Messages

46

General / Re: Windows 7 using Attrackmode to launch exe files

« on: March 22, 2022, 11:47:57 PM »

We are all newbies at some point, hell I am still a newbie I just talk a lot of shit

I have been here about three four months now, and I am still learning something new such as how to add favourites properly.

However, always check your spelling first, and then double check it. The amount of times I have made a mistake, pulled my hair out screaming at the computer, I spend hours on the problem, just to notice that it is a spelling mistake, or maybe I have moved a directory and not changed the file location paths.

However, the best things about errors, is that you learn from them, so you tend not to make the same mistake twice, and that becomes easier on how to set up something else that might be similar.

Also if a mistake is causing frustration, take a break from it, because the more frustrated you become the worse the mistake gets.

Oh and try not to do things when you are tired, tiredness leads to making mistakes as well, have a cut off point at a certain time.

Regards

Mark

47

General / Re: Windows 7 using Attrackmode to launch exe files

« on: March 22, 2022, 10:30:07 AM »

I will give you a roasting

What is Attrackmode?

Is that a parallel universe Attract Mode? lol

Sorry couldn't resist, need to breath some life into the forum.

Good that you are all sorted, I have PC games at some point to do myself, so handy to read these threads for reference.

Regards

Mark

48

Emulators / Re: Best Compression for Specific Emulators

« on: March 22, 2022, 02:53:08 AM »

Ok, I was messing around with my PS1 Europe roms yesterday trying to get a PS1 emulator to run the games, all of the files were zipped, but I was having trouble with some emulators such as retro arch saying that it was having problems with uncompressing.

I also gave Duckstation a go and I reasonably gave that up, I think it only saw CHD files but I can't 100% remember that now as it was yesterday.

However, I unpacked 1,361 zip files which comes to a massive 610 gigs and that is 99% the complete PS1 Europe titles, I am missing four files, which I might have somewhere as I have another directory with roms in that do not have any Country marking on

E.G PS1 Rom (Europe) so I will have to look at those in the future

So here are the before and after statistics

All files zipped : Sadly I did not take a note of that before I deleted the zip files

All files uncompressed : 1,361 = 610 Gigs

All files CHD : 1,361 = 327 Gigs

Total saving of = 284 Gigs

Time taken = 28 hours + more for unzipping

Cost (I will add this just for extra nerd stats fun.) = £10 an hour if employed £280 at hourly rate not including unzipping, not even including downloading. Electric costs maybe a £1 or something for electric bill. Including downloading and unzipping maybe over the £500 mark.

Cost of buying all the games original thousands. If self employed doing this around £3.26 per rom based on the £500 mark. In real costs as you are not a self employed business £5 electric so 0.00367 per rom.

However, I have started the USA roms, only 500 for those, I will check the other folders, my PS1 Japanese roms are 3,643 files including some double disc, so I am not looking forward to that little lot.

I will also probably do this for the USA and JAP roms as well.

Just to give some time frame on how long all of this is taking I started at 09:47 this morning, and now 18:00 (6pm) and I am up to the F's so eight hours so far. The computer will be on all night so will try and work out how long and how far I am in the morning. I am guessing this might take around two days to complete, I was kind of stupid not for doing it in batches, rather than just letting the whole thing run. However, stupid is my middle name.

Well it is now 06:52 so a few hours short of 24 hours, so I am on approx 21 hours at the moment and I am up to Si at the moment so pretty much almost done, S & T are usually the worse letters to do, once they are over then the rest of them should just fly through. 12 noon so now over the 24 hour mark and the W's have now started so almost home although W is pretty big with about 61 files so I am looking at potentially another five hours maybe. All of this is potentially dependent upon your CPU some I5 systems might take longer I am now on an i7 but if I was doing it on my i5 if I was doing other stuff in the background, it would slow things down and sometimes lock things up. Finally finished 13:48 so a lot faster than my estimated five hours more.

