BETABRITE SCROLL SIGN IN ARCADE OS

[mccoy178]

There are only three things I can see:

1) A two name title does not stay together.  The second part of the name is attached to the controls.

2) Yes, "\n" is showing up on everything.  I take it that was used for spacing?

3) The issue with mamewah when you exit the game.  The display continues to display the last game even after mamewah is exited.

Other than that, no probs.

[MustardTent]

Ok bit of confusion about the whole "\n" thing.

Is it actually showing up in the sign? Would make sense as far as the protocol concerned, as it does not mention \n anywhere.

\n as one character? Not sure I follow - by definition \n is two ascii characters backslash and n. (ascii decimal 92 and 110)

unless you mean ^N which is one of the unprinatble control characters (ascii 14) and ^N is just a representation (its just 1 character).

Anyway - I have to say I'm very happy stuff is displaying. I can remove/change the /n really easily. although not till tomorrow.....

Silver '\n' is how the character for newline is denoted in software (especially C/C++/Java).

[MustardTent]

Silver -- I have those mpgs we were talking about.

[MustardTent]

One more thing...if you need to edit these files directly I would suggest something like emacs.  After manually editing in emacs, the .lcds still work with the betabrite.

[Silver]

Ok new fix up that should sort out the whole \n thing. Misunderstanding mainly my fault....

Amusingly enough the ArcadeOS output would/should have worked fine as that automatically changes \n to "newline". (AOS is coded in C I belive). Sadly I've not got much beyond printing Hello World in C.... 

Silver -- I have those mpgs we were talking about.  I don't have the sign setup in my cab just now, so they're just videos of the sign on the floor

Cool - feel free to email them to me and I'll stick them up on my site....

1) A two name title does not stay together. The second part of the name is attached to the controls.

3) The issue with mamewah when you exit the game. The display continues to display the last game even after mamewah is exited.

1) Ok this must be the Betabrite automatically spacing out the game name (I'll check my code though). I'm sure there is a way round this I'll take a look.

3)Should not be too hard to fix - I'll look into it.

[mccoy178]

The name only separated with the second .exe from your site.  If that helps anything.

[Silver]

Hmmm ok then it could be something to do with me re-writing the header making it behave differently....

Just to be sure, if you set the display option to "Message Remains Stationary" in the drop down list, does it still split the game name?

[Silver]

4) Off the lcd part for a sec, it seems as though not very many games are getting their button controls read.  Is it just an uncomplete controls.dat or something?

Sorry missed this before.

Yes the controls.Dat project does not cover all games. It covers a lot - around 2500 of the more popular titles (including clones). Leaves around 1/3 of mame games unsupported, and there is another 15% or so that are unplayable anyway.

Would it be preferable to have an option to not add control info if it is not available?

[Silver]

Update on Mamewah:

The most recent beta of Mamewah allows you to use an external file to display LCD text. This should allow you to display anything you like while choosing a game.

Place a file called emuname.lcd in your lcd dir, e.g. mame.lcd. This will be displayed when in mamewah (ie after you exit a game).

I've attached a sample that should work on betabrites. Rename mame.txt to mame.lcd. Note you can edit any normal game.lcd file but remember to use an editor that won't mess up the control characters...

[MustardTent]

Would it be preferable to have an option to not add control info if it is not available?

Yes. 

And I'll email the mpegs to you.  I don't think I'll be able to do it tonight though.  Tomorrow is the best bet.

[mccoy178]

New issue.  With the find the Howard made, (-ftr 1), beta brite is not picking up the games.  Also, the game is still stuck to the type of joystick with no space.  I haven't tried mamewah's beta yet, but will very soon.

[Silver]

New issue.  With the find the Howard made, (-ftr 1), beta brite is not picking up the games.  Also, the game is still stuck to the type of joystick with no space.  I haven't tried mamewah's beta yet, but will very soon.

