Retroarch loses full screen in launchbox pause?

[Sbaby]

Retroarch loses full screen when I go in and out of the launchbox pause

It is probably a retroarch setting because until recently I had no problems. But I don't find it. Can anyone help me?

 

 

 

Edited August 15, 2022 by Sbaby

[skizzosjt]

Hi @Sbaby I haven't done too much with the pause screen to know all the in and outs yet....but I would take a guess you could use a script that would hit Retroarch's full screen hotkey upon resume ? I know that doesn't fix the root cause, because it comes off as LB/BB is stealing back focus causing Retroarch to lose it, but knowing there is a "Resume Script" tab in the emulators, the scripts entered here will run upon resuming a game from the LB/BB pause screen. Something simple like this, assuming you also have the F key to toggle fullscreen. The Sleep, 3000 bit is telling the script to wait 3 seconds before continuing. I notice there is a slight delay in Retroarch losing fullscreen so you wouldn't want this to hit the hotkey too quickly or the script itself might end up being the cause of losing fullscreen. With that said, make sure there isn't anything already there in the Resume Script tab that might be causing this problem! It should be empty by default though

 

Sleep, 3000

Send {F down}{F up}

 

Further to test the theory if it's Retroarch or not please do the following. Make a copy of your current Retroarch config file, and save it somewhere. Next delete the original config file so it generates a default one upon next launch. Test with a game that doesn't have any specific core/system or game specific overrides so you know it's working with true default settings. I think it would be a good test to see if the issue goes away or continues and would help you figure out where to put your efforts in resolving the issue

Edited August 25, 2022 by skizzosjt
testing spoiler tag

[Sbaby]

2 hours ago, skizzosjt said:

Hi @Sbaby I haven't done too much with the pause screen to know all the in and outs yet....but I would take a guess you could use a script that would hit Retroarch's full screen hotkey upon resume ? I know that doesn't fix the root cause, because it comes off as LB/BB is stealing back focus causing Retroarch to lose it, but knowing there is a "Resume Script" tab in the emulators, the scripts entered here will run upon resuming a game from the LB/BB pause screen. Something simple like this, assuming you also have the F key to toggle fullscreen. The Sleep, 3000 bit is telling the script to wait 3 seconds before continuing. I notice there is a slight delay in Retroarch losing fullscreen so you wouldn't want this to hit the hotkey too quickly or the script itself might end up being the cause of losing fullscreen. With that said, make sure there isn't anything already there in the Resume Script tab that might be causing this problem! It should be empty by default though

 

Sleep, 3000

Send {F down}{F up}

 

 

Further to test the theory if it's Retroarch or not please do the following. Make a copy of your current Retroarch config file, and save it somewhere. Next delete the original config file so it generates a default one upon next launch. Test with a game that doesn't have any specific core/system or game specific overrides so you know it's working with true default settings. I think it would be a good test to see if the issue goes away or continues and would help you figure out where to put your efforts in resolving the issue

I'm sure it's retroarch because with other retroarch launch configurations it works fine, I have one configuration for each retroarch platform. The problem I've tried to figure out which of the many options is not the same but I can't find

[skizzosjt]

If you think it's Retroarch then you could absolutely prove it is the root cause culprit by doing what I asked you to try. If you delete the configs and use all default settings and then the problem goes away....there you have proved your theory and Retroarch settings was the root cause. Otherwise if the problem continues it would suggest there is some other complication going on in your setup. To figure out the exact setting, if you wanted to, you would first have to obviously resolve it. But then continue by adding back in your settings one at a time to determine when the issue returns. Then you would know exactly which setting(s) caused it too.

 

 

[Sbaby]

5 hours ago, skizzosjt said:

If you think it's Retroarch then you could absolutely prove it is the root cause culprit by doing what I asked you to try. If you delete the configs and use all default settings and then the problem goes away....there you have proved your theory and Retroarch settings was the root cause. Otherwise if the problem continues it would suggest there is some other complication going on in your setup. To figure out the exact setting, if you wanted to, you would first have to obviously resolve it. But then continue by adding back in your settings one at a time to determine when the issue returns. Then you would know exactly which setting(s) caused it too.

 

 

I delete all configs. I have tried starting everything from the beginning with the retroarch configurations (default) but the problem persists
. It only happens with the FLYCAST core, with all the other cores I don't have this problem.

