MiSTer Super Attract Mode (SAM) is now available - the first game screensaver for your MiSTer!

[LamerDeluxe]

I just wanna say I really appreciate all the work you guys are putting into this, SAM is one of the coolest features for the MiSTer and a great way to show off the huge variety of games available.

Seconded, the work of everyone involved is very much appreciated. I'm excited to see it all starting to work reliably.

I built a TTY2OLED display because of MiSTer SAM. I don't always feel like playing games and I don't know most of the available games, even for my favorite systems. So it is great to be able to notice some interesting game running in the background. But it is not always clear which game on which system is currently running. So now, instead of having to open the menu, which stops SAM, I can just look at the TTY2OLED display.

Really love the myriad of fancy transitions on the TTY2OLED as well.

[Sigismond0]

Hi@all,
find attached my Beta2 which is based on the latest sources on Github.
I opened a pull request as well.

Please report!

Looking promising, but a couple of things I noticed:

• Skip command has unexpected behavior now. Takes much longer to run (has to go through all the TTY steps, even though SAM already ran once and killed those). After issuing a skip, SAM doesn't appear to be running. Monitor fails, saying there are no sessions, and nothing shuffles back in.
• After exiting SAM, TTY does appear to restart but core graphics are distorted on-screen and clear as soon as the transition finishes. Works again normally after a cold reboot.

But FDS does now show the NES core graphic and TTY does at least somewhat work after SAM closes out. Don't know if that one is something 8266 specific or something else, but it's definitely wacky after stopping SAM.

And I'll also chime in to thank everyone for the hard work here. Such an amazing tool, and it keeps getting better. I'm grateful to be part of the testing process here, and look forward to helping out getting more cores supported now that MGL files open up opportunities. If/when devs are ready to add more core support, let me know and I'll be happy to help test out MGL file settings for different cores.

[venice]

Just a short note,
since the "tty2oled full control" the support for Arcade Pictures is broken.
I am working on a fix.

[venice]

Attached is my Beta 3.

Fixes/Changes:

• Part-Fix of the problem with No-Arcade-Pictures.
  Thanks to RealLarry for his "Oneliner" for the Setname Extraction out of the MRA file.
  There is still an issue if you run “MiSTer_Sam_on.sh arcade“.
  Something kills the first run of XXD.

• Stop-Fix.
  All tty2oled related "Stop" commands running now after after SAM's kill/killall commands.

• tty2oled output is only activ at samdebug="Yes".

• Some Cosmetics

Please test and report…

[mrchrister]

Thanks Venice. If you do a PR i can merge

[venice]

Thanks Venice. If you do a PR i can merge

PR done, and please look into my opened Issue.

[mrchrister]

I have updated SAM to use hexdump for keyboard and mouse detection so it doesn't interfere with ttyoled's use of xxd. Does this fix the problem?

[Sigismond0]

One small issue I've noticed. When issuing a STOP command, TTY2OLED resumes normal functionality. But if SAM is interrupted by input, TTY2OLED remains stopped.

[venice]

Are you able to open an issue on Github?
https://github.com/mrchrisster/MiSTer_SAM/issues

[Sigismond0]

Done.

[mrchrister]

Just pushed a new release, please update!

- Implemented ttyoled restart on input activity
- New skip/next mechanic. Doesn't break monitor loop anymore
- zipcount, romcount logic now is only done once per script start and not every time the core switches
- Cleaned up some redundant output messages
- New version of partun fixes SMB zip list slowdown

[Wave]

Appreciate the continued refinements! Looking forward to finally trying this.

Edit: My first three games were
Clean Sweep (arcade) -> The End (arcade)
Exile: Wicked Phenomenon (PCE-CD)
The Flintstones: Big Trouble in Bedrock (GBA)

Something odd occurred with the first pick. FIrst Clean Sweep loaded, then The End immediately loaded instead.

With Exile, I had to press start to make it boot, I think? But not for a later PCE-CD game, oddly.
edit 2: Reading docs further, they rec using a BIOS that auto-launches game. Got it. It seems like it still manages to auto-launch sometimes, though? Which is nice if so. Edit 3: Explained below, thanks!

Little typo noticed in .ini: "Folders you would like to exlude,"

[mrchrister]

Hey wave, the first time you install SAM it downloads some extra files while loading the TGFX16CD core to auto-click through boot so that's why it didn't work the first time. This only happens the first time it gets installed. I'm probably going to change the script to pre-load the file in the future.

The arcade game switching instantly, I'm not sure why that happened. Never happened to me...

@sigismond - I finally got my tty2oled setup working so I can test now on my end

[Sigismond0]

edit 2: Reading docs further, they rec using a BIOS that auto-launches game. Got it. It seems like it still manages to auto-launch sometimes, though? Which is nice if so. Edit 3: Explained below, thanks!

