Jump to content
LaunchBox Community Forums

Magnavox Odyssey o2em Emulator Fullscreen and Command Line Questions


zorkiii

Recommended Posts

Hi, I am working with o2em to launch my Odyssey 2 games, everything is emulating great including the voice samples and such, however I am unable to launch this in full screen through Launchbox. I can get it to launch in full screen outside of LaunchBox. I believe the issue is that the command line option for full screen needs to come after the o2em.exe "FULL\PATH\TO\ROM\FILE" rather than in-between like o2em.exe -fullscreen "FULL\PATH\TO\ROM\FILE". 

When I enter the command line parameter it inserts it between the two as shown in the Sample Command screenshot below:

launchbox.png

The o2em manual states:

Usage:
o2em <file> [options]

If I take out the -fullscreen parameter in LaunchBox it launches o2em and the rom without any problems, but it's in a small window.

Curious how I can get around this? Any help is appreciated.

 

Edited by zorkiii
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi @zorkiii

The best way to enable fullscreen is to add this to the emulator's 02em_def.cfg file.
Add it as just fullscreen. Leave out the - bit.
And if you use fullscreen in the config file, don't forget to remove the -fullscreen parameter in your LaunchBox Edit Emulator settings, as it will override the config file fullscreen setting.

MAME can also emulate the Odyssey 2 very well.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, DOS76 said:

I use the O2em core in RetroArch I haven't done much testing of the actual game play but the games all launch from it without any issues.

HI @DOS76 - I am also able to use that core and launch the games with it just fine, however in my experience the sound is not working well, in comparison to the actual machine and other emulators it is garbled/distorted. I wasn't able to get the voice samples to work in it.

3 hours ago, spycat said:

Hi @zorkiii

The best way to enable fullscreen is to add this to the emulator's 02em_def.cfg file.
Add it as just fullscreen. Leave out the - bit.
And if you use fullscreen in the config file, don't forget to remove the -fullscreen parameter in your LaunchBox Edit Emulator settings, as it will override the config file fullscreen setting.

MAME can also emulate the Odyssey 2 very well.

Hi @spycat and thanks, I did create the config file and added the fullscreen option to it before posting this as well, but I receive the following error:

error.png

Looking this up online I'm seeing another person that has experienced this same thing at the following forum post: https://www.gameex.info/forums/topic/13471-hilarious-odyssey2-emulator-harder-to-get-working-than-dolphin/

The solution there was to put the fullscreen option after the game in the commandline as the o2em documentation states the usage should be. 

I was using MAME/MESS to emulate the Odyssey 2 just fine, but had issues with the voice samples for the games not working, plus the keyboard emulation is pretty weird in that you have to hit scroll lock I believe in order to access the Mame menus, since the Odyssey 2 has an actual keyboard. 

I am wondering if the order or commandline operations might be configurable in future releases? It would be useful I think to have a checkbox or something on the emulator setup screen that states "Put commandline options after the rom file" or something similar.

Hmm, I am wondering what the best solution might be. @spycat do you have the voice samples setup in Mame by chance? 

Edited by zorkiii
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi @zorkiii

The o2em config file works fine for me for launching games in fullscreen.

 

To use the Odyssey 2 voice synthesis in MAME you will need to grab the Voice Passthrough Cart. This contains three files
sp0256b-019.bin
spr128-003.bin
spr128-004.bin

Add these three files to your odyssey2.zip bios. Your bios should now look like
o2bios.rom
sp0256b-019.bin
spr128-003.bin
spr128-004.bin

In the Associated Platforms for MAME, add your Odyssey 2 platform and use the parameters
odyssey2 -cart1 voice -cart2

You will now hear the synthesised voices in games that use this feature.

Also, as MAME emulates the speech synthesis chips, the wav samples that you use with o2em are not needed here.
 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

So this passthrough cart isn't already a device ROM in MAME and MAME actually lets you add things to the bios?  I would think it would be like having an old ROM that's files have changed and now they don't work in MAME because it doesn't pass what ever check they run. I didn't know this was a thing with O2 so I'm curious now.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi Derek

Yes you can also do it without modifying your odyssey2.zip bios.

In this case just add the three files from the Voice Passthrough Cart to a zipped file named 02_voice.zip

You get the same result now using 2 instead of 1 zipped files.

The Associated Platforms parameters will be the same.

I'm not really gone on this voice synthesis stuff from the 1980's myself, I prefer those games without it, but it's fun to play around with.

 

Edit

02_voice should read o2_voice

Edited by spycat
typo
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, spycat said:

Hi @zorkiii

The o2em config file works fine for me for launching games in fullscreen.

 

To use the Odyssey 2 voice synthesis in MAME you will need to grab the Voice Passthrough Cart. This contains three files
sp0256b-019.bin
spr128-003.bin
spr128-004.bin

Add these three files to your odyssey2.zip bios. Your bios should now look like
o2bios.rom
sp0256b-019.bin
spr128-003.bin
spr128-004.bin

In the Associated Platforms for MAME, add your Odyssey 2 platform and use the parameters
odyssey2 -cart1 voice -cart2

You will now hear the synthesised voices in games that use this feature.

Also, as MAME emulates the speech synthesis chips, the wav samples that you use with o2em are not needed here.
 

This is great, I just got home and set it up in less than 5 minutes and it works without a hitch. Thank you very much @spycat! I didn't own one of these consoles growing up but my cousins did and thought it was great, I always loved the voice part of the Odyssey 2 personally. It's really not the greatest machine, but I felt like the emulation was not complete without having the voice option in there. Now I am satisfied :) thank you again. I guess I can just skip the o2em issues. But I would like to someday know why my system won't launch that app in fullscreen and produces the error. I did write to the developer on Sourceforge today, not sure how often any replies come through on that sort of thing.

Edited by zorkiii
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 year later...

Hi,

I'm having the same issue with O2EM.  @zorkiii Did the developer get back to you on it?

EDIT:
Found a way to fix it for anyone still having this issue with O2EM. Make sure that in the exe compatibility properties you have "Disable display on high DPI settings" checked. That should do the trick. :)

Edited by polygonslayer
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Unfortunately, your content contains terms that we do not allow. Please edit your content to remove the highlighted words below.
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...