 

Can you please try flycast core and tell me if you have any problems ?

[skizzosjt]

15 hours ago, Sbaby said:

I delete all configs. I have tried starting everything from the beginning with the retroarch configurations (default) but the problem persists
. It only happens with the FLYCAST core, with all the other cores I don't have this problem.

 

Can you please try flycast core and tell me if you have any problems ?

Hey @Sbaby that sure is a bummer the problem still persists but you're doing the right thing trying to drill down what's going on. I unfortunately do not have the flycast core since I have no Dreamcast ROMs. I'm certainly happy to help, but this might take me days to do, not that I think it takes days to setup, just getting time put to the side to find stuff I assume this system needs like BIOS files and get a couple ROMs etc. I'm on slow as molasses internet lol. So I will definitely check this out and report back how it went for me, just be patient, it might take me a bit to complete. But in the meantime I wonder if some other user on here has a flycast Dreamcast setup and could test this out? If you're that person, you'd be doing us both a favor!

[Sbaby]

50 minutes ago, skizzosjt said:

Hey @Sbaby that sure is a bummer the problem still persists but you're doing the right thing trying to drill down what's going on. I unfortunately do not have the flycast core since I have no Dreamcast ROMs. I'm certainly happy to help, but this might take me days to do, not that I think it takes days to setup, just getting time put to the side to find stuff I assume this system needs like BIOS files and get a couple ROMs etc. I'm on slow as molasses internet lol. So I will definitely check this out and report back how it went for me, just be patient, it might take me a bit to complete. But in the meantime I wonder if some other user on here has a flycast Dreamcast setup and could test this out? If you're that person, you'd be doing us both a favor!

thank you, I look forward to it. ☺

A small clarification: I use flycast core for naomi arcade roms. I used to use demul but now I prefer flycast for various things, including some nice ones.

[skizzosjt]

11 minutes ago, Sbaby said:

thank you, I look forward to it. ☺

A small clarification: I use flycast core for naomi arcade roms. I used to use demul but now I prefer flycast for various things, including some nice ones.

 

OK that's all good to know! To keep testing this methodically I should test using the the same game(s) even I think. What are a couple games you saw this problem with and I'll make sure to test with them also? Also at this point we should consider what Retroarch version you are on? I have no idea what their version naming scheme is or what version I am on (not on my gaming PC right now to check) but for example if you're on 10.2 I'll also get 10.2 and try. My setup is at least a couple years old now and I don't update stuff like this really in fear it will break something. Point being for all we know we could find out it's a quirk of a specific version of Retroarch so making sure we do our due diligence here

[Sbaby]

2 hours ago, skizzosjt said:

 

OK that's all good to know! To keep testing this methodically I should test using the the same game(s) even I think. What are a couple games you saw this problem with and I'll make sure to test with them also? Also at this point we should consider what Retroarch version you are on? I have no idea what their version naming scheme is or what version I am on (not on my gaming PC right now to check) but for example if you're on 10.2 I'll also get 10.2 and try. My setup is at least a couple years old now and I don't update stuff like this really in fear it will break something. Point being for all we know we could find out it's a quirk of a specific version of Retroarch so making sure we do our due diligence here

Launchbox : 12.14

Retroarch : 1.10.3

Flycast : Core version 7457db8

Games : all those emulated by flycast, you can also try Virtua Tennis 1 and 2 if you want

Pause theme : Game Controls FS (Full Screen - Beta) (with png image files)

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

config\Flycast\Flycast.opt :

 

