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Eckers569

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Everything posted by Eckers569

  1. I'll take another look at joytokey - i only ever use it for making my joys... er, keys. I didnt know there was more to it. Thanks for the tip. I solved my stutters (especially bad in F355 2) by changing to the standalone version of flycast. It initially still had issues on both my 12600k/3070TI setup and 11600K/3080 setup (and before that the1080ti). However, i accidentally booted up the delux version while messing around with the emulator - the 3 screen version with side views and that ran perfectly. Turns i out i think my CPUs couldnt keep up with my GPU (...or vice versa) - so when i increased the resolution quite a bit for the standard twin 1 screen version it worked. All this time I've been trying to ressolve the frame rates by working towards lower resoutions when i should have been gong the other way! Same might also be true in Demul.
  2. Amazing work - thank you. Saved me sooo much time and they look fantastic.
  3. The above steps for generating per game settings (pedals joint/combined, gain, auto-centre etc) only work with the older version of the Thrustmaster GUI drivers - 2021 or earlier (maybe 2022 if there is a version). I just updated to the 2023 version (3.TTRS.2023) and they've not only changed where the regedit settings are held, but also exporting them and re-running them in this location no longer has any effect on the wheel unless you actually change it in the Game Controllers GUI... You can see the settings change in regedit when you amend them in the controllers GUI - but it doesn't work the other way around (i.e. when you amend the regedit, then check back in the GUI). Furthermore, some newer games seem to require this latest version (F1 2022, for example) or the wheel just doesn't work - hence I haven't reverted back to the old driver version (which luckily i do still have saved - thank you, Thrustmaster's shitty update process 🙂) If you have any scripts auto-running on launch to update regedit as described in the process above - stop them all now. They'll just copy to Thrusmater's old regedit but wont actually do anything any more. And it probably isn't good to have this kicking around still. New solution is an extension of Step 2 above - the Wheel Angle section - to now change all the settings via AHK. Here's my setting for a 360 degree rotation profile with combined pedals, 75% Gain, By the Wheel script (so will be for something like 18 Wheeler): MouseMove 9999,9999,0 ;;;;;;;;;moves mouse cursor out the way as it interfers with script if over the Game Controllers window;;;;; Sleep, 1000 Run, joy.cpl WinWait, Game Controllers,, 5 if ErrorLevel { MsgBox, WinWait timed out. return } if WinExist("Game Controllers") WinActivate Sleep, 300 ControlClick, &Properties, Game Controllers Sleep, 1000 ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;needs a bit longer to ensure properties window loads up fully;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; if WinExist("Thrustmaster TS-PC Racer Control Panel (64-bit)") WinActivate ;;;;;Tabs to and Sets wheel angle;;;;; Sleep, 500 ControlFocus, Edit1, A Send {delete} Send {delete} Send {delete} Send {delete} Send 360 ;;;;;;Change number to desired rotation angle;;;;; Sleep, 300 ControlFocus, Button1, A ;;;;;;Button2=Separate, Button1=Combined;;;;; Sleep, 300 ;;;;;;;Tabs to Settings;;;;; Send ^{Tab 2} Sleep, 300 ;;;;;Tabs to and sets Master Gain;;;;;; ControlFocus, Edit1, A Send {delete} Send {delete} Send {delete} Send {delete} Send 75 ;;;;;;;;Change number to desired Overall Gain;;;;;;; Sleep, 300 ;;;;;;;;;Tabs to and sets Auto-Centre by wheel or game;;;;;;; ControlFocus, Button1, A ;;;;;;Button2=By the Game, Button1=By the Wheel;;;;; Sleep, 300 ;;;;;;;Exits Game Controllers GUI;;;;;;; ControlClick, OK, Thrustmaster TS-PC Racer Control Panel (64-bit) Sleep, 300 ControlClick, OK, Game Controllers I recommend changing all the sleep timers while testing so you can see it working or identify any errors if you need to amend. Edit and repeat as required for all the different profiles you need then set it up in launchbox as an additional app for the game, selecting 'Automatically run before main application' and 'Wait for exit' Make sure your Game Controllers window is all closed before you run it. And as before, my wheel is always the first device my controller list - if your's isn't, you will have to amend the first part of the script to add a few tabs in to get to your device before it move on to Properties.
