Messages

1

General / Shader laggy upon start, but fine when switching to a different shader then back

« on: January 08, 2025, 09:10:36 AM »

Rpi3b+

I'm nearly finished with my cabinet and I've never really messed with shaders until this point, I've added some and flipped through them here and there.  I spent a good amount of time weeding out the ones that are laggy on the Rpi hardware, and what I have left are a handful that work really. 

Here is the problem... Whenever I set one as the default, when the game first loads, it's choppy/laggy.  I have hotkeys set for next/previous shaders, and If I switch to the next shader, it's fine, move back to the shader that I was just on, it's suddenly fine.  Exit the game, then open the game (any game), same thing, laggy.  Only switching shader and switching back fixes it.  I tried setting several different shaders as the default, they all do it.  Any idea what might be causing this?

***update***
I found one shader that I'm able to set to the default and no lag when starting a game, there may be more, but this was the first one that I got to work.  It's not my favorite one though, so I'd like to still figure this out.

2

General / Re: Emulator not closing the game on exit.

« on: October 14, 2021, 12:45:56 PM »

Resfix addon didn't do anything.  Playing with different settings last night, I changed the exit game key, it was "escape", but now I left it blank.  All of a sudden the MAME games exit completely as they should.   Strange.  It has been this way for a very long time.  Now I'm stuck with MAME being the only emulator that cannot simply exit with one button (escape button), but instead, MAME needs to use the hotkey+escape.  I wonder what could have changed to cause this strange behavior when using just escape to exit, must be some kind of conflict somewhere.

3

General / Re: Emulator not closing the game on exit.

« on: October 12, 2021, 12:16:24 PM »

Please try this

Thanks, I did try to adjust the  non-blocking-mode parameters last night.  The default is 0, when I try to type something else, a bunch of random jarbled symbols show up when I type anything.  When I press escape to stop editing the parameters, it goes back to 0.  I'll try the resfix addon, I did not try that yet.

I re-installed the emulator last night, but haven't been home to see if it resolved the issue yet.

Thanks.

4

General / Emulator not closing the game on exit.

« on: October 11, 2021, 05:37:34 PM »

RpI3 build.  This seemed to have come out of nowhere when it's been working perfectly fine.  Only happens when I launch a MAME game, it stays running in the background.  I can exit back to AM, select a different game, and launch it, but it immediately goes back to the original game that is still running paused, and then the exit keys do not exit the game, forced to pull the plug.  Thinking something was buggered up in the runcommand menu options, I open the runcommand menu, when I click the up or down button the screen just flashes and the cursor stays at the top of the list.  I can type the corresponding letter to get the other menu items highlighted, but clicking enter does nothing.  Any clue what the heck is going on?  I've been at this for two days now.

5

General / Re: Hotkey+F causing emulators to restart

« on: November 24, 2020, 05:08:13 AM »

When I said that I've never had luck with the global settings really I meant... I feel like maybe 3 years ago it worked as expected. Last few years though, I've had to do system specific configs. I'd consider it a bug... but I have a feeling that whomever's in charge of the controls system really isn't too worried about arcade-type builds where controls are concerned. If I can't configure a control through emulation station, then it's mindbogglingly difficult to change the simplest stuff.

Glad It's not just me, I'm finding everything very finnicky with the latest AM & RP.  From the global config. issues, to not being able to delete or rename items in AM, choppy layout animations, most menu items actions being broken, etc..  I've recently tried compiling AM from scratch, as well as installing from the experimental menu, I'm finding different issues each way I try...  I've worked through most of them, but it has taken way too long to figure out, and some issues I've just given up on or worked around one way or another.  I know they are separate projects though which need to work together in unison, so I don't expect it to be perfect.  I had used Floob's image for about 4 years, which obviously were really old RP & AM versions , but everything worked as it should, never had any issues with configurations. 

6

General / Re: Hotkey+F causing emulators to restart

« on: November 23, 2020, 12:25:15 PM »

Okay, I've abandoned modifying it, just using system specific config files now.  Strange thing is I've always used the /configs/all/retroarch.cfg file on my older build with zero problems ever. 

