Pause Screen

[Etock]

Same. Having the exact same issue with the mame2016_libretro core. Hitting "Pause", pauses within Mame, and does not bring up the Big Box pause screen.

It does however work in Launch Box.

Edited March 14, 2020 by Etock

[ItchyRobot]

Are any of you guys having pause issues using a two button combination to bring up the BigBox pause theme screen?

I was, and would get inconsistent pause actions ... sometime it worked as intended bringing up the BigBox pause theme, other times it would just pause the screen (MAME pause) and not bring up the BigBox pause window. Once I switched to just using one button to enact the BigBox pause theme, it has now been working correctly consistently.

 

In BigBox settings, I used to have 'Keyboard Automation' checked to be turned on. And used my player two start button (keyboard # 2) + my Coin1 (keyboard # 5) button to enact the BigBox pause menu. Once I turned 'Keyboard Automation' off, and set my pause to be one button (keyboard letter C) under the 'Keyboard Mapping' options section, all my pause inconsistencies went away ... for now 

Edited March 18, 2020 by ItchyRobot

[Etock]

My issue was finally resolved after unmapping the pause buttons within retroarch itself.

[playab0yyy]

On 11/25/2019 at 2:05 PM, ItchyRobot said:

Are there any other cases, besides my own, of BigBox losing focus when bringing up the BigBox pause screen in MAME (198)?

Sometimes it comes up fine, only to lose focus when choosing EXIT. It will instead just go back to the game or to a black screen... when in black screen I can alt+tab and see MAME is still running. This makes me thing BigBox tried, but failed to close MAME when I selected the EXIT option.

And then sometimes the BigBox Pause screen wont come up at all when in MAME.

I have it set to P in MAME and BigBox. And got rid of P for Play for the other keyboard default function.

Did you find a solution to this? I may not have the exact same problem, but it sounds pretty damn close. In my case, it’s the Visual Pinball X emulator. Check out the attached video. Pausing works, but when I go to resume the game, the emulator (VPX) is taking over the screen. I’m having to alt tab to get by it. Any thoughts?

[DJ Callyman]

On 3/19/2020 at 7:33 AM, ItchyRobot said:

Are any of you guys having pause issues using a two button combination to bring up the BigBox pause theme screen?

I was, and would get inconsistent pause actions ... sometime it worked as intended bringing up the BigBox pause theme, other times it would just pause the screen (MAME pause) and not bring up the BigBox pause window. Once I switched to just using one button to enact the BigBox pause theme, it has now been working correctly consistently.

 

In BigBox settings, I used to have 'Keyboard Automation' checked to be turned on. And used my player two start button (keyboard # 2) + my Coin1 (keyboard # 5) button to enact the BigBox pause menu. Once I turned 'Keyboard Automation' off, and set my pause to be one button (keyboard letter C) under the 'Keyboard Mapping' options section, all my pause inconsistencies went away ... for now 

Having the exact same issue here. I was using Keyboard Automation within Bigbox which would seem to stop working after a time so I turned it off and instead turned on the shift functionality on my ipac keyboard encoder. Unfortunately this has the same effect - works for a bit before not working at all.

The funny thing is I can still bring up the pause screen using controller automation. And I can still quit a game using a shift key. It specifically seems to affect keyboard combinations for the pause screen.

Some have suggested that it is specific to certain themes within Bigbox - but for me it happens on every one I've tried - even the default.

[PaulC]

is it suggested to map pause buttons to nothing in emulators that are using a pause screen? or the default.  What command does big box send when you hit the designated pause screen button set in big box.

[PaulC]

I'm getting annoyed.. i've been trying to get this all working for the past 2 weeks. Sometimes it works, sometimes not, sometimes i can't exit the game!  The pause screen goes behind the game and there's no way out of that.  I was told by many..get Big Box!  And it isn't even done yet.  I'd like to be done. So I can relax and enjoy this time off.  I can't have my arcade have so many glitches. What fun is that?  Mame is the most consistent..Nestopia was fine...now it isn't.    I'm using d3 on the tankstick for pause.   d2 and d4 to exit.  the pause screen does not a have a key assigned in the keyboard automation.

 

 

 

[Retrofrogg]

Pause button for me not working just now in MAME (latest version but one) or RA. Used to work. Pause option is selected globally and for the emulator. 

[Retro808]

Is it a controller button binding or a keyboard key?

[Joe35car]

It will instead just go back to the game or to a black screen... when in black screen I can alt+tab and see MAME is still running.

 

Hope this topic is not dead. I was able to get pause working in LB and BB but when I try and return to game it goes back to either LB or BB with MAME running in the background. I have to hit ALt/ tab to view it. How do I fix this because this is very annoying.