You lost me here - betabrite not picking up the games? how are you sending it to the LCD? From Mamewah? It stops working when you add -ftr 1 to the mame command line? Can you add -ftr 1 to the mame.ini?

I'll look into the other problem

Have you used the latest beta 0.97.22? It produces the 'joystick' info on a seperate line in the file - so it should be coming up seperately on the betabrite.

[mccoy178]

You lost me here - betabrite not picking up the games? how are you sending it to the LCD?

I'm using the lcd files to send everything.  Same as usual.

It stops working when you add -ftr 1 to the mame command line?

Yes.

Can you add -ftr 1 to the mame.ini?

Yes.

Have you used the latest beta 0.97.22? It produces the 'joystick' info on a seperate line in the file - so it should be coming up seperately on the betabrite.

I am, but the second part of a name is connected to the joystick without any spaces.  That thread about the ftr 1 is here:
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=41771.msg381724#msg381724

[Silver]

Could you post a lcd file - say sf2.lcd (renamed to sf2.txt so you can post it here).

The -ftr 1 issue sounds confusing. Mamewah is responsible for the LCD stuff, it has nothing to do with mame, so either there is a bug in Mamewah that does not copy out the text when ftr is present (very odd). When you say ftr is in mame.ini, does mamewah have its own mame.ini? (been a while since I used it!)

[mccoy178]

Here it is:







?00AA oStreet Fighter II - The World Warrior
8-way Joystick

[mccoy178]

Now I just played one of the SF and the name came up, so I am not sure what is going on.   And yes, mamewah does have its own mame.ini

[Silver]

Well as you can see the controler is placed on a different line than the name - thats what the "/n" character discussed earlier is doing. - which is why I was surprised you were getting the controller next to the game name....

If there are any games that are doing it for you let me know and post the file here so I can investigate.

[mccoy178]

Every game is doing the title thing.

[Silver]

Glad the showing up issue has resolved.

Slightly confused re: the controller tag following on the name tag - is this happening with every game? Did you say it was ok with sf?

[mccoy178]

It is happening on every game.  That first beta you made with the controls worked properly except for the \n.  Everyone since then has had the name split up with the type of control directly attached to the last word in the title. i.e. tetris       grand         masters8way        joystick.

[Silver]

Ok thanks for testing and getting back. I'll throw together a new version tonight...

It seems that the betabrite sign is splitting names at every space, and ignoring the 'newline' character, which I'm guessing is not Ideal. I'll look for a way round this....

I have no idea how my 1st beta worked as that had the spaces, and "/n". Hmmm.

[Silver]

Heres a quick test exe. This will probably not fix the gaps between the game titles but hopefully will seperate all the controls off - let me know if it works!

rename from .txt to .exe

[MustardTent]

I'm having trouble locating the mamewah beta you mentioned Silver.  Do you know where it is posted?  If you don't know off the top of your head, I'll PM minwah about it.

Thanks.

[mccoy178]

Pkurby, check out the mamewah boards at mameworld.net.  That is where minwah has it. 

Silver, the titles are fixed now.  Is it possible to add an option that if the controls are unknown, they won't be shown?  That would be sweet as it seems most of the games I play are not.

[Silver]

Ok, glad the titles are fixed. I've kept the fix in the new version:

I've added an option to only display controls if they are in controlsDat. (ie so if they showed ??? before they are now not shown at all). Currently I've also removed all neo-geo games when you tick this option as they all just show "A,B,C,D" anyway. (99% of neogeo games have ingame descriptions of the controls). If this is an issue with anyone let me know....

Grab it here: http://www.silverfoxy.plus.com/LCD/lcd97.3.exe, let me know what I've missed etc....  ;)


PS: Netcat (If your still following this thread!) - anychance you could change the title of the thread to include "and Mamewah" at the end? Based on a email I've had it seems someone missed the thread as they were mamewah only but had a betabrite....

