Messages

46

General / Re: New user here and many questions.

« on: January 07, 2019, 11:03:55 AM »

It looks like what happened with my latest AM install: the romlist generator (I'm not at my PC right now: forgive misleading terms!) included all the devices and drivers in its mame.txt file: that's what it looks like you're seeing based on your screen shot.

Good point! I remember when I set up my MAME + AM system I put all the actual game roms in one folder and all the devices, bioses etc in another folder. Then MAME settings point to both folders, while AM ROM folder setting only points to the "actual games" ROM folder. In this way you should clean up the romlist from drivers etc

This is such a great idea, I'm ashamed I didn't consider it! Probably because I'm not sure how. I'm relatively new to mucking with mame.ini: is that where you point to the drivers, etc.? (in addition to the roms themselves?)

Autotec,

zpaolo11's suggestion sounds a lot less labor-intensive, but because I started with a small number of roms, it was a small matter to remove the items I recognized as devices/drivers and test anything else on a per-"rom" basis. With a full set...yeah, I wouldn't want to deal with that, either! I'd pursue zpaolo11's idea!

47

General / Re: New user here and many questions.

« on: January 07, 2019, 06:54:52 AM »

Hey Autotec,

It looks like what happened with my latest AM install: the romlist generator (I'm not at my PC right now: forgive misleading terms!) included all the devices and drivers in its mame.txt file: that's what it looks like you're seeing based on your screen shot. (Should be under attract/emulators/mame.txt, or something close to that.) I have a relatively small subset of games (no full romsets), so it wasn't too bad for me to go in and manually delete the offending lines. You can always comment out anything suspicious with a pound sign if you're not sure what it is.

48

Emulators / Re: Autoit: Start program in background shift focus after x seconds

« on: January 04, 2019, 06:39:35 AM »

Is there any reason you are not opting for Retroarch? It offers a lot of good things.

It's probably a lack of knowledge on my end. I'm mostly interested in arcade (vs. console) games, so I compiled MAME and goofed around with demul, and that handles most of my interests. RetroArch just seemed like immense overkill for my interests. That said, I just downloaded it.

49

Emulators / Re: Autoit: Start program in background shift focus after x seconds

« on: December 27, 2018, 08:19:53 PM »

Made a couple more tweaks:

Code: [Select]

#SingleInstance, force
SetTitleMatchMode, 1

ScreenW := A_ScreenWidth
ScreenH := A_ScreenHeight
FontSize := 64

SubTextY := (ScreenH - FontSize) / 2

; Move the mouse to the bottom right:
MouseMove % ScreenW, ScreenH, 0

; Display a single image as a SplashImage:
SplashImage, , b w%ScreenW% h%ScreenH% x0 y0 zw%ScreenW% zh%SubTextY% fs%FontSize% ctWhite cwBlack, Loading..., , demulSplashWindow, OneTwoPunchBB-Italic

RomName := A_Args[1]
Run %ComSpec% /c "demul.exe -run=naomi -rom=%RomName%", , Hide
; Run %ComSpec% /c "demul.exe -run=naomi -rom=mvsc2", , Hide

; When demul.exe loads a rom, its title changes to a string beginning with gpuDX11hw:
; (Could change dep. on DirectX ver., but just checking the process jumps the gun)
WinWaitActive, gpuDX11hw, , 10
SplashImage, Off
Send !{Enter}
return

#IfWinActive, ahk_exe demul.exe
    Esc::
    WinClose, A
    ExitApp

#IfWinActive

No external image file needed: I didn't realize ahk's SplashImage can be left blank and a background color provided as an option. This works for me! (in conjunction with the following batch file):

Code: [Select]

@echo off
dfs.exe %1

Unrelated (well, partially), but Reicast: is it possible to use without retroarch? I'm really an emulation noob, so I apologize if that's a stupid question!

50

Emulators / Re: Autoit: Start program in background shift focus after x seconds

« on: December 26, 2018, 01:12:31 PM »

I don't know why this thread didn't get returned when I searched for this topic a day or two ago, but here's a simple series of files I've created for the same purpose:

http://forum.attractmode.org/index.php?topic=2669.0 (Sources in thread. Obviously, change paths to match your specific system!)