  4. My way of setting automatic Thrustmaster Wheel settings - custom per game profiles - FFB gain/Pedals/Wheel angle:
  5. One of the frustrating things about Thrustmaster wheels and trying to emulate multiple arcade games, is that there is no way within the Thrustmaster UI to set custom profiles per game for the force feedback, pedal settings (combined or separate) or the wheel rotation angle. Take my preferred settings for the following 4 games for example: - Sega Rally - Sega M2 emulator. Pedals set to combined, a 260 wheel rotation angle and 60% FFB. - King of Route 66 - Flycast stand-alone emulator. FFB to be much stronger to make me a real trucker :-). Centre force applied by the wheel. - Burnout Revenge - xbox 360 Xenia-Canary. 120 wheel angle as my wheel is replicating the Xbox analog stick (via x360ce app), with centre force applied by the wheel. - Asseto Corsa - PC. Much higher 900 wheel angle for this modern driving sim and for the FFB centre force to be performed by the game It's a pain in arse to set these manually every time and a single 'best-fit' profile doesn't really cut it if you want an enjoyable experience from any of these games on your Thrusmaster wheel. There's a solution to this requiring 2 separate processes; one for the FFB gain/pedal settings and one for the wheel angle. You can run these process before the game launches in Launchbox that will then apply your preferred wheel settings automatically. I'm using Thrustmaster TC-PC racer with the TCLM pedals - I believe on the latest firmware. This wheel is DINPUT only. Other Thrustmaster wheels may utilise a slightly different Thrustmaster UI but the following principles should be the same and you can adjust any of the scripts or file paths accordingly. Not sure this will work though if you have a wheel that can be set to XINPUT (i doubt it). FFB Gain / Pedal settings: EDIT - NO LONGER WORKS SINCE LATEST 2023 DRIVER UPDATES - See comment below I got this from: Unfortunately, this method still doesn't let you automatically set your wheel rotation angle (we'll come on to that later). Essentially what they did was find the reg-edit location for the wheel settings, then manually saved/copied a profile there each time before a new game is loaded. However, batch files can do this part for you automatically. Your wheel will have it's own specific identifier but here's what worked for me. I needed about 6 different profiles to cover all of the different settings I wanted for all the games I like to play. First off. find where your wheel saves it's setting to. Type reg-edit in your windows search bar to load up Registry Editor. For me my wheel settings are held here - but this is specific to my device: [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\MediaProperties\PrivateProperties\Joystick\OEM\VID_044F&PID_B689\OEM\JoystickSettings\682760004] This is specific to my wheel and Windows only. When i recently moved to a new PC with the same wheel, the old numbers from similar path were different and it no longer worked until i edited all my scripts with the new path - you will need to use your own location/extension. Once there, right click on the last bit (682760004 for me) and export. This might be saved as your main default wheel settings. Save the exported file to a folder in the Controls folder in your Launchbox folder (i call mine Wheel Settings). Go back to the Thrustmaster UI and make the new setting you want for the next profile/game - pedal settings on the first tab and gain settings (on the 3rd tab). Save and exit. Go back to reg-edit and export the same folder again - creating a new file now for that profile. Save the new exported file as something memorable for the profile you want to apply. So i have 'bythewheel combined' which i apply to all my Sega M2 games, but 'bythegame-separate' for my modern racing sims. Repeat for each profile that you want to set that will cover all the games you like to play (i think i have about 6 different pedal/FFB combinations as my go-to's at the moment). Don't worry about rotation angle yet - just concentrate on profiles for separate/combined pedals and preferred feedback strength and centre spring for each type of game.. I did, and wasted time setting angles in these profiles that didn't update any way. I cant be bothered to rename them - so some of my examples below might look a bit confusing but just make sure you know upfront the type of thing you want to set and good naming conventions for them.This will create a .reg file for each export - If you right click to edit this file, it should look something like this: Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\MediaProperties\PrivateProperties\Joystick\OEM\VID_044F&PID_B689\OEM\JoystickSettings\682760004] "DefaultWheelAngle"=hex:ff,00,00,00 "DefaultSpringIsPersistent"=hex:00,00,00,00 "DefaultSpringStiffness"=hex:88,13,00,00 "OverallGain"=hex:64,19,00,00 "SpringGain"=hex:10,27,00,00 "DamperGain"=hex:10,27,00,00 "InputAxisRemap"=hex:00,00,00,00 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\MediaProperties\PrivateProperties\Joystick\OEM\VID_044F&PID_B689\OEM\JoystickSettings\682760004\0] [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\MediaProperties\PrivateProperties\Joystick\OEM\VID_044F&PID_B689\OEM\JoystickSettings\682760004\1] You can test out if this work by double clicking one of these files and then going to your Thrustmaster UI to see that the new wheel settings have taken effect. You’ll get a Windows message when you do this that you'll need to ok - but this can be turned off (i can't remember how at the moment, but will add later once it comes to me - i think it was either an option to not see it again in the message itself or it just doesnt happen when you use the launcher .bat file below for each profile so doesn’t interfere visually with the game bootup process. But select yes when your testing this out). Now for this to be automatic, you also need to set up additional .bat files for each profile. You can do this in Notepad, saving it as a .bat file extension. When saving, call these similar to each wheel profile you've set - for ease of reference and if you need to revisit in a few months when you've forgotten every thing:-). for my 'bythewheel combined.reg' I also have a supporting 'bythewheel combined - launcher.bat' When activated, this will automatically apply the appropriate reg-edit file. An example .bat for one of my profiles is : C:\Windows\regedit.exe /S "F:\LaunchBox Arcade\LaunchBox\Controls\Wheel profile\Wheel 255 bytgame separate.reg" Type similar into note pad, last bit is the name of the .reg export file and save as a .bat file. Therefore, I have 6 reg-edit export files for each profile with 6 supporting .bat files. In Launchbox, edit a game and add the appropriate profile .bat file as an additional app. Select 'Automatically run before main application'. Go through your driving games, adding links to the applicable profiles in the same way and that's it. When you load a game via LaunchBox, your custom pedal and FFB setting will be applied. Frustratingly however - you can't set the wheel angle this way. Really annoying as it does appear to be a setting in the exported reg-edit files. Here's how you can do that: Wheel angle: Nothing too clever here. The hardest thing was locating the window controller app name running in the background - (joy.cpl if you're interested) it took me ages. But all I've done from there is counted the keyboard tabs/alts etc required through the 2 Controllers/Thrustmaster screens to set to the wheel rotation angle setting using the keyboard instead of the mouse. An AHK scripts replicates these key strokes to set the angle, save and exit Thrusmaster UI all before the game loads. A different AHK script is required for each angle profile. I have different scripts for all the angles I require. Make sure you've verified the number/type of key stokes first as your UI might be different to mine - but this works for my setup: Note: my wheel is always the first controller listed in 'Game Controller' app. If it isn't, I unplug and re-connect all devices until it is 🙂 !!!! Sleep, 5000 Run, joy.cpl WinWait, Game Controllers,, 5 if ErrorLevel { MsgBox, WinWait timed out. return } if WinExist("Game Controllers") WinActivate Sleep, 300 Send {Tab 1} Sleep, 300 Send {Enter} if WinExist("Thrustmaster TS-PC Racer Control Panel (64-bit)") <<<<<presume if you've got a different wheel, your window will be called something else>>>>> WinActivate Sleep, 300 Send {Tab 2} Send {delete} Send {delete} Send {delete} Send {delete} Send 120 <<<<this is your desire wheel rotation angle>>> Send {Tab 3} Sleep, 300 Send {Enter} Sleep, 300 Send {Tab 2} Send {Enter} I recommend setting the all the sleep timings above to be longer while testing this out - that way you can see each step happening and trace where the process is falling over if it doesn’t work correctly. Once done for each profile angle, go to Launchbox edit a game and set this up as another additional app. Set it to 'Automatically run before main application' and 'Wait for exit' - that way it should load up the Thustmaster UI, change wheel angle, save and exit all before your game starts to load. You need to ensure your controller control panel is closed when you load a game else it will tab around somewhere else. Also, if you have kids, make they don't mess around with the wheel when a game is booting up. Here's what my 'Controls folder in LaunchBox now looks like: I need to change my file names names for the .bat/.reg files to better reflect the profile settings - as I didn't realise angle couldn't be set on the reg-edit before i set them all up. Hence best for you to figure out your different profiles up front and how'll you'll best recognise them in the future. And here's a game specific Additional Apps for Burnout Revenge. Chosen this one to demonstrate this process working even when i have a load of other additional app set up for this game (like facility to load up, control and stop a custom playlist because the games music doesnt work in Xenia, joytokey to manage my arcade buttons via JPAC, something to force stop the x360ce app when i exit the game - plus these wheel settings). Again, i need to change the app names in Launchbox to better reflect the underlying .bat and .ahk files I'm actually using (eg 270 Wheel setting is actually 120) - but you get the idea.
  6. A quick video of the F355 setup. About 3 years of slow progress and a missus who isn't at all impressed. Still work in progress but nearly there. Excuse the mess. IMG_5937.mp4 Made up entirely of second hand parts, stuff I had lying around from other unfinished projects and regular trips to Home Base DIY. GTX 1080ti,12600KF CPU, DD4 memory at 3200 and a cheap second hand 19200 X 1200 monitor off ebay. Half of a broken F355 twin cab. Thrustmaster TS PC race wheel painted white by the previous owner 🙂 pedals and gear shifter. New art work on the sides and front panel. I didn't want to wreck my own original dashboard so used an already broken Out Run 2 which I cut out to accommodate the TS PC Race Wheel (only just) and gear stick. The original panel and wheel/stick mount had to be removed. But the plastic facia panel still fits securely. Original panel buttons routed to PC via Ultimarc's IPAC device (set to DINPUT controller mode) and to LED Blinky for the light-up. Wheel is supported by the same steel bars that I used to fix in the TCLM pedals. They are strong and don't bend - I got through at least 5 drill bits. The stick is mounted fairly securely by some bits of metal salvaged from a previous race wheel stand I still had around. The gear stick is rubbish though, so I want to change that to something more akin to the one from the deluxe cab. Chair block has been re-sited as far back as possible for much more leg space. Pedals can be unscrewed and mounted close to the chair for little legs. It's a basic Logitech surround sound system. Front speakers are the Logitech ones are squeezed in between the monitor and what remains of the old Monitor chassis mount which worked out nicely. The rear speakers and Sub are the originals still inside the seat. I took apart the Logitech Sub/AMP combo, and routed the appropriate wires to the arcade rears and sub (not an exact Ohm match but seems to work and I've kept the volume on them lower so they shouldn't blow!). The Logitech amp/sub is now effectively just an extra board in the base of the cab with long (3m) 3.5mm audio wires going from the inputs to the PC mounted behind the monitor. Temps are really good, even when the back of the cab is back in place. I leave it off in-use because Windows regularly re-orders my USB devices; the wheel and stick are often changed, playing havoc with some emulators like Sega M2. Often, I have to remove device from Windows, physically remove the USB then plug it back it until it's back in the correct order.
