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

[mrchrister]

Hey sigismond, thanks for your feedback!

Have you tested BGM with global volume off? Since it uses external programs to play mp3 it might still work.. muting individual cores would work the same way as global volume so should be an easy update if needed.

Any button push out of SAM will unmute global volume. Unfortunately to get sound back a reboot of either the game or to the main menu is necessary. If you don't like it, you can set mute="No"
To restart the game with sound, set playcurrentgame="Yes" in the ini. Those two options will show up if you reset SAM and reinstall.

Game gear is fixed now, stop command as well.

[Sigismond0]

Yes, I can confirm that global volume does affect BGM. Core volume does not, so that should be the go forward plan.

Getting odd behavior after a reset and update. This happened when trying to test GG only. First game loaded fine, but all subsequent games failed to load with a "no RBF found" error on screen. Looks like the script somehow got really confused and started setting the game title as a corename variable or something.

GGonly.png (66.7 KiB) Viewed 5969 times

Second image attachment is similar, after testing that it works fine for a bit with all cores enabled, I switched back to GG only again and it failed in a different way that makes it look like it was selecting SG-1000 games somehow.

ggonly2.png (96.85 KiB) Viewed 5969 times

Stop script should also unmute volume, it currently leaves it muted.

Playcurrentgame is working correctly.

TTY2OLED is no longer correctly restored after button interrupt. Display is just cleared and remains black indefinitely until a cold boot is done.

[mrchrister]

Hmm, strange. I can not reproduce this here. TTY2OLED restores for me after button interrupt and selecting "GG games only" switches to new games correctly.

Stop command is in fact restoring volume but you won't see that until reboot. It's too bad the binary commands I send to the MiSTer to mute and restore are not interactive unfortunately.
I still like the mute function since I can now have games showing and when I pick up a controller it reboots to the menu and I have sound, so more like a screensaver and less like a game carousel, but I guess everyone has different preferences. Which one do you prefer?

To fix the game gear issue, can you please post the mgl of when this behaviour starts?

[Sigismond0]

To reproduce the GG only issue, I'm setting that as the only core in the ini file, not just running the script with the "gg" flag. I grabbed the MGL right after it said "no RBF found" and it appears to be using "_console/" as the RBF name:

Code: Select all

<mistergamedescription>
<rbf>_console/</rbf>
<file delay= type= index= path="../../../../media/fat/games/SMS/Sega Game Gear.zip/1 US - A-Z/Foreman for Real (World).gg"/>
</mistergamedescription>

Interestingly, it appears to sometimes be selecting .sms files when set to only shuffle GG (see attached screenshot and MGL). And it really, really loves this Reggie Jackson baseball game. It picks it about 80% of the time. I think this could be related to my folder structure--I have three zip files in games/sms. One with GG, one with SMS, and one with SG1000. Not sure how the shuffler works, but is it possible that setting to GG only but pointing to the main games/sms folder would allow it to try to select SMS or SG1000 games due to it selecting a zip that has no GG roms? Is it possible to specify a zip in the ini for a console path, or only a directory? I tried that to get it to look only in the GG zip, and it's not noticeably better.

Untitled.png (3.75 KiB) Viewed 5936 times

For TTY reset after button press, I can reliably reproduce the issue using ttyuseack=yes. Are you testing with that? Based on the Github thread, it sounds like you're mostly running with it off, so that might be our difference.

[mrchrister]

Yes, that's most likely the issue.
I have unpacked sets for GG/SMS so don't run into this issue... Let's see what we can do here. I'm thinking of a function that if it finds a zip with the system name to use it. Unfortunately Everdrive naming conventions don't correspond to corenames.
What if you have Game gear in a seperate folder and link to it in the ini?

Yeah I'm using tty passively, seems to work well for me so far.

[mrchrister]

I believe I found a fix. If SAM doesn't find files with the correct ending in a zip that it picked, it will try the next one.
Please update and try again.

Edit: I reworked zip detection to always prefer Everdrive zips if found, no matter the size. Hopefully that works well for everyone.

I also added Game Boy and Game Boy color to SAM

[Sigismond0]

Unfortunately, no change in behavior for GG only setup with zips like that. Still selects SMS games from a different zip, see MGLs below.