 

Thanks

Edited February 11, 2021 by Joe35car

[Your Friendly A.I Overlord]

30 minutes ago, Joe35car said:

It will instead just go back to the game or to a black screen

 

30 minutes ago, Joe35car said:

I was able to get pause working in LB and BB but when I try and return to game it goes back to either LB or BB with MAME running in the background

I am not sure what your question is. After entering the pause screen, resume the game? Or in the pause screen exiting the game? Either way, for me the pause screen in Mame works as intended with the following settings:

 

[Joe35car]

3 hours ago, Koroth said:

 

I am not sure what your question is. After entering the pause screen, resume the game? Or in the pause screen exiting the game? Either way, for me the pause screen in Mame works as intended with the following settings:

 

Sorry if I wasn't clear. I'm using Big Fade Pause Theme. I have everything in the picture above checked. I am able to access Pause using LB and BB. The problem I'm having is when I want to return to the game from Pause Theme it goes back to LB or BB and MAME is running in the background. I would have to use the ALt+Tab key to be able to view and play the game. How I fix this so that when I exit Pause it goes back to the game. I'm using Big Fade Pause and running MAME on most systems. Like I said it all works except when trying to exit Pause and returning to the game. It returns to LB/BB and MAME is running in background.

 

Thanks

Edited February 12, 2021 by Joe35car

[Your Friendly A.I Overlord]

The only thing I can think off, a workaround, is that you put:

WinActivate, ahk_exe mame64.exe

In the  LaunchBox Mame settings > Pause Screen > On Resume tab.

*Edit*

It just occurred to me, maybe the startup screens are interfering. If you have them enabled, see if disabling them fixes the problem.

Edited February 11, 2021 by Koroth

[Joe35car]

OK so it works when using other emulators other then MAME. I am using Rocketlauncher with LB/BB. It has to be some type of setting in MAME where it doesn't return to the game after I try to resume back to game after pause.

[Joe35car]

Update: Ok So I know the problem is that the bezels in Rocketlauncer is causing the issues. So when I have bezels turned off in LB for Arcade (MAME) the start up fade and pause fade work and returns to the game after pause. When I try and use the system Nintendo and using MAME as the emulator the start up works and pause fade works but then MAME hides when returning to game. When I turn on the bezel in rocketlauncer it works but I don't want to use the bezels for all systems because the games are not full screen. Anyone have an idea how to fix this?

 

Thanks

[Your Friendly A.I Overlord]

8 minutes ago, Joe35car said:

Anyone have an idea how to fix this?

Yes, you better not mix RocketLauncher and LaunchBox features. If you want to use Rocketlaucher, use it's pause feature. Don't worry about the LaunchBox pause menu.

Btw.

Have you tried this yet? It might work.

21 hours ago, Koroth said:

The only thing I can think off, a workaround, is that you put:

WinActivate, ahk_exe mame64.exe

In the  LaunchBox Mame settings > Pause Screen > On Resume tab.

 

[Joe35car]

I tried that script but didn't work. Only reason I use RocketLauncher is because that's the only way I can get games to work in Launchbox. I want to use just the stand alone emulators without RocketLauncher and Retroarch which I never use but all the how to videos for setups on youtube usually use launchbox with retroarch. It's just weird that Arcade (MAME) works fine but when using other systems with MAME it doesn't unless I have bezels turned on in Rocketlauncher for that system.

Edited February 12, 2021 by Joe35car

[Joe35car]

Update: OK I used your script but I had to use it for the Rocketlauncher emulator as that's how I have it setup for my systems to work in Launchbox. Like I said the goal is to eliminate Rocketlauncher and just use Launchbox with standalone emulators.

Thanks for the workaround. It shows the LB/BB screen for a second but goes back to the game instead of hiding and having to use the Alt+TAB.

Edited February 12, 2021 by Joe35car

[Acethor]

@neil9000 I'm trying to setup the Pause screen for my Dosbox games but nothing's working. Enabled and setup the hotkey in the global options menu, set it to P. In- game nothing happens when I press. What am I doing wrong here? I checked the compatibility list you posted and Dosbox is supported. Am I supposed to insert some code somewhere? Cheers

[vaderag]

Wonder if anyone can help - after some messing about I got my pause screen working in MAME today (the settings are as they were but they didn't work initially but now they do... go figure!)

Anyway, I have another issue - I can't select any of the items with anthing but the enter key - however the enter key is not used on my arcade stick. Is there any way to change the mapping of what selects in the pause menu to something else?