  7. A dev build of Flycast stand alone emulator now enables full screen F355- either twin or deluxe (3-screen version) much more cleanly than the Demul work around above I found it a pain to dial in the settings for Flycast for this game – regularly hanging on the bios screen whenever I made a change then working a bit later - making it incredibly difficult to test and trouble-shoot settings etc. However, after days trying to get it working properly, I think I’ve settled on some setting that may now make this my default emulator for F355 – And it can use Boomslangz FFB and it's awesome. If I get time I’ll try and put a guide together. But somethings I’ve learned along the way that may save you some time: I'm using dev build from Flyinghead - Flycast CI Builds (flyinghead.github.io) Scroll down the webpage to dev builds and download - i'm using 9512ee657 (listed as 9512ee6 on the webpage). If you want force feedback, get the latest version from Boomslangz Github - Releases · Boomslangnz/FFBArcadePlugin (github.com) You can set full screen mode for the emulator in the emu.cfg file (scroll to the bottom and change full screen to yes then save) not from the main settings – but do that at the end once you’ve got everything working first, you'll be doing a lot of back and forth so keep it windowed. Make sure you know where your bios and game files are etc (the Naomi ones and all the F355 one's). I just copied them all over to the Flycast data folder. Load up emulator and set your file paths in 'General' settings. First off – and what I think was probably the cause of my frustrations - Go to 'Advanced' settings and change from multi-thread to single for F355. This appeared to stop me getting as many crashes during boot up under OpenGL/Vulkan/DX9/DX10. In Advanced setting - select Multi-board Screens. I went with 1(TWIN) - I haven't tried 3 (Deluxe). In Advanced settings, select Broadcast Digital Outputs if you want force feedback. Also suggest unselecting all the network options – sort these out later if you want - but i can only imagine it makes booting the game up more difficult. Under Controls - Don’t bother too much dialling in the controls per game at this point, just try to get F355 booting regularly first. But make sure you know your global service and test keys so you can change the cab settings that allows it to identify it's Master and also set your steering and acceleration in global ‘arcade’ controls (not Dreamcast) - this is done in the top right of the screen - in this dev build it's really difficult to see but if you move you mouse there you can select either Dreamcast or Arcade controls. The mappings are a pain to find – but from memory I went with: Thumbstick left and right in the emulator = left and right on your steering wheel, L trigger = break R trigger = accelerate Dpad up, down, left, right = your Assist functions in F355 Button 1 = Gear down Button 2 = Gear up. Set your pedals to combined if you have the option. I don't think separate works - again similar to Demul. You’ll change your global settings later probably to cater for most games – and set up specifics once you're ready but to start with for F355 just use these. Didn’t seem to matter what port – but I chucked wheel and keyboard down as port A (eventually require an extra DINPUT device for the separate IPAC buttons - see below). Once set, click done - again this is hidden a bit on this dev build version but move your mouse towards the top left and you should be able to select. Finally for controls - In the 'Mappings' folder for Flycast, find your new .CFG file for your wheel and set the deadzone to 0 - it's default is 10 which is awful for F355. Controllers and wheels work fine. Keyboard you have the old problem of needing the bios screen on top in-order for them to function (really annoying for my start, coin and assist buttons). ** In video settings I recommend keeping in DX9 while you try to get the game booting properly. Then leave all the other stuff as is until you get it loading. This graphic API looks awful but it seemed to allow full boot most easily for me. I ultimately settled on these video settings - per pixel, vsync off, 2.5 upscale to 1600x1200, OpenGL, everything else as default for now. I also changed a load of Nvidia settings to help with the OpenGL and to force full vsync from there (pictures below). Still pacing issues – but this was always the case on Demul as well. With settings complete, I recommend closing the emulator first then re-loaded and trying to run the game. If things are wrong the emulator can crash, you may need to open task manager quite often to close the Flycast process fully while you get things set up and working. Maybe a more recent version of a dev build fixes this but i didn't see much of a difference. You can only access the games test menu once you get the orange screen coming up from bootup – and you'll need to find Master first by changing these the first time your boot up. Here, in the test menu change cab setting to individual or whatever from test menu and also that other service menu (forgot what it's called but it's accessed from one of the options in the test menu - and mentioned earlier in this thread about Demul setup). This is one reason why you should still be in windowed mode until you get the game loading. I found it regularly hangs on boot the first time I change any setting. So try exiting and loading again from new to see if it works. Sometimes on crash you get left over process running in task manager – so check and close before trying again. It probably fully boots about 70% of the time for me now - else I just close down and try again. It's a bit temperamental - at least this Dev build or my particular setup was. But well worth sticking with, the dev are doing a great job with it. I kept getting severe 2 second pauses in multi-threaded emulation mode (at least once a lap – multiple times in every race) regardless of how low resolution was set to or the API used. Changing to single thread has reduced these to a much more bearable maybe once in every 3/4 full races – still testing but don’t think its one-time cache issue like Demul. I tested for shorter period on my more powerful 3070ti and that didn't seem to have the same issue (the rest of my other PC being more or less identical, both with a 12600K CPU) – I’m guessing maybe the 1080TI is throttling, causing these occasional freezes, 3070ti seemed fine but need to test for longer. Frame pacing issues remain for me regardless of vsync in the emulator or Nvidia so still not great – but seems typical of Naomi emulation across the board. Reports 60 fps and is more than acceptable to my eyes but can definitely notice. For me it works best turning off vsync in the emulator but put it on full in the Nvidia control panel. It all seemed to work fine through Launchbox, Icing on the cake for this setup - and deciding factor for me ditching all the hard work I put in to Demul – was the force feedback implementation. It really does make a difference to F355. I played the real cab in an arcade only a couple of weeks ago for research purposes 🙂 Honestly this, emulated in my home setup, is now so much better - though it didn't help that the arcade operators hadn't cared to fix the steering wheel that was waaaay off-centre. Like I said - this is just a very quick and badly written brain dump while it's fresh in my mind. Will probably do a full-setup once i'm happy with the results. Thanks to Boomslangz for the great FFB plugin and the guys at Flyinghead for a great emulator. ** Annoying that keyboard controls still need the bios screen on top. The bios and game screen in Flycast are exactly the same name and process - so i can't get the bios screen on top and invisible using hotkey scripts. Also x360ce and UCR virtual game pads don't work with this emulator. In the end, for the arcade buttons on my racing cab I've had to change my IPAC device to DINPUT control pad mode and that does work in Flycast (can also do XINPUT but that's going to mess with all my TeknoParrot racing games) - now i have to reconfigure controls for all my other racing games!
