Looking racing wheel focused theme

[Touchmaster97]

I'm very, very new to this Attract Mode frontend, which seems to've stopped with updates.

What I also have is a Logitech G29 Driving Force Steering Wheel, but it seems like many of the themes for Attract Mode are focused on Arcade-style controllers. Are there any themes with a steering wheel in mind where I can turn the wheel and use the pedals to navigate menus, complete with unique icons?

[Dal1980]

Hi Touchmaster97

My guess to the reason why the updates are slow is because how do you improve on the already perfect system , honestly though. It's my favourite front end and I've experienced a lot of them (and built themes in many too).

I'd also hazard a guess that the inputs for controlling the next/previous titles would sense your wheel. Have you tried modifying them settings in the Attract Mode config? Themes just work off of them so you should find that all themes generally work unless there's a grid style selector which may not benefit from that wheel. A straight horizontal or vertical game selector should work fine though.

Start Attract Mode >> Press Tab key >> goto Controls >> hightlight "Up (Previous Game)" and press enter, it will now be waiting for input on the key you want to use and in this case you would steer left. Rinse and repeat for "Down (Next Game".

Hope this helps

[Dal1980]

Actually - you may want to also replace the "Next Game" and "Previous Game" assignments with the same steering directions or remove them completely.

[Touchmaster97]

Hi Touchmaster97

My guess to the reason why the updates are slow is because how do you improve on the already perfect system , honestly though. It's my favourite front end and I've experienced a lot of them (and built themes in many too).

I'd also hazard a guess that the inputs for controlling the next/previous titles would sense your wheel. Have you tried modifying them settings in the Attract Mode config? Themes just work off of them so you should find that all themes generally work unless there's a grid style selector which may not benefit from that wheel. A straight horizontal or vertical game selector should work fine though.

Start Attract Mode >> Press Tab key >> goto Controls >> hightlight "Up (Previous Game)" and press enter, it will now be waiting for input on the key you want to use and in this case you would steer left. Rinse and repeat for "Down (Next Game".

Hope this helps

How to improve an already perfect system? I've got a few ideas:
1: How about an automatic emulator downloader inside the frontend to get the latest version of emulators? With the lack of updates, I feel like I can't get the latest versions in Attract Mode, if at all.
2: How about some sort of unlocking system? Start with a game or two, earn currency from playing the games or even earning achievements (if Retro Achievements functionality is a thing), spend it on more games.

[Dal1980]

How to improve an already perfect system? I've got a few ideas:
1: How about an automatic emulator downloader inside the frontend to get the latest version of emulators? With the lack of updates, I feel like I can't get the latest versions in Attract Mode, if at all.
2: How about some sort of unlocking system? Start with a game or two, earn currency from playing the games or even earning achievements (if Retro Achievements functionality is a thing), spend it on more games.

1. One of the reasons I love Attract Mode is for it's flexibility and the fact that it has no opinion on how you should do things. The type of launcher you are describing is more like www.retroarch.com which can provide a whole host of advantages with well maintained libraries that allow for various emulation (you should not confuse this, these libraries are from individual emulation engine sources and are just packaged up to allow RetroArch to work with them easily). Attract Mode is a Front End system specifically that has a more open launcher which means that there isn't anything stopping you from using Attract Mode to launch a game from RetroArch (or any other system for that matter including you music library see iOtero's Juke Box theme http://forum.attractmode.org/index.php?topic=2378.0).

2. There's Steam for that but these achievements are probably some API module that's built into the game... obviously that would be inappropriate in the retro scene. There maybe some way to bolt on that kind of thing on the high scores table that usually gets written out of Mame but it would probably be better managed by a different breed of Front End, although, Squirrel programming language can be quite powerful so perhaps, if you had the time to do that.

So at some point you decided to switch the conversation about your original issue with the controls (which I answered) to simply picking on AM because it did not meet your demands.