7

General / How can I change font size for the tag/filters menu?

« on: November 23, 2020, 06:36:27 AM »

The font is huge for some reason on my tag & filters menu, I can't seem to find where the font size is set.  I tried the layout.nut file, but could only find where it loads the font, nothing about the font size. 

8

General / Re: Hotkey+F causing emulators to restart

« on: November 21, 2020, 11:54:17 AM »

Thanks.  I understand the hierarchy.... global/core/game specific .cfg. files.  Was first trying editing the configs/all/retroarch.cfg, no luck, tried everything.  Deleted the file, restarted, and it made the new file, but was named retroarch.cfg.rp-dist, and I had to manually rename to retroarch.cfg.  the restart glitch was resolved, but then the hotkeys stopped working.  I even restarted to emulation station and setup my inputs again, making sure to bind my hotkey, but still no luck.  It must not be grabbing that .cfg file, the hotkey is clearly bound and enabled in the .cfg file.  There is no info in the autoconfig.cfg, and no files in the joypad folder (using ipac2 as keyboard).  This was extremely easy and clear cut on my old Floob's image, but this is acting very strangely.  I worked around it by opening the retroarch gui from a snes game, made all of my key bind changes and saved.  I then manually copied the .cfg to all of my other systems.  Not the proper way to do it but at least it's all working now, but still won't be able to globally change anything.

9

General / Hotkey+F causing emulators to restart

« on: November 20, 2020, 09:59:04 PM »

On my Rpi3, fairly fresh build, keyboard, not joypad.  I'm modifying my retroarch.cfg found in "configs/all" to suit my buttons and assign some of the hotkeys, and while I tried to assign volume down to the 2P stick down (assigned keyboard button "F" ), it restarts the emulator.  For trial and error purposes, I copied over the stock unedited retroarch.cfg and tried again and it still does the reset.  I can't for the life of me figure out why it's doing that.  Another strange thing is that I can't disable the fast forward hotkey, either with "nul", or # in front of the line.  Am I editing the wrong .cfg for this?  The other changes that were made took effect.  This is the global retroarch.cfg I'm modifying.  Any suggestions?

10

Themes / Re: The Great Themes Collection v10.0 - Released!

« on: November 16, 2020, 11:39:44 AM »

These look really good.  I've added them to my RPi 3 (not overclocked) build, however the animations are a bit too choppy and take too  long to transition between systems.  I will disable the animation, but is this just the limit to the raspberry pi's processing power, or do I have another issue going on? 

11

General / Re: Still has issues on the Pi 4

« on: November 09, 2020, 06:57:56 AM »

Ive gotten Attract Mode mostly working on the Pi 4 but noticing videos are tearing like crazy now and still freeze or stop playing.  None of my videos are particularly high quality and they ran well on the Pi3.  They are all non HD videos. 

Sorry if this was already suggested, but from another post here on the forums, someone suggested converting the video snaps to a lower framerate?  This was all on my Pi3, but it may apply to the Pi4.  I was plagued with choppy/freezing snaps for years.  Different builds, from Floob's image to the latest Retropie & AM installed, different Pi's, sd cards, different snaps, ffmpeg/mmal, etc. etc., nothing worked.  Someone suggested lowering the framerate to a max of 23.976 (resolution can stay the same).  I converted them all using handbrake, copied them to the pi, and no more freezing/choppy videos.  Hope this works for you.

12

General / Re: Default artwork when artwork is missing

« on: October 22, 2020, 11:51:22 AM »

Just an update if anyone else happens to have this problem.  Turns out all of the files & paths I had were correct, but still not working.  It seems to be some script in AM which handles the default artwork and locations.  I couldn't find it anywhere poking around various coding in AM, but I have no business doing so, so didn't spend much time looking.  At this point, I'm going to assume maybe my AM build was prior to this feature being added, as it is a pretty old build, although it was all updated recently, but still not working.  I have another SD card that I installed AM as an experimental package, copied over my roms & artwork and all is good. 