What I still can't figure out is how to throw up a blank screen to hide the initial demul window (and the rest of the desktop). I suppose there must be some way to write a simple program that slaps a solid black background on top of everything first, then load demul and wait for its window to "change" (rom to load), then kill the "black" process? I don't know enough about windows to know how to create such a program, though. But now I'm even more curious than I was, so it seems like I'll be looking in to it...

Edit: I modified the script in the above post a little (and added attachments): now, it draws a 1x1 black pixel across the whole screen before demul loads a rom. There's still a brief flash, but it's a little better!

51

Emulators / demul full screen improvements

« on: December 26, 2018, 06:31:06 AM »

Edit: I attached the relevant files, as well as made some changes to the akh script: now it stretches a 1x1 black pixel across the screen until demul loads a rom. There's still a brief flash, but it's getting better. A little. Meh.

I've written a dirty little AHK script that, in conjunction with a batch file, launches demul with a user-defined rom, and sets it to full screen, as well as enables the Esc key to return to AM. It _works,_ but it could be better; specifically, it exposes the desktop for about 3 seconds while demul loads the rom before entering full screen. And there's a flash of the same when exiting (I think). I'm running Windows 10 on an i5 with a GTX 1050Ti card. Here are the scripts I'm using, as well as the guts of the demul.cfg file:

Batch file (dfs.bat):

Code: [Select]

@echo off
"C:\Program Files\AutoHotkey\AutoHotkey.exe" demul_full_screen.ahk %1

AHK script (demul_full_screen.ahk):

Code: [Select]

#SingleInstance, force
SetTitleMatchMode, 1

; Move the mouse to the bottom right:
MouseMove % A_ScreenWidth, A_ScreenHeight, 0

; Display a single image as a SplashImage:
SplashImage, pixel.gif, b w%A_ScreenWidth% h%A_ScreenHeight% x0 y0 zw%A_ScreenWidth% zh%A_ScreenHeight%

RomName := A_Args[1]
Run %ComSpec% /c "demul.exe -run=naomi -rom=%RomName%", , Hide

; When demul.exe loads a rom, its title changes to a string beginning with gpuDX11hw
WinWaitActive, gpuDX11hw, , 3
Send !{Enter}
SplashImage, Off
return

#IfWinActive, ahk_exe demul.exe
    Esc::
    WinClose, A
    ExitApp

#IfWinActive

demul.cfg:

Code: [Select]

# Generated by Attract-Mode v2.5.1
#
executable           D:\Users\Blake\demul\dfs.bat
args                 [name]
workdir              D:\Users\Blake\demul\.
rompath              D:\Users\Blake\demul\roms
romext               .zip;.7z
system               Arcade
info_source          listxml
exit_hotkey          Escape
pause_hotkey         P
artwork    marquee         $HOME/demul/marquee
artwork    snap            $HOME/demul/video;$HOME/demul/snap

Any thoughts on improving this set up? I'd really like to know if there's a way to launch, say, some big, black screen that hides EVERYTHING until the WinWaitActive command in the ahk script completes, but maybe I'm going about it the wrong way altogether? Thanks for reading!

52

General / Re: Attract only works in window mode.

« on: December 18, 2018, 09:43:50 PM »

Hi all, rather than start a new topic, I wanted to add my two cents, since I think my issue might be related.

If I run AM in windowed mode, things are fine. If I run it set to Fill screen, everything starts out fine, but after I launch a game and attempt to exit back to AM, nothing happens. I have to Alt-Tab to get out of things, and then the process repeats.

Any ideas? I'm running AM 2.5.1 on a Windows 10 machine (ver 1803, OS build 17134471) with a GTX 1050 Ti card. Thanks for your time!

53

Scripting / Where's the debugger/console window?

« on: December 17, 2018, 02:58:22 PM »

I feel so stupid, but I'll ask anyway: how can I bring up the AM debugger or console window? I swear once upon a time, it was just there, but I'm sure I'm misremembering. I'm trying to create some layouts and a few custom classes, but I'm doing it so spectacularly poorly that I can't see anything, and I'm hoping the debugger/console will point me in the right direction. Thanks for anyone willing to help!

54

General / Re: Windows 10, AM not launching MAME games?

« on: December 16, 2018, 11:09:27 AM »

Progets, thank you so much! Those changes fixed things!

(It's been a few versions since I've played around with AM. Looks like there have been some substantive changes!)

55

General / Windows 10, AM not launching MAME games?

« on: December 16, 2018, 05:27:23 AM »

Hello all.