  8. I previously used 'Clickoff' app to get rid of the DINPUT error when using Demul with a wheel installed. That stopped working for whatever reason and I couldn't get it back. Here's another hotkey script that should remove that error message - select it to run before main application: For F355 I get 2 DINPUT error message windows that need closing so the script below accounts for that: #SingleInstance, Force Loop { ifwinexist padDemul If (ErrorLevel = 0 ) { WinClose, padDemul Break } Else Sleep 10000 Continue } Loop { ifwinexist padDemul If (ErrorLevel = 0 ) { WinClose, padDemul Break } Else Sleep 10000 Continue } For other Demul racing games you can use a shorter version: #SingleInstance, Force Loop { ifwinexist padDemul If (ErrorLevel = 0 ) { WinClose, padDemul Break } Else Sleep 10000 Continue } All in all for F355 and F355 2 I had 5 additional apps (i.e. hotkey and/or bat scripts) running. These helped me auto change Demul setting and controller configs, flip to full screen and have control, remove DINPUT error messages on boot - and auto change my Thrustmaster TC-PC Gain settings between games, combined or separate pedals between games and to auto change my wheel angle for each game (something you cant do in the Thrustmaster GUI) - perfect for my driving cab build. I intend to write a guide on the auto Thrustmaster settings as it can get a bit in depth (auto copy reg-edits etc) as it should help provide per-game user settings for other Thrustmaster wheels (it is clunky though but works and why Thrustmaster havent incorporated this yet is anyone's guess). Now, having said all that... A dev build of the Flycast standalone emulator now enables full screen F355 while being controllable (either twin or deluxe 3-screen version) much more cleanly than the Demul work around above. AND it has support for Boomslangs FFB Plugin - and it's freaking awesome for F355. It's not in their main Master build yet, Once i've figured a few more things out, it will be my default Naomi emulator from now on (i still can't get with Retro Arch) I've spent days configuring Flycast though to even get F355 booting consistently and hope to do a guide soon on how I got it working. Still working on it but a brain dump below that might save someone a similar amount of time 🙂
  9. Great - thank you so much for this for this. Glad I checked in here before going nuclear - you've saved me hours (if not days/weeks). I checked everything to fix my graphical glitches and was about to start rolling back to previous versions of launchbox in an attempt to resolve - backing up my drive for comfort before hand (though i still really need to do this soon anyway) - or worse still going back to the community editor and re-doing my entire custom theme again! My problem was the NahimicOSD mentioned above which I downloaded a month or so back. Can't for the life of me remember why I did, but needless to say it's now gone - and so have my video glitches. Thanks all.
  10. Then you just need to setup launch box to run this script on start up.
  11. Or this one, which also include ‘escape to exit’ (so you won’t need the second ‘close’ f355 script). Not tried this one myself yet - but look like a better way of doing it. Like I said- I need to edit this with best practise contributed by other since I originally set up this thread.
  12. Try running this ahk before launching:
  13. Interesting. Same set up I started with. Like I mention above - I had no problems with xinput... Didn’t need to have the other window on top. Then I tried my thrustmaster wheel and I did. So I think that’s the issue you’re having with the key bindings are the same as what I had - and you will also have with the G29. One of the ahk scripts that you setup to auto launch before the game above resolves this.
