Same - Primary & Marquee Screens

[philexile]

Hello,

I have a unique setup that requires my Primary (game selection) screen to be shared with the Marquee screen. Below are the two monitors in my setup:

SCREEN 1: Modern, ultrawide LCD monitor

SCREEN 2: CRT monitor

In Big Box General: Primary Screen is set to SCREEN 1, and Marquee Screen is set to SCREEN 1.

The idea is that SCREEN 1 (LCD) will show the Primary (game selection) screen. Once a game is selected, it would play on SCREEN 2 (CRT) and SCREEN 1 (LCD) would switch to the Marquee for the game being played. This doesn't work unfortunately, and SCREEN 1 (LCD) changes to black after the "now loading" screen disappears.

I was able to get this to work in way - setting the Primary to SCREEN 2 (CRT) aloud the Marquee to be shown on SCREEN 1 (LCD) during gameplay. The problem is that I don't want to use the 4:3 CRT as the Primary - I want to utilize my ultrawide monitor for that task, as well as for showing the Marquee art.

Is there a workaround, or perhaps a setting that I am missing?

Thank you 

[Retro808]

Current marquee settings within BigBox will not allow you to do what you want. Primary and Marquee need to be 2 separate screens. I am not sure of a workaround as no one on the forum has posted any steps they took to accomplish this, if anyone even has.

[philexile]

Hi, this is why I’m posting. 
 

I’m hoping that this can be enabled, or perhaps there could be a workaround using a custom theme?

Thanks again 

[Retro808]

A plugin maybe. Doubtful a custom theme would be able to do it without some sort of user created plugin.

[philexile]

I had two ideas:

1. I experimented a bit with the individual theme options. I noticed when the "loading screen" option was set to off the game info screen will remain visible on SCREEN 1 during gameplay. 

Perhaps a theme could be modified to display the marquee artwork instead of the game info screen when a game is selected, before launching the game. 

2. This would likely be a real pain, but the MAME ini could be edited to take advantage of the "layout" features. This would force MAME to load a custom LAY file, which would only include the marquee art.

I'd prefer not to go this route though as ease of use was the reason why I invested in Launchbox and Big Box.

Thanks again

Edited September 13, 2021 by philexile

[Retro808]

Are you using emulators other than Mame?

[philexile]

No — I’m only using GroovyMame at this time. 

[Retro808]

I assume you can do the same in GroovyMame as you can in Mame and set the ini file to tell GroovyMame what screen to run a game. If so, then tell GM to run the game on your CRT and tell BB to set primary and marquee as the same monitor. I know your initial post says you set them both to the same screen but the game runs on that screen as well, can you set GroovyMame to launch on the other screen like you can in standard Mame?

[philexile]

Hi again,

GroovyMame is already doing this – the emulator targets the second display (CRT) for running the game. This is done in the INI file.

Just to clarify, in Big Box the following settings are applied:

Primary Screen: Screen 1

Marquee Screen: Screen 1

Despite Screen 1 being specified for the Marquee Screen, the marquee art doesn't display. When the game is launched, the "game loading" screen appears, and then Screen 1 switches to black – not the Marquee.

So what you're noting is exactly the problem that I'm having. Since Screen 1 is setup for both Primary and Marquee – it should display both, but it doesn't. 

Thanks again

 

 

 

Edited September 13, 2021 by philexile

[Retro808]

2 hours ago, philexile said:

Hi again,

GroovyMame is already doing this – the emulator targets the second display (CRT) for running the game. This is done in the INI file.

Just to clarify, in Big Box the following settings are applied:

Primary Screen: Screen 1

Marquee Screen: Screen 1

Despite Screen 1 being specified for the Marquee Screen, the marquee art doesn't display. When the game is launched, the "game loading" screen appears, and then Screen 1 switches to black – not the Marquee.

 

Thanks for clarifying. Without knowing the full details of how you set things up I could only make guesses.

2 hours ago, philexile said:

So what you're noting is exactly the problem that I'm having. Since Screen 1 is setup for both Primary and Marquee – it should display both, but it doesn't. 

That's the thing though. I do not believe it should since the coding is designed to show marquee and main UI on separated screens. It was not originally designed to flip when they are both set the same screen. The original intent was an arcade cabinet that had a main monitor and a marquee screen above it. So this is something that would require a plug-in or you can submit a bitbucket ticket request to log an ehancement/feature request for marquees. Feature requests can be done using the link at the top of the forum located under "Help & Support"

[philexile]

Hello,

No problem, I've posted the request to Bitbucket: 

https://bitbucket.org/jasondavidcarr/launchbox/issues/6333/feature-request-marquees

One interim questions: is there a simple, 4:3 theme that you can recommend for use on a CRT?

Also, once I have the 16:9 monitor mounted, I'll take a picture of the setup. I think you'll find it interesting.

Thanks again

 

[Retro808]

There are a few in our \Downloads section under BigBox Custom Themes.

This is one of the latest ones made by our Project Mgr.

 

[philexile]

I'll give that a go. I'll have to check out the theme workshop sometime too....