JoeViking245

LaunchBox will run/play pretty much anything you throw at it. Import your (mp4) videos into your 'Nostalgia' (or whatever you decide to call it) Platform. Skip past (for now) the section for which emulator to use (i.e. 'don't use an emulator'). Once they're imported, double click one of the "games" [videos] and it will open the video using your default video player. Now that you have proof-of-concept, you can add an emulator that points to your video player of choice and add in a Default Command-line Parameter(s) such as "--fullscreen". Then use 'that emulator' to launch [play] them.

@Ingabagovinanana Hmmmmm....... To start MAME, are you just double clicking mame.exe in Windows Explorer? When I set mine up like this: (everything else is "auto") MAME comes up and plays on my monitor #1. If I change the "1" to a "2", it's all on monitor #2. Now if I change it to a "3", everything's back on monitor #1 because I don't have a "\\.\DISPLAY3". Which leads me to saying: make sure it's 'spelled" correctly. As in the slashes are backslashes ( \ ) and not forward slashes ( / ). And when you input "\\.\DISPLAY2", don't add "(primary)". And also no quotes. I recall now that the latter "screen0" etc. are for your advanced setup like when your cab uses a marquee AND you have the game_rom.cfg file setup. (also used for arcade games that have multiple monitors) This is also where numscreens comes into play. So for now, leave that at 1 because if other settings aren't changed and the cfg file is not setup, it'll be as if you 'mispelled' something and it WILL show the same thing on all screens. After checking all that and it's still not displaying on any of the other 2 monitors, I'd say: Install a fresh copy of MAME into its own new folder. Copy a romfile to test with into the ../newMAME/roms folder. Create a [new] mame.ini file {type "mame -cc" at the command prompt). Open MAME and run the game. Exit the game and MAME. Now change the "Screen" line (because you haven't done it yet before this point on this fresh install) from auto to \\.\DISPLAY1.... and test as suggested before. But ONLY for "screen". Not "screen0" and the others. If after trying that and it STILL doesn't cooperate, I don't know what to tell you.

Make sure you only have 1 mame.ini file. Look in your MAME root folder (should be the one you've been editing). Look in the ../MAME/ini folder. Hopefully there's not one there [also]. Once you've verified there's only 1, edit it making the following changes: Change "screen" line to "\\.\DISPLAY1" Change "screen0" line to "\\.\DISPLAY1" Change "screen1" line to "\\.\DISPLAY1" Change "screen2" line to "\\.\DISPLAY1" Change "screen3" line to "\\.\DISPLAY1" Save. Close. MAME. Play. Make note. Exit Change "screen" line to "\\.\DISPLAY2" Change "screen0" line to "\\.\DISPLAY2" Change "screen1" line to "\\.\DISPLAY2" Change "screen2" line to "\\.\DISPLAY2" Change "screen3" line to "\\.\DISPLAY2" Save. Close. MAME. Play. Make note. Exit Does anything change?

You can't change that, but you can change which display it comes up on. open/edit your mame.ini file. Scroll down to the "OSD PER-WINDOW VIDEO OPTIONS" section. They should all be set to "auto". Change the "screen" line to "\\.\DISPLAY1" like so: Close/save the file. Start MAME. Make note of which screen it comes up on, and which screen [when you start a game] it comes up on. Should be the same. Exit MAME. Open mame.ini (again) and change "\\.\DISPLAY1" to "\\.\DISPLAY2". Close/save the file. Start MAME. Make note of which screen it comes up on, and which screen [when you start a game] it comes up on. Should be the same. Exit MAME. Open mame.ini (again) and change "\\.\DISPLAY2" to "\\.\DISPLAY3". Close/save the file. Start MAME. Make note of which screen it comes up on, and which screen [when you start a game] it comes up on. Should be the same.

Did it create that file?

@Ingabagovinanana Get MAME running on its own, correctly, before even worrying about any frontends. After watching (at least the 1st part of) the video and getting things to work correctly on the backglass, close MAME and make a copy of the mame.ini file and call it "horizont.ini". Now don't touch that file. Leave it alone. What this does is loads that ini file anytime you run a regular [horizontal] game. Now go through those steps again to gets things working on the playfield. Change the "\\.\DISPLAY2" settings, rotation, etc. as discussed in the video. Pro tip: test using an actual vertical game such as Donkey kong. Once everything is working correctly for vertical games (correct monitor, correct rotation and so on), exit MAME. Now make a [another] copy of the mame.ini file and call it "vertical.ini". Now what should happen is whenever you launch a horizontal oriented game, it'll play on the backglass. And when you launch a vertical oriented game, it'll launch on the playfield. I don't think he shows it, but he does mention how to navigate to your MAME directory inside the command prompt. Once there, type the command mame.exe -v >stuff.txt Or if you have an onder version: mame64.exe -v >stuff.txt Once MAME has loaded, exit it. You now have a file in your MAME root folder called "stuff.txt". Open that text file and a little was down you'll see your Displays, as MAME sees them.