I have just started the PS1 Japan Roms I am doing this in batches and I am not counting all the uncompressed files

2,954 zipped files = 672 Gigs
Uncompressed = Who knows maybe 1 TB or more? Far too many to unzip all at once so doing everything in batches instead this time
All files CHD = 569 Gigs (2,791 files some were multi disc or demos or something else such as gameshark kind of stuff)
Total saving = 103 Gigs (2,791 files some were multi disc or demos or something else such as gameshark kind of stuff)

I have not timed doing this little lot, the reason being so many files and after doing all the European files I am a bit bored of it all now. I am on the second day, and still have 1,477 files to do I started doing letter batches and now I am doing them 500 at a time, I removed a few demos that I found, but I have a few duplicate files but they are different version numbers of the games. I hope by the time I get to the last thousand, I might be able to do them all in one go as I might have the space to do that. Sadly if I mess anything up then reasonably I might never be able to get these files again as they all came from pleasuredome sadly shut down. So really these sets are rare now, especially the complete Japan rom set. I will add that it is a noticeable difference between letters, so as an example Europe B was about 36 odd files where Japan B was about 65. So a lot of cultural differences on how popular each letter is. 

Well today is the final day for Japan roms, I am on my last batch of 500 CHD's to make but I still have 627 Japan multi discs which I am not sure how I am going to do them, I think PBP is the file format for multiple discs but will have to do some research on that one. I still have a lot of USA roms that I need to do also including multi disc games, but apart from that I am almost at the end of completing it all. I am now on my third day for Japan roms, 934 more USA roms to do.

Regards

Mark

49

Scripting / Re: can you make a video play for each display.

« on: March 21, 2022, 07:14:30 AM »

Ok I am seeing what you mean

So you want to

Highlight SEGA
Click Sega
Video shows
Display SEGA rom lists

I would swear a lot here, but why would you want to do that for?

It is sheer MADNESS lol

Sorry I will post this, and then edit in a second. At the moment I am smiling, laughing and swearing.

Back in a bit lol

Ok I am slightly, only just a bit better now.

I could potentially see this being reasonably okish if it played a two second video, but we have had conversations like this about the fade to game plug in, in that it increases the time taken to load a game.

So on my old PC it would take seven seconds to load a game, ten if you used fade to game. The argument being why would you want this for when it takes longer to load a game?

However, I would have a look at the fade to game plug in, and then see if that can be edited to make it fade to selection as that is really what you are calling this.

I am going to add more here if you are using say logo and video you already have a video displaying, why have another one? If you are using a static image, but then want a short video upon selection sort of ok.

I myself personally cannot get my head around this, but everyone likes their own things. I love cabinets, I hate wheels and the HyperSpin look, while other people like wheels and the HyperSpin look but not using HS.

However, I would just use a video to show the system, it pretty much does what you want it to do anyway, display a video.

Trust me, by the time you have seen it for the MILLIONTH time, you will be sick and tired of it.

Regards

Mark

50

Scripting / Re: can you make a video play for each display.

« on: March 21, 2022, 06:11:57 AM »

You have kind of lost me on this one. Your English is a bit broken, so I am guessing English is not your first language?

You set up displays via the AM control panel so as an example

Crash Bandicoot Display
Spyro Display

You already have videos for those displays if you put them in the video structure and name them as the title.

I am not sure if you are using the correct terminology or describing what you actually mean, hence my confusion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfSyAEa-PiY

This is videos for each display

If this is what you mean C:\Attract Mode Arcade Wall\menu-art\snap (adjust your directories to suit your own set up, but the videos go in menu-art\snap

Regards

Mark

51

Themes / Re: Newbie’s question

« on: March 21, 2022, 12:43:21 AM »

Hi Garry,

Welcome to the forum. Do you mean the main Attract Mode website, or do you mean a page inside of the forum?

If all of the themes were on the front page of the main AM website then hardly any one would come in the forum.

You would also have resellers who bundle roms together and then sell emulation set ups, so if they just went download that one, this one, bundle it together sell it on eBay then we end up with the fall out if that does not work correctly, as obviously people will start blaming us then.

Also just to say no front end that I have seen offers downloads of themes on their main web page, you always need to sign up, pay membership or whatever else.

-------------------

If you mean a main page on the forum, E.G a sticky I was going to suggest that yesterday funny enough, but someone would have to download the themes, upload them to storage, link the files and then potentially have a lot of questions about the skin by new users.