reicast_allow_service_buttons = "disabled"
reicast_alpha_sorting = "per-triangle (normal)"
reicast_analog_stick_deadzone = "15%"
reicast_anisotropic_filtering = "4"
reicast_auto_skip_frame = "disabled"
reicast_boot_to_bios = "disabled"
reicast_broadcast = "NTSC"
reicast_cable_type = "TV (Composite)"
reicast_custom_textures = "disabled"
reicast_delay_frame_swapping = "disabled"
reicast_detect_vsync_swap_interval = "disabled"
reicast_digital_triggers = "disabled"
reicast_dump_textures = "disabled"
reicast_enable_dsp = "enabled"
reicast_enable_purupuru = "enabled"
reicast_enable_rttb = "disabled"
reicast_fog = "enabled"
reicast_force_freeplay = "disabled"
reicast_force_wince = "disabled"
reicast_frame_skipping = "disabled"
reicast_gdrom_fast_loading = "disabled"
reicast_hle_bios = "disabled"
reicast_internal_resolution = "640x480"
reicast_language = "Italian"
reicast_lightgun1_crosshair = "disabled"
reicast_lightgun2_crosshair = "disabled"
reicast_lightgun3_crosshair = "Green"
reicast_lightgun4_crosshair = "Blue"
reicast_mipmapping = "enabled"
reicast_native_depth_interpolation = "disabled"
reicast_oit_abuffer_size = "512MB"
reicast_oit_layers = "32"
reicast_per_content_vmus = "disabled"
reicast_pvr2_filtering = "disabled"
reicast_region = "Europe"
reicast_screen_rotation = "horizontal"
reicast_show_lightgun_settings = "disabled"
reicast_show_vmu_screen_settings = "disabled"
reicast_texture_filtering = "0"
reicast_texupscale = "1"
reicast_texupscale_max_filtered_texture_size = "256"
reicast_threaded_rendering = "enabled"
reicast_trigger_deadzone = "0%"
reicast_vmu1_pixel_off_color = "DEFAULT_OFF 01"
reicast_vmu1_pixel_on_color = "DEFAULT_ON 00"
reicast_vmu1_screen_display = "disabled"
reicast_vmu1_screen_opacity = "100%"
reicast_vmu1_screen_position = "Upper Left"
reicast_vmu1_screen_size_mult = "1x"
reicast_vmu2_pixel_off_color = "DEFAULT_OFF 01"
reicast_vmu2_pixel_on_color = "DEFAULT_ON 00"
reicast_vmu2_screen_display = "disabled"
reicast_vmu2_screen_opacity = "100%"
reicast_vmu2_screen_position = "Upper Left"
reicast_vmu2_screen_size_mult = "1x"
reicast_vmu3_pixel_off_color = "DEFAULT_OFF 01"
reicast_vmu3_pixel_on_color = "DEFAULT_ON 00"
reicast_vmu3_screen_display = "disabled"
reicast_vmu3_screen_opacity = "100%"
reicast_vmu3_screen_position = "Upper Left"
reicast_vmu3_screen_size_mult = "1x"
reicast_vmu4_pixel_off_color = "DEFAULT_OFF 01"
reicast_vmu4_pixel_on_color = "DEFAULT_ON 00"
reicast_vmu4_screen_display = "disabled"
reicast_vmu4_screen_opacity = "100%"
reicast_vmu4_screen_position = "Upper Left"
reicast_vmu4_screen_size_mult = "1x"
reicast_volume_modifier_enable = "enabled"
reicast_widescreen_cheats = "disabled"
reicast_widescreen_hack = "disabled"

Edited August 17, 2022 by Sbaby

[skizzosjt]

OK so I am coming back with bad news, I couldn't recreate the problem. I tested with Virtua Tennis on my existing setup and it worked fine. I then updated my setup to match yours the best I could, meaning I updated Retroarch, LaunchBox/BigBox, and making sure to use the same custome Pause Theme. I even copied/pasted in the settings you sent into the Flycast core option file. Despite doing all that not once did Retroarch ever lose focus when utilizing the pause screen. Whether I toggled the pause screen with the hotkey or actually clicked on "Resume" it returned to the game properly every time.

 

I'd say this is bad news because it doesn't get you any closer to solving it. On the good news side, it eliminates a bunch of variables. It's not the Retroarch version, or core version, or LB/BB version, or Pause Theme. So this basically suggests the problem is on your end. The only differences I can think of are I am on Windows 10 and you're on Windows 11, and we would obviously have different hardware in our PCs. So now the next best thing you could do is to literally take the boot disk and your LB/BB disk (assuming you keep your LB/BB install separate from your boot/OS disk) and put them into another PC system. If the problem continues, it would eliminate your hardware being the culprit and suggest something about your particular OS install or maybe some setting for LB/BB. As long as you did do a test with Retroarch using all default settings, then it shouldn't be Retroarch. But if you have not yet done a fresh LB/BB test, I would try that as a hail marry attempt. Or even try starting with a different pause theme. It didn't matter for me, but who knows if it might matter on your setup

 

Honestly, I gotta wave the white flag. I'm running out of ideas. Sorry, I wish it was easier to get to the bottom of this mystery!

