The Great Emulator Coverage Thread

[Jason Carr]

@sundogak That is tremendously helpful; thank you. I'll get the list updated, and I can use your details on the forceful setting to help with defaults in the app.

[Jason Carr]

12 hours ago, sundogak said:

MAME
Startup - Works
Pause - Works
Odd Controller Issue: With an XBOX One Controller.  If assign Automation buttons Left Shoulder (Button 5 HOLD) and Start (Button 7) brings up MAME menu (tab) along with pause.  When hit resume in Pause menu returns but now MAME menu is up and have to tab out to exit MAME menu.  If assign another button besides those two, no issues.  No AHK or Steam running so weird.  
Oddly, with same assignments above if hit the LEFT and RIGHT Shoulder (5 and 6) it Pauses but no menu even though in Automation assignment Button 6 isn't even assigned.

Is it possible that one of those buttons is bound to the menu in MAME? I'm guessing that's what's going on.

[sundogak]

8 hours ago, Jason Carr said:

Is it possible that one of those buttons is bound to the menu in MAME? I'm guessing that's what's going on.

Some mystery person came in and assigned a MAME ctrl cfg file with a conflict....or could be that I didn't remember I assigned a pause combo.   ? So indeed was conflict on my end and when returned to defaults no issues.

[sundogak]

Messed with Future Pinball a bit and does work under certain cases:

• Future Pinball - No BAM.  No AHK Compiled EXE Loaders.  Pause Works.   Forceful must be turned on.  Forceful turned off doesn't bring up menu. Used this in default command line parameters to avoid using a loader: 

/open %romfile% /play /exit

• Future Pinball  - No BAM.  With AHK Loader (like below).  Pause Broken.  Doesn't bring up screen or pause game.  I was using a modified version of the loader below when tested yesterday when thought it was broken without BAM.  LB used to not be  able to launch directly so folks may have the loader still if haven't modified setups. 

• Future Pinball  - With BAM (uses FPLoader.exe)  Pause Broken.  Doesn't bring up screen or pause game.   I also found that any AHK script in LB wouldn't work once started using FPLoader. Hence, why I had been using a compiled AHK for XBOX Controller Guide Button mapping (exit game).   It did mute the sound (on Beta 13) on occasion when hitting LB pause combo, so something was trying to work.  BAM uses a different pause mechanism than vanilla FP, so may be part of issue.
• Future Pinball - With BAM and using AHK Loader. Pause Broken.

So basically, anything that is a pre-loader to FP causes issues.  Although the controller automation combo to exit back to LB always seems to work on the above scenarios so some things are getting passed even if pre-loader used.

[bundangdon]

Had a chance to try out a few more emulators with the new pause feature, along with one update

AppleWin (update) - pause seems to be working now when turning off "force pause"

Bliss - Intellivision - Startup Working - Fade Working with issues
weird/wonky screen behavivor while going in and out of pause screen, also very slow

Punes - Nintendo NES - Startup Working - Fade Working

Kat5200 - Atari 5200 - Startup Working - Fade Working

WinVice - Commodore Computers - Startup Working - Fade Working

Stella - Atari 2600 - Startup Working - Fade Working

Reicast - Sega Dreamcast - Startup Working - Fade Working

MelonDS - Nintendo DS - Startup Working - Fade Working

[Jason Carr]

Thank you guys, I'll get the table updated.

@bundangdon Can you list out what settings you're using for those emulators? Forceful on or off? It would help if you could test with both.

[deliyuerek85]

I still have the problem in Retroarch, that the pause screen is not working some times. Sometimes the screen does not show up but the game pauses. After a few tries it shows up again.

Sometimes I get a black screen and can't close it. I need to press the "Windows" Button on the keyboard an click on the emulator on the task bar to get it work again.

Sometimes the pause screen does not work any more and I need to restart BB.

I have not tried it with the new beta, because I am not at home. Dolphin seems to have similar problems. But I have not tested it extensively.