Not true. Unless you're talking about the other "Joe". But thanks? lol But I think your question is regarding MAME. It sounds like you're saying when you launch a MAME [Arcade] game, the game comes up on your monitor #1 (which is your backglass). But before that, MAME's warning saying (something like) "This game may be screwed up, so don't blame us. Press any key to continue." will show up on your monitor #2 (which is your playfield). Or is the warning AND the game both showing up on monitor #2? What does your "OSD PER-WINDOW VIDEO OPTIONS" section in your mame.ini look like? Do your "OSD VIDEO OPTIONS" section have "numscreens 1"? Or is it set to 2? Is the only issue the Warning popup? If so, search for a "no-nag" copy of mame.exe that matches your current MAME/roms version and replace your current one with it. BTW, it was by chance that I saw this message. If you need to get my attention, the other Joe, or anyone for that matter, in your message type @ (the "at" symbol) followed by the person's name. If there're multiple options, keep typing 'til you find the right one or click it when it appears in the 'list'.

Fixed script in previous post. (read below for "other" fixes added too) The WinMove did work. The issue was you couldn't "see" it move until 'that' window took focus. (Alt+Tab to the 'other' window(s) would set focus and then show it in its proper location on the screen) [Still] no need for guessing Sleep times. YAY! After WinMove, added a WinActivate call to set focus and "show" the move(s). At least it worked in my tests. I noticed that with 3 screens, in the lower right [monitor] corner you see whatever is behind (LaunchBox, desktop icons, desktop wallpaper...). 2 possible solutions to hide that are: A) make the 3rd screen fill the whole bottom half (though would probably look bad) or B) use the "fixed script" to have it: Minimize all windows Hide the desktop icons Set the Windows wallpaper to null Set the background color to black then at the end of the script Restore LB/BB window Unhide the desktop icons Reset the wallpaper back to what it was (if one was being used) Reset the background color back to what it was (if other than black)

Try adding a sleep after RemoveExcess(). Either inline (3 locations) or in the method itself (add a 'Sleep' line in between the last 2 close brackets). Because it's part of retroarch.exe. If you need to tweak the emulator(s), you'll want to comment out RemoveExcess(). Or do them stand alone.

It's probably me that's misunderstanding in that I've never actually used Retroarch to emulate MAME. For me, using an emulator to emulate an emulator that emulates a Console just seems odd. However, since your above command worked from the command prompt, it sounds like a path issue. I think there's a "proper" folder to place MAME BIOS files into to alleviate that issue in Retroarch. But I don't know where that is. Until then, you can (should be able to) just add the rompath back into your Custom Command-line Parameter: gx4000 -rompath "F:\LaunchBox\Games\Armstrad GX4000" -cart

Is the title bar, border and menu being removed on all of them? Are the windows being stacked on top of each other? Or are some moving and the rest stacking? They're not trying to open fullscreen ae they? Is it not aligning in all 4 scenarios? (well 3 actually. Selecting "1" shouldn't need any aligning. ) Or is it they just have gaps in between them? Maybe double check the WinMove lines. I may have transposed their placement or something. It's been known to happen with me.

@Klopjero When you have a Custom Command-line Parameter, it overrides whatever is shown in the Sample Command (after the emulator (#1). For the Retroarch emulator (where you choose which Core to use), LaunchBox automatically inserts the "-L core.dll" parameter (#3) into the Custom Command-line Parameter when it executes it. I don't think you need to add "-rompath" since your games rom is already pointing to the rom file in the path that it's in (#2). LaunchBox will add the "FULL\PATH\TO\ROM\FILE" (#2) to the end of the Custom Command-line Parameter when it executes it. So for your Amstrand GX4000 Platform (make sure the Platform selected in column 1 is named the EXACT same as your actual Platform) where you select mame_libretro (column 2) as the core, your Custom Command-line Parameter (column 3) only needs to be gx4000 -cart No quotes. No slashes. Pro tip: Many of the consoles used in MAME can be launched without needing the media option. i.e. you might be able to get away with only having "gx4000" in the Custom Command-line Parameter [without the "-cart"]. At least it does for stand-alone MAME. I assume Retroarch MAME is similar. Then when you go to launch Barbarian 2, LaunchBox will send the command "F:\Emulators\retroarch stellar\retroarch.exe" -L "F:\Emulators\retroarch stellar\cores\mame_libretro.dll" gx4000 -cart "F:\LaunchBox\Games\Armstrad GX4000\Barbarian 2 (Europe).zip" Note, only the single parameters that have spaces in them needs quoted.