13

General / Re: Default artwork when artwork is missing

« on: October 02, 2020, 07:52:00 AM »

In my raspberry pi it works perfectly, with the artwork inside the roms folder. You should check the name of the display. In my pi the default for snes is >>>> Super Nintendo Entertainment System.png / mega drive is Sega Mega Drive.png, arcade is Arcade.png, exactly as it shows in the displays menu.

I will double check when I get home.  I'm sure it was correct though, in the displays menu, it's "Arcade", so I made "Arcade.png", and put it in the artwork folder.  Even so, it should, as a last resort, pull the art files from the robospin-hd layout folder, as it does on my PC build.  Does anyone know what file contains the code which handles the image hierarchy?  I'm not sure if it matters, but I'm on Floobs image, which is really old at this point.  I feel like default images used to work, and at some point, now they don't, but maybe I just never paid much attention and maybe they never worked?  The only reason I'm critical now is that I'm on a mission to add missing marquee, snap and wheel art for all of my roms.  I have another SD card with the latest AM build from the experimental package, maybe I will see if it's working with that image.  If so, I'd still like to know where the code is located so maybe I can see if something is not correct or missing, as the floob's image has been setup perfectly and working really well other that this issue.

14

General / Re: Default artwork when artwork is missing

« on: October 02, 2020, 06:48:52 AM »

A thought just came to me.  Could there be any possible chance that having my artwork folders as subdirectories in my roms folder is causing these problems?  Maybe I should try to move the artwork out of the roms folder to a different location and see if that helps.  It is working this way on my PC, but maybe on the retropie it's different?

15

General / Re: Default artwork when artwork is missing

« on: October 02, 2020, 06:31:16 AM »

the default image / "non-existing-artwork"-file needs the same name like display-name
name of display : SNES => default-image : SNES.png

Linux is case sensitive : your paths and folder-names are correct?

Isn't it, that there exist a hidden attract folder : /home/<username>/.attract
Are there any artwork files? Check your romlist too.

What should I check with my romlist?

Thank you for responding.  I've already tried naming the files the same as the display, as well as the emulator, as well as "marquee.png" or "wheel.png", and placing it in the same directory as the wheel or marquee art is.  This did not do anything.  I've also made sure it was case sensitive.  I've also placed the files in the layout folder located in the .attract/ directory.  This directory has the default images already there by default, but again, for some reason, the display is not using them.  I know that the display is supposed to use them, because this is how I tested the hierarchy of the images.  I setup attract mode on my PC, added a few roms, but added only the wheel, snap, marquee .png's for 1943.  I pointed the emulator to the newly created artwork folders.  As expected, the marquee, snap, and wheel art work for 1943, and the default images are showing for the roms without artwork (static snap, no image available with a red circle & x through for the wheel, and a generic "mame" marquee.   I then added a unique .png to the marquee folder and named it "arcade" to match the display name, and the display then grabs that image as the default image, as it should.  I then deleted this file, went into the layout folder (c:/attract/layouts/robospin-hd), where the default art is located, and placed a unique image there and renamed it marquee.  The display now grabs that image when artwork does not exist, as it should.  So this all confirms that the hierarchy for art is as follows....

1943.png in the artwork folder, in my case, c:\attract\roms\marquee\  then if none matching the rom are found use...
arcade.png in the artwork folder, (arcade is the display name), in my case c:\attract\roms\marquee\  then if arcade.png is not found, use
marquee.png located in the layout folder, in my case c:\attract\layouts\robospin-hd\

So the question is, this works as it should on my PC, but my retropie it does not.  I'm using the exact same  layout between both the pc and retropie, same roms, same artwork directory location, and emulator artwork location is pointing to the correct folders.  I should also point out that on my retropie,  all of my layouts are doing this, none of them are using default images.  So this may suggest that the problem lies not in the layout itself, but somewhere else in attract mode, right?  But what file/code controls how the displays handle the images to use?