  14. Hi. Yeah - this is the issue resolved through the steps above. I’ll probably go back and edit so it makes more sense since other people have contributed. But the steps above make the second (control window) in focus - but also turn it invisible so you can still see and control the game. Read this thread from the start and also the other contributions and that should solve for you (single screen version at least - not sure yet how to deal with 3 screen version). Works with coin input too. Are you using a pad, racing wheel or keys for main game input? I found Xbox pad work no matter what order the windows were in but had to use all the work around outlined above for race wheel/keys
  15. Hi there. Unfortunately I don’t really have 3 monitors to try it out with (well, 3 very mismatched monitors using separate DVI, HDMI and DP connections - so I doubt I can even get a multi-screen setup working within windows). I imagine getting all the F355 windows to at least open full screen would be relatively straight forward if their names are different. However getting the correct window on the correct monitor I can see being more difficult. I’m planning to tweak my setup over the next few weeks so will see if I can figure 3 screen/full-screen out.
  16. And thanks for this too. Useful tips which I’ll try out later. So glad this thread has been of help to someone else. It’s a great game and well worth the effort. From memory, I also got some rumble/ feedback settings working on my wheel via Boomslangz FFBarcade plugin (a tecknoparrot plugin I believe but now extended to Demul and MAME) -although I can’t remember if this worked or if I imaged it (these games and emulators have started blurring into one!) https://github.com/Boomslangnz/FFBArcadePlugin Edit: I’ve checked again and the FFBarcade plugin didn’t provide the missing feedback on this game (got confused with Daytona 3 which I was setting up around the same time) - only limited Demul support at this time. It’s still a great plugin to have to hand though for other racing games of times past.
  17. Good shout. I had a lot of trouble separating pedals in particular and these are the settings I also went with. I also tried to use x360ce to try and remove the dead zone that this left me with, they only kicked in about half way down as separates. This didn’t work though as Demul refuses to acknowledge emulated inputs. Im still to decide if separate pedals with this deadzone is the best way for me or just go back to combined pedals in the Thrustmaster settings (which isnt great for other racing games) - it’s a shame thrusmaster still don’t have per game pedal settings like Logitech.
  18. Having identified my F355 cab is beyond my means of repair (well, 2 hours spent re-wiring every component back in it's correct place - hoping it might 'just work' - only to discover that I'd purchased a Player 2 cab which doesn't have a traditional power supply), I concluded it wasn't worth any more effort trying to bring this baby back to how God intended. So, I committed to converting it to an out and out emulation machine - but F355 a none-negotiable... While doing so, I've verified that when using Xbox One controller (wired) and the DEMUL emulator, you don't actually have to have the black bios window permanently in focus; once you set the controls up on your Xbox pad, start the game as usual with the other window in focus and enter the game's settings menu (F4) - from there navigate to Test Mode Menu > Input test and run through all your controls on the pad. Once you've done it once, bring the main game window into focus and it will now continue to register your controls even when you exit the menus and commence the game (it even remembers it for subsequent plays). This is either a weird quirk of the Xbox controller or something particular to my system. 'Great', I thought, just need to do the same thing with my racing wheel in place of the Xbox pad and away we go. However, it didn't work. I'm using the Thrustmaster TX (in it's Xbox mode) and this work-around no longer recognised the inputs without the other window in focus. I tried mapping my TX analogue axis via UCR to replicate a standard Xbox (albeit 360, I think) - no joy either. So, it seems I'm not as blessed as I'd initially thought and back in the same boat as everyone else trying to run the single screen version of this game via DEMUL. To resolve, I've created a new AHK script in place of the one in Step 3. above (well, shunted together bits of AHK code from other people). It appears to have worked for me, so again maybe someone else will find it useful. It does the same stuff as above - making the game window full screen with no menus etc - but also now activates the other window over the top making it completely invisible while allowing you to control the game without it getting in the way: #SingleInstance, Force Loop { ifwinexist gpuDX11oldhw | spg: 60 gpu: 60 | Multiboard Slave If (ErrorLevel = 0 ) { WinActivate Winmaximize WinSet, Style, -0xC40000, A DllCall("SetMenu", uint, WinExist(), uint, 0) ; Remove menu bar of "last found window". Break } Else Sleep 1000 Continue } Loop { ifwinexist gpuDX11oldhw | spg: 60 gpu: 60 | Ferrari F355 Challenge (Twin) <or '..... Ferrari F355 Challenge 2 (Twin)' for that version of the game> If (ErrorLevel = 0 ) { WinActivate Winmaximize WinSet, Transparent, 0 Break } Else Sleep 1000 Continue } Again some one else could probably come up with something much more efficient but it seems to be working as a starting point for me. You'll now need two separate AHK scripts for both versions of the game instead of just one (F355 and F355 2 twin) and link them appropriately as additional apps in Launchbox as before for each game. The 'close script' KiinkyFoxx detailed above still works a treat and is set up separately in LB as the running AHK in the main emulator setup/tab. Assuming, like me, you're running separate folders/instances of DEMUL for these multiboard Naomi games. I've had a nightmare getting this game to work how I'd like it to; my busted F355 cab providing the motivation for finding work-arounds a little more obsessively than most would consider normal - and I haven't even attempted to really setup my wheel and pedals correctly into DEMUL yet, which I know from past experience is going to be tricky - and may very well bring this whole episode to an unsatisfying conclusion. Maybe I'll just cover the thing in Daytona USA 2 stickers and be done ?
