Display game specific controls image on a separate monitor during gameplay (plugin - beta release)

[Vojake]

Wow, seems great !!! You are blessed 🙂 Today it's family day. I'll test tomorrow and give feedback. Thank you very much.

[Vojake]

Yes ! It works.  The images can be assigned and the alternative is also sought. Perfekt. Please have a last look of the scaling.  You often only see a section of the image, for example the 3D boxes are cut off at the top and bottom. Maybe you can already show the picture in BB while you start browsing through the game titles.

I know: Ideas, ideas, ideas... 🙂

But that can take a while, the biggest thing is done. Thank you.

[TinyTsuruta]

Oooooh, this seems awesome. If I am inferring correctly, once I get things set up right, I could use it to display marquee images for games without BigBox?! This has been a huge want for me. 

 

Edit: Yes. After 2 minutes of installing DisplayOnMonitorX, it worked. This rules!

Edited January 18, 2022 by TinyTsuruta
update

[TinyTsuruta]

10 hours ago, Vojake said:

Yes ! It works.  The images can be assigned and the alternative is also sought. Perfekt. Please have a last look of the scaling. 

After using it a bunch today, that would be the one want I have too. I am using it for marquees with marquee for first choice and clear logo for second. For games with logos taller than they are wide, things cut off. I am using a 1280 x 390 monitor and I know it is not what this is designed for, but it really works great like this. 

[Retro808]

5 hours ago, TinyTsuruta said:

After using it a bunch today, that would be the one want I have too. I am using it for marquees with marquee for first choice and clear logo for second. For games with logos taller than they are wide, things cut off. I am using a 1280 x 390 monitor and I know it is not what this is designed for, but it really works great like this. 

BB does this by default.

BB marquee view have been updated to now show marquee image first and then clear logo second if marquee absent. In LB there is also a new image priority for Marquees in which you can set your order preference and fallback image types. So you can set Marquee image and then set clear logo or any other image type as a fallback. If the theme you are using is not doing this open the theme's \Views folder and see if it has the GameMarqueeView.xml and PlatformMarqueeView.xml. If it does not simply go the the Default theme and copy those files from the \Views folder in the Default theme.

5 hours ago, TinyTsuruta said:

For games with logos taller than they are wide, things cut off. I am using a 1280 x 390 monitor and I know it is not what this is designed for, but it really works great like this. 

BB also has a new Marquee setting that can work with the odd marquee monitor sizes. In BB settings >Options >Marquee Screen

[Vojake]

Do you already work on the feature request to control a third monitor in BB/LB?

[Retro808]

10 minutes ago, Vojake said:

Do you already work on the feature request to control a third monitor in BB/LB?

That is currently not something being worked on for BB. So using the mad genius @JoeViking245 plug-in is your best option right now.

[JoeViking245]

20 hours ago, Vojake said:

Please have a last look of the scaling.

 

9 hours ago, TinyTsuruta said:

logos taller than they are wide, things cut off

This version (v1.1) should display your selected image without cutting off the top/bottom, left/right.  It will maximize the images width or height (whichever is greater) to the monitor's width or height extents, accordingly in conjunction with the monitor's aspect ratio. 

So basically, if your monitor display is rectangle and your image is square, you'll see "black bars" on the left and right sides of the image. But not on the top/bottom.

DisplayOnMonitorX v1.1.zip

 

Again, this "just-because, proof-of-concept" project was to accommodate a 3rd (or even 4th?) monitor (but is obviously flexible).  If your setup only has 2 monitors, by all means make use of the built-in feature of BigBox as @Retro808 summed up quite concisely above.  It'd be kind of silly using a third-party plugin made by some Joe-off-the-street for something the program has built in.  Just sayin.  

[TinyTsuruta]

34 minutes ago, JoeViking245 said:

Again, this "just-because, proof-of-concept" project was to accommodate a 3rd (or even 4th?) monitor (but is obviously flexible).  If your setup only has 2 monitors, by all means make use of the built-in feature of BigBox as @Retro808 summed up quite concisely above.  It'd be kind of silly using a third-party plugin made by some Joe-off-the-street for something the program has built in.  Just sayin.  

Thanks! Will try this after work tonight. The reason I like this is I prefer desktop mode to Big Box for my purposes and very rarely have LB fullscreen. I have a pedestal cabinet with desktop marquee set up and use it for both gaming and everything else too, often at the same time on the same machine. If I were using this as an exclusive arcade machine, would probably go with Big Box and a smaller collection so it isn't so slow. I suspect my uses are fairly niche, but this fits them! 

[Retro808]

19 minutes ago, TinyTsuruta said:

Thanks! Will try this after work tonight. The reason I like this is I prefer desktop mode to Big Box for my purposes and very rarely have LB fullscreen. I have a pedestal cabinet with desktop marquee set up and use it for both gaming and everything else too, often at the same time on the same machine. If I were using this as an exclusive arcade machine, would probably go with Big Box and a smaller collection so it isn't so slow. I suspect my uses are fairly niche, but this fits them! 

Ah for LB use the this makes good sense. Joe has definitely provided some very useful plug-ins.

[JoeViking245]

17 minutes ago, TinyTsuruta said:

I suspect my uses are fairly niche, but this fits them! 