I've searched the existing posts, but I'm either searching wrong or not finding what I need (or both), so here's what's happening. I have AM installed, and its detected MAME (the only emulator I have installed right now), but when I attempt to launch a game, I see "initializing" (looks like the MAME ui) for a few seconds, then I'm dumped back into AM. Games launch as they should through MAME directly, or through the command line, but not through AM.

Some of the posts I found mentioned mame.ini. The only mame.ini file I see is the one generated via MAME itself. There's a mame.cfg generated by AM, but am I missing something? The rompath is the one AM generated automatically (mame.cfg):

Code: [Select]

# Generated by Attract-Mode v2.5.1
#
executable           D:\Users\Blake\mame\mame64.exe
args                 [name] -skip_gameinfo
workdir              D:\Users\Blake\attract\.
rompath              D:\Users\Blake\mame\roms/
romext               .zip;.7z
system               Arcade
info_source          listxml
artwork    marquee         $HOME/mame/marquee
artwork    snap            $HOME/mame/video;$HOME/mame/snap

(The -skip_gameinfo flag is to bypass MAME warnings. I've tried without it, too.)

Any suggestions? Thanks!

56

General / Unwanted flickering/input disruption when entering/exiting games in Mame?

« on: February 20, 2017, 02:42:08 PM »

Hey everyone,

I recently slapped Attract Mode onto a "new" (old) PC with the following specs:

Core 2 Duo
4 Gb RAM
GeForce 660

I'm running Mame 0.180, and it works as it should, but AM does this thing where when I launch a game, sometimes it'll flash a white screen or the desktop (I think this has been solved by switching to "Fill screen" instead of "Fullscreen"); but when I exit a game, I see the previous state of AM an there's no response to input for about 5 seconds -- then, a white/black flash, the desktop for a moment or two (including the AM console window), then back into AM and the screen has "caught up."

I'm running AM 2.2.1 on Windows 7 Ultimate. Any one else run into this? Solved it? Any advice? Thanks!

57

Themes / Re: Theme Gallery, place a thumb image of your theme here. Max size < 300x300

« on: January 29, 2016, 02:58:19 PM »

"Traces" Theme

Layout options:
Aspect ratio (4:3, 16:9, 16:10, 1:1)
Tint RGB color (user-defined percentages for R, G, and B)
Use accent color (yes, no)
Accent RGB (user-defined)
Background snap "wash" opacity (0-100%) (user-defined percentage)
Strip "wash" opacity (0-100%) (user-defined)
Edge opacity (0-100%) (user-defined)
Carousel artwork (snap, flyer, wheel, marquee)
Background artwork (snap, flyer, wheel, marquee)
Allow video in carousel (true, false)
Allow video as background (true, false)

Needs some improvements, and possibly (someday) some vertical resolutions, but it looks all right, I think!

58

Scripting / Re: preserve_aspect_ratio, but "fill" an add_surface or add_artwork?

« on: December 10, 2015, 07:39:30 AM »

I think just setting the anchor to Anchor.Center will do what you want: 4:3 flyers will show full size and "3:4" flyers will show the central portion while filling the width of the screen. If I'm understanding your question...

59

Themes / Re: "Traces" theme (1:1, 4:3, 16:9, and 16:9b variants!)

« on: December 05, 2015, 05:25:02 PM »

Actually, the performance of layout is very low, it is running not smoothly. I don't know the root cause. You may try to find out and fix it. Many Thanks.

Hmm, runs reasonably well on my machine, but I do notice it's slower than some other themes. I'll bet a big part of that is the rather large images I'm using and overlaying on top of everything else I have some ideas to minimize that impact, but it'll take some slicing and dicing and reworking some of the image positioning code. Not hard, just time consuming. Sounds worth giving it a shot though. I'll post once I've worked it out.

60

Themes / Re: "Traces" theme (1:1, 4:3, 16:9, and 16:9b variants!)

« on: December 05, 2015, 09:21:52 AM »

It work fines. Thanks. Some advise, could you add an option of selection videos or flyer for snap area on bottom.

Glad that did the trick! Also, per your advice, I added the option(s) to use flyer art for the conveyor (carousel) thumbnails or background. I could potentially see using marquee art there, too, and maybe I'll toss that in as one of the choices, just in case, but until then, I'm updating the OP with the modified rar.