  19. Works a treat - no tweaking needed. Thank you so much - saved me a couple of hours!
  20. That’s a Great tip. Much appreciated. I’ll give it a go tonight. i don’t know if my not having to focus the 'other' window is a result of using Xbox game pad or it was because I tested all the analogue controls in the game test menu? Might have calibrated in the game or something when I did this tested. I assumed maybe people thought it just had to be in focus all the time when, as i've found, i only need in focus to access the game's test menu settings. Weird. It’s the only thing I can think that I’ve done differently - otherwise I just lucked out. Might be worth trying for those still trying to get it to work full screen without the 'other' screen in focus fuss. I just hope it carries on working this way when i shift it all over to my cab (or if I ever have to setup again form scratch). Thanks again.
  21. I’ve recently acquired a broken F355 twin cab (well, half of one at least) so I set about with renewed vigor trying to finally get this game to work full screen using the Demul emulator. If you intend to play F355 with a standard controller - stop reading; The Dreamcast version is so accurate the difference isn’t worth the effort, it’s easier to setup and the sensitivity of the controls will work far better for you (ditto the PS2 version probably). If, however you’re also doing a racing game arcade conversion or are similarly ‘insert coin’ inclined – read on. I've cobbled together a number of pointers I’ve learned along the way for getting the Naomi version of F355 to work in full screen while also being somewhat integrated with Launchbox. It’s work-in-progress, hacking together bits of information I've stubbled across from AHK scripts to the correct settings (or at least one's I got working) in Demul emulator and in Launchbox. Often drawing on these very forums. A big thank you to this community and everyone who has unknowingly helped me out in my various projects over the years. I’m very keen to get pointers from anyone who’s achieved this a better way but info is scarce so i thought i'd share what i've managed so far. Hopefully the following might prove useful to someone: A couple of assumptions to bear in mind: I'm using an older version of Demul v0.7 from April 2018 that allows you to select ‘GPUDX11old' plugin. I assume the same works on the new version Demul v0.7a but hasn’t been tested (that's the version that forces you to use the new GPUDX11 where you don’t get to change things like internal resolution). For some reason, my experience running F355 and F355 2 doesn’t require the second (first???) Naomi bios window to be the active window in order to control the game (but I'm unable to access the game test menus to change settings unless I make it so). This is something I regularly heard had to be done - but I’ve never had to, so your mileage may vary. Get your game test menu settings sorted first then hopefully you won’t have to worry. I’m using an Xbox control pad here – but intend to move the PC into my F355 arcade cab using Ipac board or some such device. I've got an Auto Hotkey script that automatically forces the main window to full-screen on launch, without boarders or windows titles displaying. So, you'll need AHK installed if you haven’t already (maybe it can be done ‘natively’ within LB’s emulator ahk settings but I haven’t tried yet). My work-around works on both F355 twin (F355twin.zip) and F355 2 twin (F255twn2.zip). It would have to be amended to work with the deluxe versions, which have 4 Naomi board windows open at the same time instead of just 2. I haven’t yet devised a clean way to exit F355 from LB/BB - but I have some thoughts on how it might be achieved. But the following steps I hope will be helpful even if you’re not using LB. My PC is I7- 7700k, GTX1080TI, 16GB RAM I’m running Demul emulator at 5X internal resolution and it’s working fine for my setup. Remember Demul has to cache graphics and wot-not while it runs a game for the first time so your initial play through will stutter but when you go back to the same track again in should be fine. Finally, I don’t really know what I’m doing. But I’m persistent enough that once I’ve got something in my head I usually manage to get it working in a way that is (almost) good enough for me. Hopefully it’s helpful for the one other person that might be trying the same thing ? Step 1: Get the game working in Demul first. Worry about LB integration later. Check, double check and triple check all of your paths and plugin paths within the emulator, setup your controls and display setting etc, and you’ve got the right ROM and bios files in the right place Set your ‘window display’ in the video display to match your screen’s native resolution - and disable launch full screen (it doesn't work anyway for F355). V-sync works quite well with no noticeable input delay and definitely helps with a consistent frame rate on my monitor.. There are other tutorials showing you how to setup Demul and run Naomi games, however specific to my work around you'll need to turn-off VMU display in the Maple plugin settings - otherwise for some reason they continue to display: (If you need your VMU displays for other games, you can always have separate instances of Demul in different folders and they can have their own separate settings – you’ll just need to set them up as separate emulators in LB): When you set the controls in Demul, make sure you remember what you've set for the Naomi arcade board test menu buttons - but also the default key for System boards (F2 and F4). You wouldn’t believe how long this had me stumped where F355 wasn’t starting because it was always looking for a network - I could not find a way to access the game’s test menu to change it because i was using the keys i assigned in the 'Arcade' controls but didn't see the defaults for 'System Boards' that i should have been using! Step 2: Run game and configure Test menu settings With the game now running, enter the test menu and make any changes to the game settings that you require (remembering the test buttons you set above). To enter the test menus, make sure your black Naomi bios window is the one in focus, hit the key you assigned - then navigate to the test menu. It's a bit confusing which window has to be in focus - for me it has to be the window with Ferrari F355 