[[HOW TO] Automatically set correct mouse (light guns) bindings in Supermodel 3 config file]

Hey  glad you found this. Try to follow it and let me know if you need help.

You have to run it in powershell because AHK isn't a real scripting language. It just automates pushing keys.

And yes, the config for lightgun games need to be set to raw input. I have two directories because of this. One for lightgun games and one for the others.

[Mame Second monitor?]

A more permanent fix can be found here:

 

[Dual Monitors and MAME opening up on the wrong monitor.]

A more permanent fix is here:

 

[Automatically set correct DISPLAY in mame.ini at startup - Marquee setups]

Mame has a problem choosing the correct monitor to run in if you have a setup that uses multiple monitors. Monitor indexes get changed in Windows but doesn't get updated in the mame.ini. This happens when you boot with one monitor off, or unplug one and plug it back in.

This is frustrating when you're trying to host an arcade cabinet and have it "just work". My games end up on the marquee screens which is a show stopper because it requires editing a text file to fix.

Here's a powershell script that permanently fixes this issue. You can turn into an exe via Invoke-PS2EXE and then put into your shell:startup folder to run on boot.

It runs mame in verbose mode to grab your (primary) display and then correctly uses that to overwrite the current DISPLAY setting in the mame.ini file. It then immediately shuts down mame.

Change the directories to yours:

#Set working dir to mame directory so that it can read and write the mame.ini
Set-Location -Path "C:\Emulation\Emulators\MAME 250\"
#Get-Location

#Run mame in verbose to grab display info. Wait 1 second so the file can be written
$proc = Start-Process -FilePath "C:\Emulation\Emulators\MAME 250\mame.exe" -ArgumentList "-verbose" -RedirectStandardOutput output.txt
Start-Sleep -Seconds 1
$inputs = Get-Content -Path 'C:\Emulation\Emulators\MAME 250\output.txt'
#Write-Output $inputs
#Find primary DISPLAY
$primarydisplayline = ($inputs | Select-String "\(primary\)").Line
$primarydisplay = $primarydisplayline -replace '.*(DISPLAY\d).*',"`$1"
Write-Output $primarydisplayline
Write-Output $primarydisplay

#Read in mame.ini
$content = Get-Content -Path 'C:\Emulation\Emulators\MAME 250\mame.ini'
#Write-Output $content

#Edit mame.ini mouse related lines
#Update DISPLAYx with primary DISPLAYy
$content = $content -replace '(DISPLAY\d)',"$primarydisplay"
#Write-Output $content

#Write new mame.ini file
$content | Set-Content -Path "C:\Emulation\Emulators\MAME 250\mame.ini"

#Kill mame
Get-Process -Name MAME -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | Stop-Process -Force

#Make guns rumble so we know this all worked
cmd.exe /c "echo F.1.2.1 > \\.\COM11"
cmd.exe /c "echo F.1.2.1 > \\.\COM12"

 

[cannot aim/move cross hairs when using DemulShooter to play 2 player.]

I solved my vcop problem.

The issue was that xinput = 1 in the m2 config literally breaks vcop and only vcop when trying to use a second gun with demulshooter. It needs to be set to 0. The only piece of evidence was that if xinput is set to 1, then the second player gun's shoot button is always activated when in the arcade settings menu.

This created another problem. My arcade cab only uses xinput input via its pacto 4000t control board. No dinpit was possible. The solution to continue to let them work for vcop was using xinput plus.

I made a new standalone copy of the m2 emulator directory for vcop and patched it with xinput plus to trigger dinput with xinput buttons and then rebound vcops controls.

[cannot aim/move cross hairs when using DemulShooter to play 2 player.]

Player 2 was only not working for vcop2, right? I think I had the same issue but thought it was vcop 1.

Did you just slot the old demulshooter executable in for the new one and it worked?

[How to fix "u" added to mame games in target file path? (Mame non merged)]

Confirming that mame handles these paths fine but retroarch mame current does not.

It happened in an update around the time I made this post initially.

I'm manually editing the launch paths for my playlist one by one but in the future won't set the import to default to the USA version.

Also, updating the playlisr xml files does nothing for the launch paths. It even leaves the old game path with the "u" at the end on them after I update the path and restart launchbox.

[Did the past couple beta releases fix the vrr stuttering issue in big box menus?]

I literally just did that trick after adding big box as a "game" in the Radeon drivers.

It works. Thank you!

[Did the past couple beta releases fix the vrr stuttering issue in big box menus?]

Thanks. I'm using a nuc hades canyon that has an integrated Radeon card that has special radeon (and now intel) drivers that seems to never get updated.

I'll try setting up a profile for big box and see if I can turn vrr off for it.

That said, I don't think alt + tab fixes anything. 

[[HOW TO] Automatically set correct mouse (light guns) bindings in Supermodel 3 config file]

I updated the script to force the use of rawinput mode when grabbing the mouse ID's. Sometimes it would use directinput (no idea why) and not be able to find the gun IDs. Secondly, there was a bug if you only had MOUSE in the config instead of MOUSE2 or MOUSE3 and the regex wouldn't find the correct pattern to update with the gun ID.