[mccoy178]

Silver,
Everything is working great.  I don't have the balls to tackle mameway 1.62 right now.  I tried it a little last night and I'm gonna wait a few days to see the hows it goes it.  Thanks again for all the hard work.  I love it.

[Silver]

No problem...

and I know what you mean about the new mamewah - seems to be loads of config stuff to do!

If things are working good it would be cool to see some pics at some stage....

[mccoy178]

I have undertaken attaching my CPU to the cabinet.  So, it could be a minute before I'm ready.  I do have a couple picks, including my main one, displaying the sign in action @
www.ohiostate.photosite.com



Is there any hope sending the text for mamewah's layout screen with 1.61?  I know chances are slim, I thought I would ask!

Silver is the man!!!

[Silver]

Wow that does look real nice!

I take it from the pic the game titles are not split up any more - excellent!

Mamwah 1.61 - well lets have a stab at it:

In the Mamewah/ini/mame.ini file in there should be a couple of lines:

lcd_display_file_path     *your lcd path here*
lcd_fe_text

After lcd_fe_text try adding:







?00AA oSelect Game

Note that may not post well at all, or not be copyable, so I've also placed it in an attached txt file. Copy and paste from that into the mamewah mame.ini - you may find notepad does not do it right, and you find that mamewah will choke.

EDIT: I've done some reading up on the protocol, and it looks like there's a way that is more likely to work. We can change the above nasty characters to something that notepad and mamewah should like fine. Try copy and pasting this instead:

]!?00]"AASelect Games]$

The drawbacks are 1) apparantly you must set the baud rate to 9600 for this, as without the weird characters the sign can't detect the baud rate. I'm not convinced thats true - especially if you've already sent 1 message beforehand - so give it a shot on any baud. 2) There's no option to control how this text is displayed (flashing snowing effect or whatever) but that should not be an issue as those options will still work for all the games....

hope it works. (Man, I have GOT to get me one of these signs - just not seeing any available over in the UK...)

[mccoy178]

I'll give it a shot tonight and report back.  Thanks for the work.  Give Ebay a shout for the sign.  Model #213c.  Fits perfect in my 27" wide cab.

[mccoy178]

Silver,
Is it possible to have this for other emulators?  What about Video Pinball?  Just asking.

[Silver]

Ok new version up again - 98.1. Get it here:

http://www.silverfoxy.plus.com/LCDGen.html

This one lets you do all the 'show only buttons with info' stuff for non-betabrite displays, it also allows you to use the flashy betabrite display options in the ArcadeOS ouput.

It also adds an option for non-mame emus. Seeing as I don't know any emus that have listinfo/controlsDAT info available, this currently works off the filename. Although looking at the Visual Pinball tables the files are all fully named (unlike mames 8 characters only).

So for the file:  'aztec (williams) (1976).zip'

you will get a file: 'aztec (williams) (1976).lcd'

which will display 'aztec'

if you have the remove clone info selected. Leaving clone info in will display 'aztec (williams) (1976)'.

I've not looked into frontend support for this yet, though I see no reason why it won't work.

This addition is probably broken atm for ArcadeOS output....

[mccoy178]

When making lcd's for other emu's, do I just list the rom folder as the mame path, and place them in my mame lcd folder?  A little insight would be great.

[mccoy178]

Good Newsd ba and 

The program worked for everything.  Genesis, NES, SNintendo, N64, VPinball, Daphne, MAME, and Gameboy Advance.  That is the great news.

Another piece of good news, then the bad.  I was able to use "]!?00]"AANintendo - Select Game]$, and it worked like a champ.  Very, very nice!!! 

Now, this isn't as bad as killing my puppy, but its close............

1.  The zinc list did not display the nice game names, just the abbreviated ones.  I guess I need to know if I need an xml for those or what.