in the title - but once i got to the test menue and moved on to the 'game test menu' i had to switch focus to the second window (with 'multiboard' in the title For me, I had to change ‘Link ID’ from Master to Single and Cabinet set to 'Twin'. Go to Game Test Mode > Game Assignments and you'll find these settings. That's it you can exit the settings, bring the main game window back into focus and play the game! Or is it...? The windowed view really sucks; the window title and Demul options tabs always displayed even if maxamised... and horrible boarders. Before you close the multiple windows, make an exact note of the window title displaying on the window the game is actually running in (also make a note of the most common SPG and GPU fluctuations that are also contained in this title). This will make sense in the next step. Mine looks exactly like this: gpuDX11oldhw | spg: 60 gpu: 60 | Multiboard Slave Step 3: setup new AHK script file: You'll need AHK installed. Setup a script by editing in Notepad for your .AHK file and save to an appropriate location so you can point LB towards it later. If you’re not using LB, you can just manually run the script before launching Demul and it will still work. I cobbled together the following script from various sources - and no doubt there’s a much more efficient way of doing this but essentially, when the script is ran it then waits for the 'gpuDX11oldhw | spg: 60 gpu: 60 | Multiboard Slave' window to display (until my GPU reaches 60 it won't trigger - so your number might be specific to the performance of your system running Demul). When this window generates, the script forces Window’s to focus it on top of the pile, then removes the boarders, title and menu of the window and forces it to full screen. The script then stops and the window is left in full focus and the game still playable. Copy the following into notepad then save as .ahk file: Loop { ifwinexist gpuDX11oldhw | spg: 60 gpu: 60 | Multiboard Slave If (ErrorLevel = 0 ) { WinActivate Winmaximize WinSet, Style, -0xC40000, A DllCall("SetMenu", uint, WinExist(), uint, 0) ; Remove menu bar of "last found window". Break } Else Sleep 1000 Continue } #SingleInstance force You can use the same script for F355 and F355 2 as the Slave window title is the same for both. 4: Launchbox setup Import the rom files and setup Demul as an emulator in LB, if you haven’t already. These are my LB emulator settings: Add your Associated platforms on the second tab in the wizard as normal but also key a default command line – type it, don’t copy and paste as I think that causes issues: -run=naomi -rom= Startup and Pause screen - I think you can set to however you want to hide mouse etc - but I probably wouldn't suggest enabling any of the aggressive window hiding start up options due to the multiple widows required to run this game. Running autohotkey script - I add the existing one to close down emulator using Esc. Again an issue with F355 is that there are (at least) 2 windows open when the game is running. Exiting the game via LB, shuts down one instance of the emulator but not the other (by now the game freezes as the Naomi bios has been removed) and you’ll have to ALT+F4 out of it. I've not solved this problem yet - but something added to the 'press esc to close emulator' AHK available on these forums (or a fresh script), to follow with another instruction to wait a second then auto apply a single press of ALT+F4 to force the remaining Naomi slave game window to close (the theory works, I just need to remember the correct AHK script to achieve these automatically). With the emulator setup, edit the F355 game settings in LB by right clicking on the game and selecting 'edit'. Then select ‘Additional Apps’. Add the AHK script file you put together earlier and tick ‘Automatically run before main application: Save, and should be job done. You might also need to add the Demul emulator command line here too: No idea why, but sometimes I need it here, sometimes it’s just fine using only the line I added in the emulator wizard setting (I’ve got at least 5 instances of Demul setup for various games/platform preferences – horrible way of doing things but it works for me for now). Here’s command again just in case: -run=naomi -rom= Now, when you select F355 from LB it will tick over as usual while it loads, then switch to full screen, no boarders, still controllable! IMG_5008.MOV If any one has any idea on how i can streamline the 'maximise window' AHK script - and help with a script that will combine the existing 'Esc to exit' script with a delayed Alt+F4 command to cleanly exit the left-over F355 screen - that would save me a job. No doubt far easier to achieve this end result using Retroarch - but it's the one emulator I can't get on with because of it's playlist/rom name requirements no matter what i do. It's a shame as i love a lot of the options some of the Cores provide but where i have managed to get it working on certain systems, it's been more by luck - so have always avoided it where possible.
  22. Good point. I’m Just running on my bog standard Sony TV - at 60hz I assume -but have never set any specifics computer side. Will also try with a proper monitor too see if that helps. Still strange the using the keyboard works flawlessly regardless. i would try other controller types too but Windows has a habit of reprioritising all my controllers and crapping up my emulators if I plug anything new in or change the very specific routine I have to reconnect all my devices (controllers, wheel, gear stick etc) so I dare not go down that route again!
  23. No - unfortunately the priority resets back to ‘normal’ again in task manager when you close and reopen the application. After some more testing I’m pretty sure I’m getting better results prioritising my controller (I.e the UCR keyboard to controller app) rather than prioritising the BigBox app itself. I’m sure Both have given me better results though - but does make me wonder what all this other shit I have running on my computer is! I’m Gonna play around with my nvidia control panel settings tonight and make a BigBox specific profile (make sure there’s no vsync or other ‘enhancements’ running by default). Most of the time something is running bad I find it’s an nvidia GPU setting that’s causing the grief.
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