Having hell with Demul fullscreen Hikaru roms

[Jayinem]

Trust me I don't even ask anything until I've exhausted all my resources. I'm stuck at home so I have nothing but time and I have been googling like crazy and have gotten many suggestions. I have tried Hikarufullscreen, the screen blinks and goes to a full black screen then goes back to a small window. I have tried this script in Launchbox which is a command to hit Alt+enter (hitting Alt+enter myself also doesn't work btw)

 

Sleep, 9500
Send {Alt Down}{Enter}{Enter Up}{Alt Up}

I tried right clicking on Demul.exe and changing DPI settings, changing  color to 16 bit, changing to admin. Of course I clicked fullscreen in Demul and tried different resolutions. Tried going into my graphic cards and changing settings there, and tried changing the resolution of my computer and set scaling to 100%. It simply refuses to stay fullscreen.

I have narrowed it down to a computer issue because I have another laptop and I tried it with HikaruFullscreen and it worked the first try with no change of settings. I realize this is not really a Launchbox problem per say, but I was hoping someone knowledgeable about computers might give me some advice.

I probably would have just given up already but the maddening this is I got it to work about a week ago! But when I tried it again yesterday it went back to a window. I changed Demul settings for other games and changed computer settings to get other games to work and now after trying since yesterday almost none stop I can not replicate getting it to work. If I ever get it to work again I will make a .txt of all the things I did and I will even make a seperate copy of Demul that way I can make sure I never accidentally change them again, but I'm not sure I can get to that point.

Here are my computer specs if it matters

Processor    Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-7100U CPU @ 2.40GHz, 2400 Mhz, 2 Core(s), 4 Logical Processor(s)

 

Edited April 26, 2020 by Jayinem

[Jayinem]

I should clarify one thing it seems it's just a problem with going fullscreen on Demul period. Naomi, Dreamcast and Atomiswave work fullscreen windowed. There's no such option for Hikaru you either have to have the small window or fullscreen it's a flaw in the design of Demul for those games. I would probably just settle for playing windowed but I'm trying to play a lightgun game Brave Firefighters and it's not really plausible to play a lightgun game in a small window since my Lightgun is like a mouse you end up clicking on other things behind Demul and you end up with another app instead of Demul in front of you. Plus it's just better to have games full screen.

Edited April 26, 2020 by Jayinem

[Retro808]

2 hours ago, Jayinem said:

I should clarify one thing it seems it's just a problem with going fullscreen on Demul period. Naomi, Dreamcast and Atomiswave work fullscreen windowed. There's no such option for Hikaru you either have to have the small window or fullscreen it's a flaw in the design of Demul for those games. I would probably just settle for playing windowed but I'm trying to play a lightgun game Brave Firefighters and it's not really plausible to play a lightgun game in a small window since my Lightgun is like a mouse you end up clicking on other things behind Demul and you end up with another app instead of Demul in front of you. Plus it's just better to have games full screen.

Did you check the Video plugin setting within Demul. Maybe you changed it (I think there is only 2 settings DX11 and DX11old)? I did not see you mention if you checked that. Hikaru is running fine fullscreen on the few cabinets I have those games in.

[Jayinem]

1 hour ago, Retro808 said:

Did you check the Video plugin setting within Demul. Maybe you changed it (I think there is only 2 settings DX11 and DX11old)? I did not see you mention if you checked that. Hikaru is running fine fullscreen on the few cabinets I have those games in.

Yes I've tried both a hundred times with every resolution possible. Like I said on my other computer it worked first time and I even copied the demul folder to a usb stick and put it on that other computer with the same settings so it's some sort of computer issue not a Demul issue, but I don't know how to fix it.

[Jayinem]

I solved this with Windowed Borderless Gaming app a little steam app that force the game to go fullscreen windowed, in case anyone ever has the same issue. 

Edited April 28, 2020 by Jayinem

[kritvichu]

Thanks for the post and resolution. It is very helpful. I started compiling Naomi, Atomiswave, and Hikaru and also ran into the same problem yesterday too. I am focusing on solving my other problems on Demul (below) but I know soon or later, I need to figure how to make Hikaru running in full screen without having to press Alt-Tab everytime. I will buy that Borderless Gaming app. It looks very handy.  By the way, do you also experience the problems on my post? I would be appreciate for any of your input.  

   

[Jayinem]

WindowedBorderlessGaming is free just google it, it works for pretty much all PC games from what I've read but I've used it only on Hikaru on Demul. I don't know if I can help you with your arcade cabinet problem. Maybe try binding the escape button to one of the arcade buttons? That's all I got. 

I'm not using an Arcade Cabinet I wish but I just use an HDTV. I ran into the same problem though with my Dualshock 3 some games use the d-pad instead of joystick. There's not great solution though if you reverse the mapping because other games use the joystick instead of d-pad.  What I do sometimes for individual settings per game on an emulator that doesn't have one is just make copies of the emulator folder and have how ever many copies of it that way I can just change the settings. Not ideal by any means but sometimes there's no other options unless you want to go in there and change settings all the time. 

Edited April 29, 2020 by Jayinem

[kritvichu]

17 minutes ago, Jayinem said:

WindowedBorderlessGaming is free just google it, it works for pretty much all PC games from what I've read but I've used it only on Hikaru on Demul. I don't know if I can help you with your arcade cabinet problem. Maybe try binding the escape button to one of the arcade buttons? That's all I got. 

I'm not using an Arcade Cabinet I wish but I just use an HDTV. I ran into the same problem though with my Dualshock 3 some games use the d-pad instead of joystick. There's not great solution though if you reverse the mapping because other games use the joystick instead of d-pad.  What I do sometimes for individual settings per game on an emulator that doesn't have one is just make copies of the emulator folder and have how ever many copies of it that way I can just change the settings. Not ideal by any means but sometimes there's no other options unless you want to go in there and change settings all the time. 

Hi Jayinem, Thanks a lot for the feedback. I will google for the free version. So far I have 3 copies of Demul; Digital, Analog, and Dreamcast. It is not an ideal but that the only workaround I can think of.