Code: Select all

<mistergamedescription>
<rbf>_console/</rbf>
<file delay= type= index= path="../../../../media/fat/games/SMS/Sega Game Gear.zip/2 Japan - A-Z/Pro Yakyuu '91, The (Japan).gg"/>
</mistergamedescription>

Code: Select all

<mistergamedescription>
<rbf>_console/sms</rbf>
<file delay=1 type=f index=2 path="../../../../media/fat/games/SMS/Sega Master System.zip/1 US - A-Z/Reggie Jackson Baseball (USA).sms"/>
</mistergamedescription>

If I move the GG stuff into its own subfolder, it selects GG roms only, but the SAM monitor still has all those script errors and it still creates the MGL files with "_console/" as the RBF. Example below

Code: Select all

<mistergamedescription>
<rbf>_console/</rbf>
<file delay= type= index= path="../../../../media/fat/games/SMS/gg/Sega Game Gear.zip/2 Japan - A-Z/Hyokkori Hyoutan-jima - Hyoutan-jima no Daikoukai (Japan).gg"/>
</mistergamedescription>

Code: Select all

<mistergamedescription>
<rbf>_console/</rbf>
<file delay= type= index= path="../../../../media/fat/games/SMS/gg/Sega Game Gear.zip/4 Translations/Non-English/Spanish/Dragon - The Bruce Lee Story (U) [T-Spa1.0v_Wave].gg"/>
</mistergamedescription>

And then sometimes it makes it OK:

Code: Select all

<mistergamedescription>
<rbf>_console/sms</rbf>
<file delay=1 type=f index=2 path="../../../../media/fat/games/SMS/gg/Sega Game Gear.zip/1 US - A-Z/Wimbledon (World).gg"/>
</mistergamedescription>

Definitely something funny going on here. Even if my file structure is suboptimal, the script shouldn't be messing up the RBF name, and even when I do have a more acceptable file structure it's still messing up on that part.

[mrchrister]

Ok strange, the script errors are thrown at you because the core var is empty and then doesn't proceed to load the mgl file... not sure atm why this is happening since I can't reproduce this error. Let me think on this..

Edit1: It also shouldn't select sms games at all if gg is selected because it will only find files with gg extension normally.

Edit2: Ah, it has something to do with the "gg" in Reggie that it selects that game. Ok, this is probably because it generated the wrong list for gg at some point. Please delete everything in /Scripts/SAM_GameLists and try again!

Edit3: If you moved everything into a new folder, then it should have regenerated the list, so this isn't the issue. Stupid question, but have you tried a reboot? It might be that some variables are still stuck if you haven't rebooted since the last test from yesterday...

[Sigismond0]

Yep, did do a hard reboot or two today during testing. Moved games into and back out of directories as well, so the list should have regenerated multiple times.

[mrchrister]

I did find a bug in gamelist folder detection yesterday so it would still be a good idea to reset SAM or delete game lists.
Thanks by the way for all your testing, you're a true champ and your input is much appreciated!

Does gb/gbc core work for you? Is it only gg right now that is having issues?

Edit: Just added 32x support as well. Update (and reset if you want the ini updates as well) and then launch "MiSTer_SAM_on.sh s32x" to try

[Sigismond0]

Yeah, I did already do a full reset this morning as well. Same issues. REset from the SAM menu, then updated from the menu. I noticed that a reset doesn't delete the gamelists folder, BTW. Might also be good to have it be .SAMGameLists so that it's a hidden directory from the menu.

GB and GBC appear to be working. And I have a similar folder structure for those where the /games/gameboy direcotry just has tow big zips, one with all GB and one with all GBC. So the logic is all working great on that core. GB/GBC paths are not in the current ini, so add those.

After GB/GBA are confirmed working, I tried GG only again and had the same issue. Tried SMS only, and it fails similarly to GG--sometimes making bad MGL files with no RBF specified. One time it didn't even select a ROM, it just selected a SG-1000 zip file.

Code: Select all

<mistergamedescription>
<rbf>_console/</rbf>
<file delay= type= index= path="../../../../media/fat/Games/SMS/Sega SG-1000.zip/"/>
</mistergamedescription>

Edit: 32x should have the s32xpath variable default to games/s32x since that's the core's actual default directory instead of the genesis folder. Other than that it looks like it's working somewhat. It generated at least one MGL for me with an invalid RBF as well:

Code: Select all

<mistergamedescription>
<rbf>_console/</rbf>
<file delay= type= index= path="../../../../media/fat/Games/s32x/1 USA A-Z.zip/Motocross Championship (USA).32x"/>
</mistergamedescription>

But GB and GBC seem to run well consistently.