2.  When I added this to my mamewah mame.ini,  ]!?00]"AAM.A.M.E. - Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator - Select Game]$    ,  the betabrite worked, but it totally screwed something up.  When I started a game, I got a black screen and at the bottom I could see the line of the windows start bar minimalized.  When I moved the mouse to the bottom, the start bar came up, I could select the mame tab with the mouse as if back in windows, and the game popped up and ran like normal and exited like normal.  Mame worked properly from command line, so it is something inside mamewah.  But nothing changed except that lcd text?!   So, again, the problem arrises when I attempt to start a mame game in mamewah, the rest is fine.  Any ideas?

I have made three videos.  It is sort of funny because the first is me excited to see it working, the second is me starting a game and noticing resolution is not right.  The third is me demonstrating the black screen problem, but the resolution issue is not there.  You can see the windows start bar at the bottom of the black screen in the third video.

Video 1: http://media.putfile.com/sprograminaction

Video 2: http://media.putfile.com/Betabriteerror1

Video 3: http://media.putfile.com/Betabriteerror2

Edit: I restarted my computer and the problem was solved.  I don't have an explanation for what happened.  One last question for tonight.  Can I get the betabrite to change with each emulator?  As it is now, I have to select a game first in the next emulator to get the switch.  Kind of a bummer.  BTW, this far exceeds my expectations.

[Chazz]

I have a Alpha 4120C sign...

[Silver]

The program worked for everything.  Genesis, NES, SNintendo, N64, VPinball, Daphne, MAME, and Gameboy Advance.  That is the great news.

Excellent! Luckily I think most of these roms are named by there full names...

1.  The zinc list did not display the nice game names, just the abbreviated ones.  I guess I need to know if I need an xml for those or what.

Hmm yes zinc uses the mame roms naming convention. On the plus side, this means you could just go to the mame lcd folder, select all the games in zinc (lukily not loads if I recall?) and copy those files straight into your zinc lcd..folder....

...ooh wait(!) - I think all the games in zinc are in mame, and named the same, SOOO in theory all you need to do is use the mame listinfo/controlsDAT (probably just listinfo thinking about it), point the roms dir to your ZINC roms dir - leave the 'Non-Mame' checkbox UNCHECKED (ie pretend its mame) and it should create the correct names based on the mame info. (This only works for zinc beacause I believe they have 100% copied the mame naming). Give it a shot..


Glad your weird problem got solved. And glad the workaround '[$' stuff works.

[Silver]

I have a Alpha 4120C sign...   is there anything I can do with this?  Anything I can do with both lines?  Maybe the name of the game on the first line, and other info on the second?

Hi, I believe you are in luck - the betabrites are actually based on the Alpha protocol language and I can see a 4120 as being listed in the protocol documents.

Give it a try - I think you will find it will work straight off.

regarding the 2 lines - yes. There are options I think to let info be displayed. I think I've left it at default in the current command codes - so you may find info gets spread automatically.

As I can't test any of this (I don't have a sign) you'll have to give it a shot and feedback the problems (likely!) and I'll have a stab at getting it sorted...

[Silver]

Ok Quick one: New Release, 0.98.2.

http://www.silverfoxy.plus.com/LCDGen.html

This adds a "Fill lines" command to all the BetaBrite ouput so that if you have more than 1 line, all available lines should be used to display. This should not effect 1-line signs at all.

@Chazz

This may not be quite what you are after, as I suspect it will cycle through all the info using your 2 lines. I presume from what you said you wanted the game name on the top line to stay there and the other info cycle on the bottom line?

[Chazz]

@Chazz

This may not be quite what you are after, as I suspect it will cycle through all the info using your 2 lines. I presume from what you said you wanted the game name on the top line to stay there and the other info cycle on the bottom line?

Hiya Silver,
That's pretty much what I was looking into, having the title of the game only on the top line while all the other info is scrolled on the second line.

Thanks for all the great work!

[mccoy178]

Silver, what do you think about this issue:

Can I get the betabrite to change with each emulator?  As it is now, I have to select a game first in the next emulator to get the switch.

When I launch mamewah, the emulator running has its message sent, but not when I switch emulators.