[Did the past couple beta releases fix the vrr stuttering issue in big box menus?]

1 minute ago, C-Beats said:

Had to check changelog. We moved to .NET 6.0 (from .NET Core 3.1) in version 13.3 about a year ago.

Got it.

I just checked again after doing a reboot and ensuring that VRR was enabled.

Sadly, I was wrong. I'm not sure why it was smooth after a reboot yesterday. Maybe vrr was temporarily disabled.

The framerste is still fought over as you can see with the fps changing (its not a performance issue), which causes the uneven scrolling.

The video was taken after a fresh reboot.

 

 

[Did the past couple beta releases fix the vrr stuttering issue in big box menus?]

Very cool. Any idea when the cutover was? I noticed sometime during this 13 version.

I'll double check that it's working as well.

[Videos and sound continue to play in-game when I select a game fast]

That's a good idea but doesn't fix the incorrect digital marquee.

[Did the past couple beta releases fix the vrr stuttering issue in big box menus?]

The big box menu is choppy and stutters when you have and variable refresh on (gsync or free sync). It's very obvious when scrolling through games.

However, I updated today and see that it's smoother again, like no vrr is on. I checked my video card settings and vrr is definitely still on.

Has anyone else noticed this or is it just me?

I was told in the past that it's an issue with the older library or package used to create bix box's ui. Maybe that got updated on the side?

[Videos and sound continue to play in-game when I select a game fast]

Yeah, the active marquee makes it obvious why it occurs. The event system hasn't updated the state before launching the game.

[LED Blinky doesn't switch animation when PC games start]

LED Blinky has a specific animation when browsing games in Big Box.

It switches to static lights (still technically an animation) when a game starts. This works fine for emulated games.

However, when PC games start, it continue to use the Big Box animation.

Anyone know what's going on?

[Fly cast and hotd2 - The gamepad overlay breaks lightgun 1]

Just feel the need to out this out on the internet in case anyone else ever runs into this. This had me pulling my hair out. Setting up light guns in retroarch flycast is already confusing enough.

Anyways. If you happen to use the bezel overlay that shows what buttons are being pressed via an snes controller... that somehow intercepts and breaks the player 1 light gun controls from doing anything. Player 2's light gun works fine because player 2 doesn't trigger the buttons on the overlay.

[Does removing and reimporting a mame merged romset mess up my custom playlists?]

When the file path is set to a game ending in "U", but also has a specific app version set, what happens? I feel like they would conflict, and I assume the default app version takes over?

Or are they completely separate things?

[Does removing and reimporting a mame merged romset mess up my custom playlists?]

Makes sense. The backups make me feel better.

Sadly, my arcade playlists are manual and highly curated. I suppose I can regex out the U's at the end of games in the playlist xml file, right? Maybe that'll be easier since I don't start the games any other way in my arvade cabinet.

How does this game file path ending with U vs not have to do with the prioritized launch version of the game?

[Does removing and reimporting a mame merged romset mess up my custom playlists?]

Anyone know before I go reimport? I'll specifically NOT he setting it to prefer US versions, which IS set right now...

[How to fix "u" added to mame games in target file path? (Mame non merged)]

Ok, so dealing with the issue again when I had family over for thanksgiving, I think the problem arose when I updated retroarch mame core. I think they changed the way games are loaded. I.e tmntu is a "clone" and does not load anymore. You need to point to only tmnt.

I figured this out when I had to change xmenu to xmen. The game was stuck on a 13B BAD memory issue and wouldn't get to the title screen. I had to delete its nvram file for it work. It seems like updating the mame core to a newer version broke this all somehow.

Can I reimport my mame library to fix this somehow? As in, set all games with a "u" clone version to the normal version?

[Does removing and reimporting a mame merged romset mess up my custom playlists?]

I want to import a new merged romset but don't want to lost all of my custom playlists and platform.

[How to fix "u" added to mame games in target file path? (Mame non merged)]

Ok well something changed then and I'm not sure what happened.

Any game with "u" at the end does not load anymore. I have to directly point it to the merged version without the "u".

Do you happen to know if I can launch mame manually in a way and see the logging as it tries to find tmnt?

[How to fix "u" added to mame games in target file path? (Mame non merged)]

I can't remember when this happened and if I messed it up or it was something else.

My target launch apps for games like tmnt are actually set to tmntu, as if I didn't use a mame merged list. Which I am. 

For example, tmnt is just tmnt in mame merged, but tmntu in mane non merged.

For some reason, my mame games got set to use the non merged set. This means I need to manually remove the "u".

This was not a problem a month or two ago so I'm trying to figure out what changed. I don't think I did an import and I definitely have been using the make merged set for over a year.

Anyone know what's going on or if I can fix it by reimporting my arcade games as merged?

I'm in the betas.

[MAME Lag Reduction]

All you have to do to confirm the input delay is pause the game, hold down an attack then push the skip ahead one frame button. Count how many presses or frames it took. Most mame games are about 3 frames behind what they should be.

This is not the same thing that vrr and vsync help with.