[Touchmaster97]

How to improve an already perfect system? I've got a few ideas:
1: How about an automatic emulator downloader inside the frontend to get the latest version of emulators? With the lack of updates, I feel like I can't get the latest versions in Attract Mode, if at all.
2: How about some sort of unlocking system? Start with a game or two, earn currency from playing the games or even earning achievements (if Retro Achievements functionality is a thing), spend it on more games.

1. One of the reasons I love Attract Mode is for it's flexibility and the fact that it has no opinion on how you should do things. The type of launcher you are describing is more like www.retroarch.com which can provide a whole host of advantages with well maintained libraries that allow for various emulation (you should not confuse this, these libraries are from individual emulation engine sources and are just packaged up to allow RetroArch to work with them easily). Attract Mode is a Front End system specifically that has a more open launcher which means that there isn't anything stopping you from using Attract Mode to launch a game from RetroArch (or any other system for that matter including you music library see iOtero's Juke Box theme http://forum.attractmode.org/index.php?topic=2378.0).

2. There's Steam for that but these achievements are probably some API module that's built into the game... obviously that would be inappropriate in the retro scene. There maybe some way to bolt on that kind of thing on the high scores table that usually gets written out of Mame but it would probably be better managed by a different breed of Front End, although, Squirrel programming language can be quite powerful so perhaps, if you had the time to do that.

So at some point you decided to switch the conversation about your original issue with the controls (which I answered) to simply picking on AM because it did not meet your demands.

What? You make it sound so harsh. I'm just very new here, and I'm not yet aware of all of the features. I used to use RetroArch, but I uninstalled it due to the cores refusing to load specific ROMs properly.

[Dal1980]

Wasn't trying to be harsh

Your problem with retroarch not working could be that you are trying to load the wrong set perhaps but I would seek the help directly from that community regarding this issue.

To give you a concept of the simplicity of the design of Attract Mode.

Systems (this can be a emulator, another front end or even just a program... i.e. you could launch a windows 10 game)
These are separate files that you create and name, they contain the settings for where AM should look for the artworks, the xml file lists and scrapper info etc
Directory Path: attract\emulators (example C:\emu\attract\emulators\a2600.cfg for Atari 2600 I could have easily called this file atari-2600.cfg but I chose to keep it the short name)

Layouts
Each system you switch to can borrow on a layout (a theme) to provide you with a way to view your collection/sets
Each theme will have a main nut file (probably called layout.nut) and perhaps some other assets if they are included with the theme.
Directory Path: attract\layouts (example C:\emu\attract\layouts\hello-megadrive\)

Romlists
This is a directory of ROMs. You need to provide your legally owned or freeware/shareware ROMs in here and keep them organised by system. Your artwork should be ideally stored within each system but the folder structure is entirely up to you.
Directory Path: attract\romlists (example C:\emu\attract\romlists\md, C:\emu\attract\romlists\md\carts, C:\emu\attract\romlists\md\box etc)

It may be useful to just get 1 system working first as the settings for each are probably going to be very similar. I don't bother using AM to build my cfg files anymore as I find just closing AM and going into a txt editor is far easier. If you open AM with console mode you should see any problems that it spits out so you can trace the issue.

I'd also recommend you take a backup copy of attract.cfg in case you upset key assignments

This is just the basics to get started, there's plugins, filters and a whole host of cool features with AM but I wouldn't overload yourself until you've setup your first system, tried a couple of themes and your happy with the config experience.

Exmaple of what md.cfg might look like

Code: [Select]

# Generated by Attract-Mode v2.4.0
#
executable           C:\emu\Mame\mame64.exe
args                 megadrive -cart "[romfilename]"
rompath              C:\emu\attract\romlists\genesis
romext               .zip;.gen;.bin
system               genesis
info_source          listsoftware+thegamesdb.net
artwork    box             C:\emu\attract\romlists\genesis\box\2d-front
artwork    cart            C:\emu\attract\romlists\genesis\cart\2d-front
artwork    flyer           C:\emu\attract\romlists\genesis\flyer
artwork    logo            C:\emu\attract\romlists\genesis\wheel
artwork    snap            C:\emu\attract\romlists\genesis\snap\video;C:\emu\attract\romlists\genesis\snap\shot

Hope this helps