[Sbaby]

On 8/19/2022 at 3:25 PM, skizzosjt said:

OK so I am coming back with bad news, I couldn't recreate the problem. I tested with Virtua Tennis on my existing setup and it worked fine. I then updated my setup to match yours the best I could, meaning I updated Retroarch, LaunchBox/BigBox, and making sure to use the same custome Pause Theme. I even copied/pasted in the settings you sent into the Flycast core option file. Despite doing all that not once did Retroarch ever lose focus when utilizing the pause screen. Whether I toggled the pause screen with the hotkey or actually clicked on "Resume" it returned to the game properly every time.

 

I'd say this is bad news because it doesn't get you any closer to solving it. On the good news side, it eliminates a bunch of variables. It's not the Retroarch version, or core version, or LB/BB version, or Pause Theme. So this basically suggests the problem is on your end. The only differences I can think of are I am on Windows 10 and you're on Windows 11, and we would obviously have different hardware in our PCs. So now the next best thing you could do is to literally take the boot disk and your LB/BB disk (assuming you keep your LB/BB install separate from your boot/OS disk) and put them into another PC system. If the problem continues, it would eliminate your hardware being the culprit and suggest something about your particular OS install or maybe some setting for LB/BB. As long as you did do a test with Retroarch using all default settings, then it shouldn't be Retroarch. But if you have not yet done a fresh LB/BB test, I would try that as a hail marry attempt. Or even try starting with a different pause theme. It didn't matter for me, but who knows if it might matter on your setup

 

Honestly, I gotta wave the white flag. I'm running out of ideas. Sorry, I wish it was easier to get to the bottom of this mystery!

thank you very much for your tests. You gave me good directions. I'll keep you updated

[Sbaby]

On 8/19/2022 at 3:25 PM, skizzosjt said:

OK so I am coming back with bad news, I couldn't recreate the problem. I tested with Virtua Tennis on my existing setup and it worked fine. I then updated my setup to match yours the best I could, meaning I updated Retroarch, LaunchBox/BigBox, and making sure to use the same custome Pause Theme. I even copied/pasted in the settings you sent into the Flycast core option file. Despite doing all that not once did Retroarch ever lose focus when utilizing the pause screen. Whether I toggled the pause screen with the hotkey or actually clicked on "Resume" it returned to the game properly every time.

 

I'd say this is bad news because it doesn't get you any closer to solving it. On the good news side, it eliminates a bunch of variables. It's not the Retroarch version, or core version, or LB/BB version, or Pause Theme. So this basically suggests the problem is on your end. The only differences I can think of are I am on Windows 10 and you're on Windows 11, and we would obviously have different hardware in our PCs. So now the next best thing you could do is to literally take the boot disk and your LB/BB disk (assuming you keep your LB/BB install separate from your boot/OS disk) and put them into another PC system. If the problem continues, it would eliminate your hardware being the culprit and suggest something about your particular OS install or maybe some setting for LB/BB. As long as you did do a test with Retroarch using all default settings, then it shouldn't be Retroarch. But if you have not yet done a fresh LB/BB test, I would try that as a hail marry attempt. Or even try starting with a different pause theme. It didn't matter for me, but who knows if it might matter on your setup

 

Honestly, I gotta wave the white flag. I'm running out of ideas. Sorry, I wish it was easier to get to the bottom of this mystery!

Hi, i finally solved the problem 😁
There was a forgetfulness when I switched naomi games from using demul to using retroarch / flycast
. Some games had custom configurations of launchbox pause resume, for example :
; Go back into fullscreen mode on resume; Demul requires it twice
WinActivate, gpu
Send! {Enter}
Send! {Enter}

I took them off and now everything works 🥳

Edited August 30, 2022 by Sbaby

[skizzosjt]

Wow who could have predicted that! lmao glad it's working for you, but c'mon man that should have been checked first thing like I suggested. When troubleshooting you gotta start with the low hanging fruit first!

On 8/15/2022 at 8:02 PM, skizzosjt said:

With that said, make sure there isn't anything already there in the Resume Script tab that might be causing this problem!