My main PC has dual monitors, but I don't use it for gaming at all.  And my cab only has one.  So my use case for this is None. lol  It's just cool to see that it works. 😎

[Vojake]

Tested. It works fin. Scaling is perfect. Thanks !

[TinyTsuruta]

 

6 hours ago, JoeViking245 said:

My main PC has dual monitors, but I don't use it for gaming at all.  And my cab only has one.  So my use case for this is None. lol  It's just cool to see that it works. 😎

It works like a champ  Now to buy a second, larger marquee monitor and an HDMI splitter so I have marquees over the big screen in the living room too. I am so lucky my GF is tolerant and appreciative of my ridiculousness. 

[TinyTsuruta]

@JoeViking245 any idea what the process associated with this would be in task manager? Reason I ask- because of Mega Bezel, I am dealing with the PCSX2 core which hangs in task manager upon close, causing LED Blinky, this plug in, and I am sure some other stuff not to update for other games. As such, I have written a bat to kill the task which I in turn used your bulk add additional app for all PS2 games. All is working as it should except the DisplayOnMonitorX plugin still isn't closing. Thinking I may need to add something to the wmic script I am running in the bat to close the plugin too. Thanks!

[JoeViking245]

1 hour ago, TinyTsuruta said:

any idea what the process associated with this would be in task manager?

Because it's a plugin for LaunchBox, it's process is LaunchBox.

 

1 hour ago, TinyTsuruta said:

I am dealing with the PCSX2 core which hangs in task manager upon close

I strongly suggest fixing this.  The easiest way to do that is to use standalone PCSX2 instead of the Retroarch core. Which I'm pretty sure is what's recommended.  But I understand if you have an affinity towards RA.  Regardless, that really should be resolved.

 

In the meantime, if you have a keyboard and mouse handy, when that banner/image/window is there, and you don't want it there anymore... 

• Hold the {Alt} key and tap {Tab}   (still holding the {Alt} key)
• You'll see a display of all your open windows.  Still holding down {Alt}, look for the window that's the image-window needing closed.
• Using the mouse, point to the upper right corner of that window and click the "X".

[TinyTsuruta]

30 minutes ago, JoeViking245 said:

I strongly suggest fixing this.  The easiest way to do that is to use standalone PCSX2 instead of the Retroarch core. Which I'm pretty sure is what's recommended.  But I understand if you have an affinity towards RA.  Regardless, that really should be resolved.

 

Thanks! Standalone is 1000% easier, especially with the config manager and reshade manager, but there are maybe a dozen or so games I have made/am making custom reflective Mega Bezel presets for in RA

[TinyTsuruta]

Hi @JoeViking245, ran into a little issue here with the plugin on a new machine. I got a fancy new monitor and an i7-12900K/RTX 3070 ti desktop so I am indeed running three monitors (Windows 11, current LB release). I am using the v1.1 plugin for the same 1280 x 390 marquee monitor I was using on the old machine. Image scaling was working correctly and not cutting off images but it is not now. Still trying to display full size and cutting off on the right side. 

For reference, the three monitors hooked up here are all different resolutions. 

[JoeViking245]

16 minutes ago, TinyTsuruta said:

was working correctly and not cutting off images but it is not now

To clarify, same 2 monitors you had before but on a new machine with the OS many-wrinkles-yet-to-iron-out-Windows 11.  Plus, an additional fancy shmancy new monitor to make it 3 monitors' total.  And the monitor you're wanting to display images on [using this plugin] is the same physical monitor you were using before. But now, the images are appearing cut-off like they were for you before updating to v1.1.  Does that about repeat the same thing you said?

I'm inclined to say it's something in the Windows Display Settings for the Marquee monitor.  Maybe the scale setting is not set to 100% ('cause Windows thought maybe you'd want to match the other 2 as close as possible)?  The resolution is not set to 1280x390?  I assume Multiple Displays is set to Extend the displays and not Duplicate.

...or maybe even something in your Nvidia settings?  I don't know. I never touch them.  Just occasionally update the drivers.  "NVCleanstall" is you friend for that.  Though not sure how up they are with Windows 11.  (none of my 3 PCs are 'smart' enough to even be able to upgrade to Win-11. lol)

The plugin gets the monitors' width and height (in pixels) from Windows as it sees them.  Which in your case should be the 1280x390.  It then sizes the image to fit that.  So I'm not sure what to fix/advise beyond the suggestions (inclinations) above.

[TinyTsuruta]

Thanks @JoeViking245! Your understanding of the set-up and issue is correct, and I also suspect it is something NVIDIA or Win 11 related. Or my cockamamie set-up. I almost didn't buy this machine because of Win11 but figured give it a go- somebody's gotta do it! This is all I have had issue with thus far. Regardless, I am going to poke around the NVIDIA settings a bit once I replace the new monitor (dead pixel on a brand spanking new Corsair Xeneon) and will report back for future reference. I am also going to see how it goes with two monitors to narrow things down. We shall see! 

[Vojake]

Hello again 🙂

 

is it possible to add arcade controls information and advertisement flyer to choose? Perhaps display two pictures at the same time? eg. controls and 3D box?

Thanks a lot