[9.8-beta-1 Released]

7 hours ago, Jason Carr said:

Gotcha. What version of MAME are you running? Do you have the "-keyboardprovider dinput" command-line parameters in the MAME emulator settings in LaunchBox?

Per #3, all makes sense. Most likely there's something problematic with video drivers or something of that nature, and switching the renderer fixes it. It might be worth trying to update your video drivers to see if that helps as well.

#1 Exit option on Pause menu  Solved this one now

earlier on someone had suggested removing -keyboardprovider dinput when I was having problems (but that was probably when I had only JOYCODE_2_BUTTON7 in UI_CANCEL

when I added in JOYCODE_2_BUTTON7 OR KEYCODE_ESC, I needed to also add back -keyboardprovider dinput to command line arguments.

thanks for all the quick and helpful replies on this

[9.8-beta-1 Released]

On 5/27/2019 at 9:30 PM, Jason Carr said:

#1 is most likely because you're not using default keyboard binding settings, as I previously stated. You can change the key that the scripts send for MAME.

#2 I've seen before, and it was always because I had another app running that background that was somehow conflicting. For me, instances of Remote Desktop were causing it for some crazy reason. We're just using Windows APIs, but sadly they can be finicky with some apps running in background I've noted. Do make sure you don't have forceful activation checked in your MAME emulator settings as well, as that should be unnecessary for MAME and could be causing it.

#3 I've never been able to replicate this, and I just tried with those games and it seems to be working fine. So my guess would be that there's some kind of MAME configuration setting that is different that is causing it. If we can figure out what that is, I can look into it. Maybe try backing up your MAME settings and resetting them to the defaults to see if that fixes it?

#4 Yes, both keyboard and controller automation do require the hold key. There are separate settings in both LaunchBox and Big Box for a single key press to trigger the pause screens (under Game Pause).

#1 Exit option on Pause menu its not a big deal , just trying to track down why.  I am expecting when selecting Exit on the Pause menu the game would exit , but am seeing the Pause menu just return to the game (same effect as Resume ).

I had , thought maybe I needed the default exit key of ESC mapped to UI_CANCEL as I had a button (cabinet setup)

in mame cfg/default.cfg I had
<port type="UI_CANCEL">
    <newseq type="standard">
        JOYCODE_2_BUTTON7

I added ESC but still the Exit on the Pause menu just goes back to the game from the Pause screen (doesn't exit the game)
    JOYCODE_2_BUTTON7 OR KEYCODE_ESC                
I checked the mame settings in game with tab menu-> Input (General) and "UI Cancel" has Joy 2 Button 6 or ESC

 

#3 (vector games pause screen not coming up) solved this issue

I had in mame.ini
  video d3d
  bgfx_screen_chains hlsl
  filter 1

 in the mame ini folder there was a ini file for each vector game with the following. 
  [vector game rom].ini
   video           opengl
   hlsl_enable     0

I remove this game specific ini file and the pause screen came up.  So seems it was opengl or some combo of other mame.ini settings with opengl in the vector game specific ini files preventing the Pause screen from showing 

with removing those ini files the vector graphic games were very "glowy" i.e. didn't look right.  I then changed some settings in those vector game specific ini files and it looked better
and the Pause screen comes up
[vector game rom].ini
video d3d
filter 0
hlsl_enable 0

[9.8-beta-1 Released]

4 hours ago, Jason Carr said:

Yes, per @Retro808 I would guess that most of those issues are because of such an old version of MAME. Some of them may be due to unexpected (non-default) keyboard mappings though. You can check the pause screen script tabs in the MAME emulator settings in LaunchBox for the details on what keys it expects.

You also don't have to use controller or keyboard automation. There are separate binding options in LaunchBox and Big Box for a pause key.

upgraded to MAME .209, I didn't see that make any difference in those effects I saw.

- original notes with MAME .181
-- With MAME 0.209 and .209 roms (nothing added to Pause screen tab in MAME emulator, On Pause and On Resume tabs have "; No script is required ...")