 

EDIT: The same issues remain in the newest beta. The black screen can be closed by pushing the "back" button now. I have testet it with some pc games and there the pause screen works fine.

Edited May 10, 2019 by deliyuerek85

[bundangdon]

16 hours ago, Jason Carr said:

Thank you guys, I'll get the table updated.

@bundangdon Can you list out what settings you're using for those emulators? Forceful on or off? It would help if you could test with both.

No problem! Here's a slightly updated version

AppleWin (update) - pause seems to be working now when turning off "force"

Bliss - Intellivision - Startup Working - Fade Working 
weird/wonky screen behavivor while going in and out of pause screen, much smoother with "force" turned off

Punes - Nintendo NES - Startup Working - Fade Working (with "force" on or off)

Kat5200 - Atari 5200 - Startup Working - Fade Working (with "force" on or off)

WinVice - Commodore Computers - Startup Working - Fade Working (with "force" on or off)

Stella - Atari 2600 - Startup Working - Fade Working (with "force" on or off)

Reicast - Sega Dreamcast - Startup Working - Fade Working (with "force" on or off)

MelonDS - Nintendo DS - Startup Working - Fade Working  (with "force" on or off)

Desmume - Nintendo DS - Startup Working - Fade Working (with "force" on or off)

mGBA - Gameboy Advance - Startup Working - Fade Working (only with "force" on)

[Jason Carr]

10 hours ago, deliyuerek85 said:

I still have the problem in Retroarch, that the pause screen is not working some times. Sometimes the screen does not show up but the game pauses. After a few tries it shows up again.

Sometimes I get a black screen and can't close it. I need to press the "Windows" Button on the keyboard an click on the emulator on the task bar to get it work again.

Sometimes the pause screen does not work any more and I need to restart BB.

I have not tried it with the new beta, because I am not at home. Dolphin seems to have similar problems. But I have not tested it extensively.

 

EDIT: The same issues remain in the newest beta. The black screen can be closed by pushing the "back" button now. I have testet it with some pc games and there the pause screen works fine.

After doing a bunch of testing, I've noticed that certain running background apps can interfere and cause issues like this. For example, on my system, for whatever reason if I have an RDP session (Remote Desktop) open, it will cause similar issues. Unfortunately I don't think there's anything I can do about that, because it seems to be either a Windows or a driver glitch. So I would suggest trying to close background apps to see if you can identify the issue. Unfortunately there's only so much I can do to get around those types of issues, so that kind of stuff I may not be able to solve. The pause screens work consistently well on the five machines I'm testing on, so long as the background environment is clean.

[deliyuerek85]

8 hours ago, Jason Carr said:

After doing a bunch of testing, I've noticed that certain running background apps can interfere and cause issues like this. For example, on my system, for whatever reason if I have an RDP session (Remote Desktop) open, it will cause similar issues. Unfortunately I don't think there's anything I can do about that, because it seems to be either a Windows or a driver glitch. So I would suggest trying to close background apps to see if you can identify the issue. Unfortunately there's only so much I can do to get around those types of issues, so that kind of stuff I may not be able to solve. The pause screens work consistently well on the five machines I'm testing on, so long as the background environment is clean.

I have found the cause of the problem. It is the DPI scaling of my windows. I'm using 150% scaling, because I am using my PC on my TV. If I set the scaling to 100% the issue is gone and the pause screen is working fine. But then my desktop and everything else is to small. The Retroarch menu is than small too. Could you find a solution for this? I think there will be more people that will have the same problem in the future.

Edited May 11, 2019 by deliyuerek85

[wallmachine]

6 minutes ago, deliyuerek85 said:

I have found the cause of the problem. It is the DPI scaling of my windows. I'm using 150% scaling, because I am using my PC on my TV. If I set the scaling to 100% the issue is gone and the pause screen is working fine. But then my desktop and everything else is to small. The Retroarch menu is than small too. Could you find a solution for this? I think there will be more people that will have the same problem in the future.