[mrchrister]

I was debating hiding the gamelist folder. The reason it's visible is because I wanted to make it easy for people to edit their gamelists, so you can exclude any game you don't want. That being said I have been working on a gamelist editor that you can even use with a gamepad from the menu so I might as well hide the folder...

S32x is pointing to genesis folder simply because Everdrive packs include 32x and they are currently in the Genesis zip. Since 32x is an addon for the Genesis (just like FDS for the NES) I do wonder why it gets its own folder to begin with?
I'll leave the folder pointing to Genesis for now since SAM mainly supports Everdrive packs. Whenever S32x standalone packs become available, we can change it to S32X.

Still weird you are getting these issues with all MGL vars being empty. Are you using the latest nightly Mister Main or are you back to stable?

[Sigismond0]

I've been on stable main for a while. On v220413. So far the MGL issue is only happening for SMS/GG and now 32x. I haven't tested in depth with other cores, but GB/GBC ran for fifteen minutes just fine. Shuffled all cores for a short while and didn't see any failures there either.

32x core has it's on games directory because it's an entirely separate core just like how Sega CD is. This is most likely due to FPGA limitations on how much you can stuff into a single core. NES/FDS are in the same core, so it uses the same directory. I think it's safe to assume that anyone running the 32x core as it is currently implemented will move their 32x games over to /games/s32x so that they show up in the core menu when selecting games. If you leave them in genesis, you have to do a lot of browsing around to actually get to the games from the 32x loading menu.

[jacob.pederson]

Am I nuts or does the valid options line not show all the valid options in the latest script version?

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# Which systems would you like to display in Attract Mode? 
# Valid options: arcade gba genesis gg megacd neogeo nes snes sms tgfx16 tgfx16cd psx
corelist="arcade,fds,gb,gbc,gba,genesis,gg,megacd,neogeo,nes,s32x,sms,snes,tgfx16,tgfx16cd,psx"

[mrchrister]

I hear you, I have moved my 32x stuff over already. It's easy to change the directory from the ini. I'll leave it for now, since there is a high likelihood that it will work for the user without having to unpack zips etc.

Since I don't know what causes the variables to not show, it might be best to wait for other user input to see if this is a problem for everyone.

[Sigismond0]

Have you tried zipping your SMS/GG? I think you said you had unpacked sets, so maybe it's worth trying to replicate my structure on your end? Other than that, yeah, I don't really have any ideas on that one. Really odd that GB/GBC work for me using a similar folder structure, but GG/SMS fail so badly.

[mrchrister]

Yes, i replicated your setup. 3 zips in the folder. Works without problems and always selects the right zip for me.
What happens if you use the latest Everdrive zips or unpacked roms?

[Sigismond0]

I'm pretty sure mine are the Everdrive packs, just with the top zip renamed. But I can confirm that if I just put some loose roms into /games/sms/sms and /games/sms/gg and update the ini accordingly, it looks like it's working just fine! So it does appear to be something with my specific zip structure I guess. I'll play around with re-zipping and stuff, see what I can do.

Even if I unzip 32x, it still fails for me. Tried everything from putting them in /games/genesis to making sure the directory doesn't have "s32x" anywhere in the string just in case that was conflicting somehow. Still failing. Just generating bad MGLs. Will screw around some more later, but it appears the 32x issue isn't the same as the GG/SMS one.

[Sigismond0]

OK, so just downloading, unzipping, re-zipping, and re-uploading the SMS/GG files in the exact same structure resolved the problem. I've had it running for a while now without issue. Will attempt similar with 32x.

Only issue I see right now is that the gamelist/anti-repeat feature seems not to work. As you can see in the screenshot below, it selected Reggie Jackson Baseball three times for the "Game Gear" core basically back-to-back. And it was pulling from the SMS zip too.

Code: Select all

<mistergamedescription>
<rbf>_console/sms</rbf>
<file delay=1 type=f index=2 path="../../../../media/fat/games/SMS/Sega Master System.zip/1 US - A-Z/Reggie Jackson Baseball (USA).sms"/>
</mistergamedescription>

[mrchrister]

Once Gamelists are created you will see the same errors because it always pulls from a static list. I included the SAM_Gamelists folder in reset so it's best to delete gamelists each time when trying something new. Unfortunately the gamelist feature is not great if things go sideways since you always have to delete the files. I might make a variable to ignore gamelists for testing purposes.