LEDBlinky Support

Since the games "rom" is a text file with the same name as the games folder, and they all use "Game Loader All RH.exe" to launch (both deduced assumptions)... @echo off cd "E:\Taito_Nesica\%1" start "" "Game Loader All RH.exe"

@CosmicC 4.04-beta-1 - Removed: Copy to Clipboard Feature introduced in v3.11.3-beta-17 due to conflicts when running the plugin remotely - Fixed: Accidental 2nd click while Importing is already in progress ImportMameSoftwareLists v4.04-beta-1.zip Let me know if that fixes your Remoting in issue and the coffee-jitter extra clicks.

Ya. Don't do that.

Unfortunately, they're not related. lol The error message you posted is a result of remoting into your cab (thanks for mentioning you were doing that!). If you run the plugin locally (from the cab itself) with tightvnc turned on, does the error still occur?

The list of roms I use for the plugin comes directly from running "demul.exe –listroms". This tells me the systems and roms it can emulate. As far as I know, Demul hasn't been officially updated since 2018. So there would be no additions to 'the list'. Now there's a really good chance that MAME itself has made updates/additions to roms for the systems Demul can emulate. There's also a chance that, even though the Demul emulator hasn't been updated in a couple years, it can actually run some of the "new" roms (if any). But I honestly have no idea on either of those accounts. If you happen to come across a list of roms that Demul can emulate and are not mentioned in the v0.7 release (via the above command), please let me know and I will definitely add those in.

When selecting a Platform from the dropdown list (one of your existing Platforms), don't start typing a bunch of letters to find your [existing] Platform. It's best to just click in the box, then scroll down to and click on your Platform. Or if you click Add New, it will automatically put in the name (as defined by MAME) in the window that pops up. At this point you can modify the name and/or click OK. If that name already exists (is an existing Platform), you'll get a message saying so. Just click OK. This has been an inherent problem with the plugin ever since it was 1st created and you, my friend are the lucky one to have discovered it. Thank you for bringing that to my attention. I will have my team incorporate a fix for that with the next plugin update. Until then, try not to get too happy with the keyboard and let the mouse 'do the walking'.

It is updated for use with the latest version of Demul. Which the most current version I see is v0.7 (Apr 28, 2018).

Instead of using the (almost square [600x578]) Banner, could you use the (more rectangle [1040x214]) Clear Logo instead?

The Dot Matrix Display is the that little DMD window thingy (how's that for tech jargon? lol). The backglass is the one that uses the b2s backglass server. They both get the info to display [typically] from the rom file. Though I think the DMD reads it directly and the backglass has to extrapolate from it (maybe that's where the 'server' comes into play??). Or something like that. Regardless, DMD tiny. Backglass big. Let me know if that wiggle trick works for you.

This was from a post 4 years ago, and I have no idea if it still holds true.. Again, no idea if MAME still uses 9.0c or has since 'updated'. The full thread is here: Sound stuttering / slow down in MAME. Video card settings to blame? : MAME (reddit.com) You'll need to click "Continue this thread" under MAMEHaze's 2nd comment to see the rest. But his 1st one has a direct link to DirectX 9. Anyway, just throwing that out there.

Maybe change this to true (default I believe is false) if it's not already? [../Visual/ Pinball/VPinMAME/] Mine was set to false, and don't have issues (though I probably will NOW that I've said something. lol). But I do recall, when starting a new (to me) table, the DMD would sometimes appear behind the table. So I'd Alt-Tab to the DMD, click and 'wiggle' it a little bit in place, then unclick. (ya, sounds funny. But it seems to do a somethin') Click the table (set focus). DMD would remain on top. Exit the table. Restart the table, and wha la!

I assume it's safe to say you're using MAME 0.220 to match your 0.220 romset. (srry, but have to clarify ) And also you're seeing this using standalone MAME (vs via LB/BB). Try setting the video mode (in MAME) to something other than auto or GDI and see if makes any difference (a sort-a process-of-elimination).