So let's call the person the theme curator (as in a museum) they might not even use the theme, so you will have a lot of support answers needed, when in reality the main person to provide support would be the actual themer themselves. We had one skin mentioned a couple of days ago. The nut file which is the back bone of a skin was in a different language. You would need to translate all of that to English, just to work on it. It was a skin that I did not want, so to me to spend two days translating and then finding out how it works for a skin that I do not want was a waste of my time, and it might be a waste of other people's time as well.

Sadly you do get people that leave for real life, and in respects the theme can die.

You also already have this thread http://forum.attractmode.org/index.php?topic=481.0 which is a gallery of themes, and people have linked their themes to the thread, so pretty much it is already done, you just got to follow the links. If the download links are dead, and no one has posted for two odd years, then pretty much unless someone has a copy laying around somewhere, then it is a dead theme.

Regards

Mark

52

Scripting / Re: Modules and Plugin Gallery

« on: March 20, 2022, 06:40:52 AM »

Hey guys I tried using the fadetogame plugin but I seem to can’t get the artwork to load while waiting on the game to launch it only slowly fades out and I seen a video of someone actually using a “Now Loading” video files with this plugin can anyone help me get this to recognize and use my .mp4 game loading files for the emulator chosen as it loads up the game

I suggest you look at this

Good idea. I'm making this thread sticky.

But NO QUESTIONS/CONVERSATIONS about plugins in this topic - just the gallery/description and links to the plugins separate threads or git-hub pages.
Ask the questions in separate forum threads. Or made a new one if it doesn't have it's own thread (i.e. git-hub only).

Non-gallery posts will be deleted!

In other words, this is not for problems, the general section is for problems.

53

General / Re: configure fbneo

« on: March 20, 2022, 04:13:23 AM »

As it is Sunday and I am bored and sorting out my hard drives, I came across my screen recording software so installed it and done a video for you Joseph

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=os_8jqnWB-I (24 seconds long)

As you can see I have no issue loading 64th Street via AM.

Sorry to say, but this falls down to human error and nothing to do with AM.

I have used the roms that you supplied a link too, and I downloaded Fightcade yesterday, however it is working on my end.

Regards

Mark

54

General / Re: Create a master romlist to enable multi-emulator searching, filtering & tagging

« on: March 20, 2022, 02:34:45 AM »

I will no doubt in the future have to use RL once again, I believe that you can run some Teckno Parrot games now from this without having to use TP itself.

After using CoinOps for the past couple/few years a lot of what I knew on RL and XML files are buried deep inside of my mind, and I am slowly remembering how to do things on an XML set up.

I really need to go through my HyperSpin tools and see which ones can help me with AM such as creating XML files etc it is pretty bad that HyperList has not been updated for what looks like years, E.G they do not even have the PS3 as a system.

Emu Movies is just as bad, so many missing artwork and video's that really should have been completed years ago, but it looks like they just done the basic bare minimum work, charged everyone £60 or whatever I paid for a life time subscription, and then never bothered to add any more to it. When you become a slave to the CoinOps World then you tend to become stupid and reliant on other people for graphics and rom sets etc.

I still download certain rom packs but I mainly rip out the roms and certain artwork such as logos. Sadly a lot of rom sites will eventually get shut down due to stupid youtubers that make posts on where to download roms from, one of which has a lot of taboo company roms, and as they have shut down a lot of other sites that supplied their roms, these new sites will not be up for long, so at the moment it is a case of try and grab stuff while it is still there.

Right shower and shops time, I hate going out shopping on a Sunday, but ran out of beer so needs must

Regards

Mark

55

General / Re: Create a master romlist to enable multi-emulator searching, filtering & tagging

« on: March 20, 2022, 12:53:44 AM »

I am not sure if you have would be interesting seeing a video of your setup, how you have it laid out etc, what theme you use. What collections and stuff like that.

At the moment I have seven main categories for my main menu, and then behind those are nested sub collections

So for Arcade

I have all games, arcade systems (boards), arcade collections and genres.

Which is making me think that potentially I am not going to be able to use just the All Systems all of the time, unless they have some form of marker instead of the XML file,

No that is fine, I just looked at the All System file, it has the main emulator for that game, so I should be able to use keywords from that to separate arcade from consoles etc. 

