for suggestions.  If I begin with, say, Good2600, with its literal dozens of clones and hacks for each game, what can I use to pare it down to only games that provide essentially unique iterations?  Googling around led me to an app from 12 years ago called Romsorter, which I did locate, but which fails to run under any circumstance on my modestly modern OS.  Other than that, I don't have any good ideas.  I can't simply move filenames with certain strings, because that would capture, e.g., games that were exclusive to certain territories.

40

Themes / Re: [download] NEVATO theme

« on: June 15, 2017, 05:51:16 PM »

Personally I'd be very happy if the skewing when preserving the snap aspect ratio would work better.
That will be something that I want to address in next release.

Came here to see if anyone had tried their hand at making this theme preserve the aspect ratio.  Didn't suspect it was due to a basic limitation.  Makes me wonder whether a workaround could be had, by gauging aspect ratio and basing the skewing directly on that.

41

Themes / Re: Game Station Theme v2.6.3 (Support 4:3 & Wide Screen now)

« on: June 15, 2017, 05:13:35 PM »

Which operating system do you use and which version of AM and this theme?

2.2.1 and 2.6.3 respectively.  Eh, this is hardly the only thing that has confounded me but ultimately provided a sort of workaround.  I can't get AttractMode to recognize filters unless I specifically define them under the "global filter", so I don't know what the purpose of the followup filters might be.  Doesn't matter since ultimately I got a solution.  And in the case of this theme, well, disabling the text list (or the other way around) just about kills the menu chug, even with videos playing.  That could change if I ever get higher quality videos, but then I guess I could stick with the text list only.  (Need to do something about the font so I can see the full names, though.)

One thing I haven't sorted out is why AttractMode's rom sorter generates a text file with two parts: The Mame games with their correct titles (about 90% of the list), plus a further 10% that are duplicate entries but lacking title information.  In AttractMode, this results in a list that shows titles A-to-Z, followed by another list showing rom names instead of titles.  I suppose the "solution" here would be to manually delete the title-less entries AttractMode generates, but I consider this symptomatic of an overall flakiness in the app that I guess I'll always be working around.

42

Themes / Re: Game Station Theme v2.6.3 (Support 4:3 & Wide Screen now)

« on: June 15, 2017, 01:38:44 PM »

Do you still see the videos after inserting the line or no images at all?

A fair question.  I should have been more specific.  The videos still play, as though I hadn't inserted the line at all.  Here's the relevant segment of the script:

Code: [Select]

conveyor.transition_ms = 50;
conveyor.video_flags = Vid.ImagesOnly;
try { conveyor.transition_ms = my_config["transition_ms"].tointeger(); } catch ( e ) { }


I don't like the text list at all and have disabled it so that the videos/snaps are visible the whole time. 

I'm pretty new to this so it hadn't occurred to me that this might be a built-in option.  I'll check it out, thanks.  (And after having done so, almost all of  the menu chug went away.)

43

Themes / Re: Game Station Theme v2.6.3 (Support 4:3 & Wide Screen now)

« on: June 15, 2017, 01:17:20 AM »

Code: [Select]

conveyor.video_flags=Vid.ImagesOnly;

Thanks.  Bizarrely, even though everything I can find suggests that this should in fact do the trick, it's not.  Odd.

Might be preferable just to have the text-based scroll list up all the time anyway (or maybe screenshots with the name in text superimposed over it?), since really it's the moment when that list scrolls off to the right that things chug hard, and it seems like the pause that occurs with each game change is also caused by the appearance of the list.

44

Themes / Re: Game Station Theme v2.6.3 (Support 4:3 & Wide Screen now)

« on: June 14, 2017, 10:07:49 PM »

I haven't investigated how to tweak .nut files for what I'm after, but this is just a little change so I reckon the answer is quick and painless for whoever knows.  What I'm wondering is what would need to be changed in order to cause the five video snaps on the right to be screenshots only.  The poor laptop I'm intending to use this on is just not up to the task of streaming six videos over USB2.0.

Thanks.