1) - Using exit on Pause screen menu (most of the time) brings up a fullscreen palette screen overlayed on game.  mame exit buttonwill back out of that.  
 -- still does this with latest MAME if "-keyboardprovider dinput" is in command line parameters.  It does not do it if I remove "-keyboardprovider dinput" from commend line parameters.  BUT, selecting Exit on the Pause screen menu just returns to game, same effect as selecting Resume.

2) - Within Pause screen menu , hitting the pause screen button while in the Pause screen menu drops back to game but with a 5 second or so looping sound glitch.  Doesn't happen all the time, but occasionally
  -- still saw this happen once bouncing in and out of pause mode on number of games, can't reproduce, probably not an issue,  not a weak machine (i7 920, GTX760)

3) - Some games the Pause screen does not come up, the game pauses but the Pause screen does not come up.  Seems to happen with vector graphics games  (startrek, tempest, battlezone, Black Widow)
  -- stil seeing same issue in the vector based games, such as those listed.  Using pause screen button, the games pauses but pause screen with menu does not show up like all the other mame games.

4) - When assigning the Pause screen button in BigBox, do you have to use the Hold Key combo / Controller Automation.  Seems like you can't just assign a key for the Pause screen without controller automation/hold key assigned for it to work.
  -- I still see this , from this image below, the first config works with button combo (button 10 + 11) for pause screen, but the second config does not work to pause the game with button 11.  just referring to BigBox, I understand there is a different key/setting for launchbox

 

[9.8-beta-1 Released]

Pause Theme - Default
Arcade / MAME .181
LB 9.8

Couple things I have noticed in BigBox-

- Using exit on Pause screen menu (most of the time) brings up a fullscreen palette screen overlayed on game.  Exit key will back out of that.  Something needed to prevent that ?

- Within Pause screen menu , hitting the pause screen button while in the Pause screen menu drops back to game but with a 5 second or so looping sound glitch.  Doesn't happen all the time, but occasionally

- Some games the Pause screen does not come up, the games pauses but the Pause screen does not come up.  Seems to happen with vector games  (startrek, tempest, battlezone)

- When assigning the Pause screen button in BigBox, do you have to use the Hold Key combo / Controller Automation.  Seems like you can't just assign a key for the Pause screen without controller automation/hold key assigned for it to work.

[9.8-beta-1 Released]

For the new Pause screen, default theme that shows the controls information image:

assuming the images for MAME are coming from Arcade->Arcade - Controls Information directory.  Wanted to use CPWizard to generate a set of control images for my cabinet layout.  The images in the Arcade - Controls Information folder don't seemed to be named with the rom name which CPWizard creates.

example: I see 1941_ Counter Attack-01.png and not the rom name 1941.png

Where is the association of the "1941" rom with the name "1941_ Counter Attack-01" for the controls image set from that the Pause theme seems to be using ?

thanks

[REQUEST - Show controller mappings before launching game?]

Been watching this thread and it seemed similar to a request in the poll "LaunchBox Upcoming Features - February/March 2018 Results" this item was 10th on the list.
https://www.surveymonkey.com/results/SM-V9D22LCH8/

• Control Definitions with Overlays/Icons (Display the Controls for a Game/Platform)

Does anyone know what the detail of that proposed feature would be?  Would it be something similar to the theme modifcation above ?  

At a minum, what would be useful is to show the platform controls using the pause button for example.  Primarily for people who are not completely familiar with the setup on the arcade cabinet to know how to exit out of the game back to the menus, restart the game, add credits, etc. based on a button layout/image that one could provide by platform.  Showing individual game controls would then be an additional really nice to have on top of the platform controls.

[NullDC Hydro Thunder - 2 player blank screen]

Anyone verify if Hydro Thunder works in 2 player mode through nulldc, one player works fine but 2 player on start of race is black screen (some green garbeled bar at bottom).  Settings to correct or does not work with 2 player ?

thanks for any help,