Yup, older builds required auto-boot BIOS for any core that needed a click through. But mrchrister did some sorcery to allow FDS games to automatically click through the BIOS, and that opened other cores (TGCD, SegaCD) to automatically click through as well. No more hunting for special BIOS, just leave the best one in and you're set.

The arcade game switching instantly, I'm not sure why that happened. Never happened to me...

@sigismond - I finally got my tty2oled setup working so I can test now on my end

Great news! It's a super cool little add-on, and I just love how SAM interacts with it (well, at least when it's all working properly). Every once in a while I see a hiccup with what appears to be a quick shuffle away from a game at the start of a run. It seems like sometimes the new code that manages the TTY display has a little delay in it, which delays the first core showing up. When it does launch the core, it might be 20 seconds late or something--so if there's a 30 second shuffle timer it would look like the game shuffled away after only 10 seconds. I've only seen it on the first game of a run, and only with the new fully managed TTY code. It's a relatively "invisible" issue unless you're looking for it.

[neogeo81]

Hi
I noticed that when the SAM is running and i start playing the running game the script stops, even if i get back to the main menu it wont start automatically again. Is that correct? Or am i missing a setting?

[mrchrister]

If you play a game, SAM will not continue, that's correct. If you want to play a game and then automatically have SAM start back up after you pre-set time, go to MiSTer_SAM.ini and change menuonly="Yes" to menuonly="No"

It should however also start back up when you are in the main menu. Did you reboot or how did you get back from your core to the main menu?

[hipsofjw]

I never got this working offline for whatever reason, but to make my life easier I got a new router that works well with my VPN so now my MiSTer can actually access github. Now that I have this setup, it's awesome. One of the coolest little features for the MiSTer. Super fun. Big thanks to Mellified to putting this together.

Does anyone know of anything similar for retropi?

[LamerDeluxe]

Removed all SAM scripts yesterday and reinstalled everything, including the ini file. Everything is working perfectly now, in combination with my TTY2OLED. This is really cool and right on time for showing off at an event this Saturday.

The only thing that didn't work was Master System games. Then I looked at the readme and it turned out that core isn't even supported, so that explains that

I was wondering how the random function selects a core. Does it just randomly select any game of any core, or is a random console core (or MiSTer arcade) selected with an equal chance? (after which it randomly selects a game for that core). Otherwise cores with more games would be selected more often than ones with only a few games.
Repetition would obviously be higher for cores with less games though.

[venice]

Event?
Make some photos for us!

[LamerDeluxe]

Event?
Make some photos for us!

Will do. It is the Atari invasion of the Commodore club for the first time again in over two years.
I will be bringing three Atari Lynx handhelds, as well as the MiSTer, with TTY2OLED and mt32-pi. Others will bring a whole Atari museum worth of machines.

[barfood]

Created a feature request to make MiSTer SAM behave nicely with MiSTer BGM (forum). Hopefully someone else also wants this feature.

edit:
@mrchrisster's response: "Unfortunately afaik we don't have control over the core's audio from the Linux side. This would be great I hear you. If somebody knows how to control audio from Linux, I'd love to hear it!"

[LamerDeluxe]

Event?
Make some photos for us!

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This is the (yearly) Atari Invasion section of the (bi-monthly) Commodore Club event (in Maarssen Netherlands). The actual event was four to five times as big as what you see here.

The MiSTer (running SAM all day) and TTY2OLED got a lot of attention. Most people that were interested had heard of MiSTer but didn't know the details. I also brought three Atari Lynx units, one with McWill display and VGA output, another with overclocking option (and a game drive and agacart, plus my large Lynx game collection). I also brought an Atari Portfolio, which got a lot of attention as well.

Always a great crowd of friendly approachable and creative people there. It was a lot of fun.

[mrchrister]

Created a feature request to make MiSTer SAM behave nicely with MiSTer BGM (forum). Hopefully someone else also wants this feature.

edit:
@mrchrisster's response: "Unfortunately afaik we don't have control over the core's audio from the Linux side. This would be great I hear you. If somebody knows how to control audio from Linux, I'd love to hear it!"

I found a way to mute volume while SAM is running! Please reset SAM through the menu and reinstall to get the latest ini. There is a new Mute="Yes" option now in the ini.
As of right now when you push a button, SAM will restart the current game with sound. I did some limited testing and it seems to work alright! If this works, we can see how to integrate BGM.

[mrchrister]

The MiSTer (running SAM all day) and TTY2OLED got a lot of attention. Most people that were interested had heard of MiSTer but didn't know the details. I also brought three Atari Lynx units, one with McWill display and VGA output, another with overclocking option (and a game drive and agacart, plus my large Lynx game collection). I also brought an Atari Portfolio, which got a lot of attention as well.