[mrchrister]

The error at the top means partun (unzipper program for SAM) is panicking, so definitely something wrong with your zip. They might work fine for Mister, but they seem to have some issue. Best is to google "htgdb gamepacks" and get the latest zip packs, that's the one I'm using.

[Sigismond0]

Yeah, I think my original zips were just down with windows, and the new zips I just made were with 7zip. So that's probably the difference there. I had been clearing out the gamelists, but it looks like the were moved into the .MiSTer_SAM folder from where they were before, so I wasn't actually succeeding at resetting on the last few tests.

Still very consistently running into the issue where it selects Reggie Jackson Baseball from the SMS zip and says it's running on GG. Does it even after clearing out the lists, and it just really loves re-playing that particular game over and over in the "wrong" mode.

32x is still giving trouble though. Even with the lists cleared and files unzipped, it still does the thing where it makes MGLs without a correct RBF. Currently, it's runs a game, it works, then it tries to run the same game again and fails. Then it runs another game and it works. Then that second game tries to run again and fails. This repeats indefinitely. So it "looks" like it's working, but it's not.

I'll try just pulling down a fresh pack for that core, since even loose files aren't working.

[mrchrister]

If the script fails once, you need to reboot your Mister because some variables might not get updated on restart of the script. Unpacked should work after a reboot. Still a mystery to me why it fails since I implemented a "Prefer Everdrive" zip feature that fixed wrong detection for me.

Can you change samquiet=no in the ini? For Everdrive pack detection there needs to be a file larger than 300MB in the folder. If after samquiet=No it says "Using zip" than I have a good idea why we're seeing this issue, just found a bug in the under 300MB zip detection function.

[Sigismond0]

Yep, says using zip. And these are smaller zip files. And man, it really, really loves Reggie Jackson Baseball for SMS when shuffling to GG. I swear it picks it like 90% of the time.

I reboot regularly during testing, and still can't get 32x to work even with loose ROMs. Still does the thing where it selects the same game twice and, then another game twice, etc.

[mrchrister]

Ok, I'll lower Everdrive zip detection to 250MB. All newer packs are over 300MB, that's why everdrive detection isn't working for you

[Sigismond0]

Ahh OK interesting. My Game Gear zip is 112MB, SMS is 73 MB. I stripped out all of the hacks, homebrew, betas, etc. to save on SD space. So the zips are Everdrive packs, just leaner versions.

For 32x, it's like a 50MB zip for the full ROMset, so this is probably something others will run into on that front soon.

[mrchrister]

Ah ok, that makes sense then! I fixed "using zip" function and lowered everdrive pack minimum size to 250MB. I will rewrite zip logic to look for everdrive naming before doing the other checks, but that will take me some time.

If you download the official packs (32x doesnt have a standalone release at this point), everything should work as expected so it's good to look into these corner cases with user created zip packs. Cheers!

[Sigismond0]

Latest update appears to have broken something--it's now creating MGLs without putting ggpath or smspath in the directory structure:

Code: Select all

<mistergamedescription>
<rbf>_console/sms</rbf>
<file delay=1 type=f index=2 path="../../../..1 US - A-Z/Reggie Jackson Baseball (USA).sms"/>
</mistergamedescription>

Also failing on cores that previously worked:

Code: Select all

<mistergamedescription>
<rbf>_console/gameboy</rbf>
<file delay=2 type=f index=0 path="../../../..1 GBC US - M-Z/Rampart (USA).gbc"/>
</mistergamedescription>

Of interesting note, most of my zip files in other cores that have been working all along have been these trimmed Everdrive packs. The NES folder, for example, has a few smaller zips for each region and none is larger than 120MB. So I've always been running against the non-everdrive zip parsing method in SAM. So far this weird thing where GG loads Reggie Jackson Baseball from the SMS folder is the only actual repeatable issue related to that so far. (Other SMS/GG issue was just bad zip files to begin with.)

[mrchrister]

Does it say, using zip in both cases?

[Sigismond0]

Does it say, using zip in both cases?

Yes. As noted in my above comment, I think I've been using "using zip" for all of my testing ever due to how I trimmed down my Everdrive packs.

Also have some more interesting logs now that samquiet=no. On the 32x, I currently just have loose ROMs in a folder. See how it tries to launch the same game twice? It looks like it's looking for files in the specified directory, working, then looking in "." and failing. And see how it says selected core is ".."?