My favourites will a mixture of favourites and games that I have never played before, I did try to create favourites and a bucket list favourite list as well. So the bucket list will be a game that I have never seen before but it looks a brilliant game.

However, I suppose now that I am on All Systems, if that is the default list for things, then tagged files should work better now, so I might be able to just tag files and have that in a separate list.

Just an update, I tried on my Bubble Bobble Arcade section using All Systems, to which I got all games across all the systems as you would expect.

As I have my emulators set up so that they are MAME (Arcade) I set up a rule where emulator contains (Arcade) and then it strips out the consoles etc.

I could then add the results into my favourites.

Regards

Mark

56

General / Re: Create a master romlist to enable multi-emulator searching, filtering & tagging

« on: March 20, 2022, 12:25:31 AM »

I try not to read too much lol

I prefer things in simple terms like you have just said rather than all technical.

However, yes all of my displays were using my old system, which is why they did not work then. So I will have to change them to the new system.

I presume it is ok to change the keys used, e.g I prefer F for favourites rather than A for Add.

However, many thanks for this, at least I now have favourites working 100%

Regards

Mark

57

General / Re: configure fbneo

« on: March 19, 2022, 07:52:01 AM »

Ok so I now have this set up,

I am using fcadefbneo.exe as the emulator to load the games, some games will run, and I have come across some that have your error message

AM is not the problem

I have come across one that does not work 16tongnk at the moment I am blind in that I have not set up any artwork with it, so I am clicking on blank air.

Ok I have very basic artwork I just tried 64 street and that works for me

I changed the emulator to fcv39.exe

I need to see your screen shot a second, so shall end here and then edit

I am not sure if the error message cut out the name but yours is showing 64stree rather than street

Also I have had a couple not run, I have looked at the files inside and some of them are messed up 007tld being one of them

But you want to replace MAME with this FBNeo emulator, which does not link to Fightcade, it is a waste of time. It just loads up the game, I can't play against someone else. I thought that was the whole point?

If the emulator works better for you, if you prefer it with a natural look e.g blocky rather than smoothing the edges, bezels and stuff then yeah it might be worth it. However, I honestly do not see the point of replacing one emulator with another. I cannot see a real reason for me to actually use it, I mean you would be better off with RetroArch and signing up for retro achievements, at least that does something. However, just using this emulator does nothing and you cannot tie it in with the fightcade network.

I have to say though, it is kind of growing on me, the games load very quickly indeed, far faster than MAME. I was at seven seconds on my i5, about three seconds on my I7 but using this front end the FBNeo it is taking about a second, maybe two to load.

I just done a bit of digging on it, and see that they made it as a MAME alternative, and it supports retro achievements if you use the retroarch core. Mmmmm interesting I can't see it replacing MAME without a few years or more of playing with it. However, it is actually not bad.

Regards

Mark

58

General / Re: Optimal formats?

« on: March 19, 2022, 06:50:28 AM »

Hi,

Welcome to the forum.

Honestly, if you are worried about your CPU resources then you need to upgrade your CPU.

Attract Mode or AM as it is called around here is just a front end that remains constant while it is open. It is the external programs that take up more CPU bandwidth such MAME emulator etc etc.

If you want to reduce anything in AM then don't use video snaps, just use static images and if you want to go even further then just use lists.

However, if you are honestly worried about your CPU usage, you need a new processor

What is your current CPU and memory set up? It helps to know what your system actually is.

Regards

Mark

59

General / Re: Create a master romlist to enable multi-emulator searching, filtering & tagging

« on: March 19, 2022, 03:27:23 AM »

Edited as I posted the wrong information

See below for the correct information.

60

General / Re: You doubt? Favorites and controls?

« on: March 19, 2022, 03:14:30 AM »

Ok I have it now, I set it up how you said to do it in the link.

I had things differently than your set up, but really they should work all the same way or possibly?

such as I had All Games and not All Systems.

However, you cannot add favourites from anything else apart from the main All Games or All Systems filter

I was going to Donkey Kong collection and then adding favourites from that collection, to which were not working.

Regards

Mark