Always a great crowd of friendly approachable and creative people there. It was a lot of fun.

Looks like you guys had a lot of fun and it makes me happy to see SAM in use
Thanks for posting the photos!

[barfood]

Created a feature request to make MiSTer SAM behave nicely with MiSTer BGM (forum). Hopefully someone else also wants this feature.

edit:
@mrchrisster's response: "Unfortunately afaik we don't have control over the core's audio from the Linux side. This would be great I hear you. If somebody knows how to control audio from Linux, I'd love to hear it!"

I found a way to mute volume while SAM is running! Please reset SAM through the menu and reinstall to get the latest ini. There is a new Mute="Yes" option now in the ini.
As of right now when you push a button, SAM will restart the current game with sound. I did some limited testing and it seems to work alright! If this works, we can see how to integrate BGM.

You are a legend! I'll check it out as soon as I can. Thanks!

[mrchrister]

The only thing that didn't work was Master System games. Then I looked at the readme and it turned out that core isn't even supported, so that explains that

I just added Game Gear and Master System to SAM, but can't test currently because my MiSTer at home is waiting for SD-RAM

[mrchrister]

I was wondering how the random function selects a core. Does it just randomly select any game of any core, or is a random console core (or MiSTer arcade) selected with an equal chance? (after which it randomly selects a game for that core). Otherwise cores with more games would be selected more often than ones with only a few games.
Repetition would obviously be higher for cores with less games though.

SAM used to shuffle all cores and then all games (so equal chance for all cores and games). I just changed the code slightly so now SAM does not select the same core twice in a row.
SAM also now creates game lists for every core (Scripts/SAM_GameLists folder) and deletes games off that list that have already played so you don't get repeats on shuffle. (This all happens in /tmp folder so SAM doesn't need to write to SD for that)

A feature where cores with the most games play slightly more often would be interesting.

[LamerDeluxe]

I was wondering how the random function selects a core. Does it just randomly select any game of any core, or is a random console core (or MiSTer arcade) selected with an equal chance? (after which it randomly selects a game for that core). Otherwise cores with more games would be selected more often than ones with only a few games.
Repetition would obviously be higher for cores with less games though.

SAM used to shuffle all cores and then all games (so equal chance for all cores and games). I just changed the code slightly so now SAM does not select the same core twice in a row.
SAM also now creates game lists for every core (Scripts/SAM_GameLists folder) and deletes games off that list that have already played so you don't get repeats on shuffle. (This all happens in /tmp folder so SAM doesn't need to write to SD for that)

A feature where cores with the most games play slightly more often would be an interesting feature.

That sounds like a good system. And good to hear it limits writes to SD. Does a core's game list get reset when it becomes empty after all played games have been removed? Otherwise you'd be left with only cores that have many games after a while.

I suppose the random seed is set from a time stamp? I've seen a few of the same uncommon games selected, multiple times that I ran SAM, but mostly it shuffles well.

The option for cores with more games would be interesting to have.

[mrchrister]

I also feel the random function isn't as random as one would think, even though we tried to improve randomness by getting 'shuf' command's seed from /dev/urandom. I had some games from huge libraries repeat quite often. It could have just been a coincidence, hard to tell..

Anyways, with the new list feature, this won't be an issue anymore and yes, once the list is empty it gets filled again by copying the list from SD to /tmp folder. If you delete roms from the folder, if you change the folder name in the ini or if the roms become inaccessible, the list gets repopulated.

[Sigismond0]

I found a way to mute volume while SAM is running! Please reset SAM through the menu and reinstall to get the latest ini. There is a new Mute="Yes" option now in the ini.
As of right now when you push a button, SAM will restart the current game with sound. I did some limited testing and it seems to work alright! If this works, we can see how to integrate BGM.

Can confirm the muting works, looks like it's muting the global volume. Of course, that won't really work with BGM since BGM will also be muted. You'd have to mute the core volume, not global. Mute feature is also causing problems where the MiSTer master volume remains muted if you shut down or reboot the system. It's also not doing what you're saying where a button press restarts the game and unmutes. I can take control of the game, and SAM indicates that it's stopping, but I just get booted back to the main menu.

If I disable the mute feature, I can confirm that input interruption works normally. Resume after input when menuonly=no seems to be working as expected (per the github thread).

Game Gear MGL files appear to be broken, but SMS works. Game Gear MGL files are using "gg" as the corename, needs to be "sms". But with just that change, they work, so that's an easy one!

Stop command now seems to boot you out of the current game and back to the same menu. Likely related to the mute feature, as it works correctly when mute is disabled.