This is a problem with making themes responsive in general on different DPI and resolutions, the solution might be a plugin...

[deliyuerek85]

12 hours ago, wallmachine said:

This is a problem with making themes responsive in general on different DPI and resolutions, the solution might be a plugin...

I have no experiance in plugin programming. Without a fix, the pause screens are unusable for me in Retroarch and maybe some other emulators. Unfortunately I'm using Retroarch for most of the platforms. This pause screen feature was something I was looking forward to a long time and now I can not use it.

Edited May 11, 2019 by deliyuerek85

[neil9000]

2 minutes ago, deliyuerek85 said:

I have no experiance in plugin programming. Without a fix, the pause screens are unusable for me in Retroarch and maybe some other emulators. Unfortunately I'm using Retroarch for most of the platforms. This pause screen feature was something I was looking forward to a long time and now I can not use it.

I am on a 4K display with 200% scaling and both retroarch and the pause screens are working just fine for me. So it could be that the source of your problem lays elsewhere.

[Jason Carr]

5 minutes ago, deliyuerek85 said:

I have no experiance in plugin programming. Without a fix, the pause screens are unusable for me in Retroarch and maybe some other emulators. Unfortunately I'm using Retroarch for most of the platforms. This pause screen feature was something I was looking forward to a long time and now I can not use it.

I've tested DPI scaling and that is definitely not the issue. I tested Retroarch many times with 150% DPI scaling. I'm not sure what might be causing issues on your system, but I would try closing all background applications to see if it makes a difference, and then try making sure all of your drivers are up to date.

[Jason Carr]

12 hours ago, wallmachine said:

This is a problem with making themes responsive in general on different DPI and resolutions, the solution might be a plugin...

Issues with text sizing (like I think you're referring to) are definitely not related to this at all.

[deliyuerek85]

6 minutes ago, Jason Carr said:

I've tested DPI scaling and that is definitely not the issue. I tested Retroarch many times with 150% DPI scaling. I'm not sure what might be causing issues on your system, but I would try closing all background applications to see if it makes a difference, and then try making sure all of your drivers are up to date.

I've already tried that. And I'm shure my drivers are all up to date. It is not a high end system but until now I had no problems with Launchbox/Bigbox and Retroarch. I think I have to wait and hope that the problem will be solve itself with future updates and optimisations. Until then pause screens are dead for me.

Edited May 11, 2019 by deliyuerek85

[neil9000]

8 minutes ago, deliyuerek85 said:

I've already tried that. And I'm shure my drivers are all up to date. It is not a high end system but until now I had no problems with Launchbox/Bigbox and Retroarch. I think I have to wait and hope that the problem will be solve itself with future updates and optimisations. Until then pause screens are dead for me.

[deliyuerek85]

8 minutes ago, neil9000 said:

 

As I said, my system is not high end (Microsoft Surface Pro). Even the loading of the manuals is taking 5 times longer than in your video.

[Jason Carr]

15 minutes ago, deliyuerek85 said:

As I said, my system is not high end (Microsoft Surface Pro). Even the loading of the manuals is taking 5 times longer than in your video.

I see. It could certainly be a performance issue, or an odd issue with that hardware. I have tested with an old Core 2 Duo and things are working great with it (even performance-wise), but I can imagine that a super portable machine like that from that long ago might be seeing some issues. What version of Windows are you running on it?

[deliyuerek85]

1 hour ago, Jason Carr said:

I see. It could certainly be a performance issue, or an odd issue with that hardware. I have tested with an old Core 2 Duo and things are working great with it (even performance-wise), but I can imagine that a super portable machine like that from that long ago might be seeing some issues. What version of Windows are you running on it?

Windows 10. My Launchbox and Retroarch are on a external hard drive. Maybe that is also the issue. But on my internal SSD drive is not enaugh space to move them there.

EDIT: When the pause screen does not appear, but the game pauses, I can still hear the menu sound if I press down. I can even save and load states. So the screen is there but not visible. ?

Edited May 11, 2019 by deliyuerek85