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

[rhester72]

Just loaded a fresh copy of SAM and am actively testing (with mostly-default settings).

It's been a bit since I had SAM active...the "Next game in..." countdown now frequently skips a second, like something has it bogged down. Is that normal?

[rhester72]

The screensaver does now work exactly as expected - thank you!

[mrchrister]

Thanks for testing! I will change one setting which might have to do with the skipping second.

Update: Please try with the new version of SAM if the skipping improved

[rhester72]

Still skipping in exactly the same manner.

[rhester72]

Update: When I updated the tty2oled script, the issue with 'jumping' numbers seems GREATLY reduced (it still happens, but it's extremely infrequent now).

Is that particular function controlled by tty2oled itself? If so, I'll tag @venice about it.

[venice]

The timer is done by SAM, but the timer-data must be transferred to tty2oled.
Each data transfer from SAM to tty2oled is answered back (ACK) from tty2oled to SAM when the data are fully processed.
Now SAM can send the next data set and so on.

Depending on the process speed of your tty2oled display, the answer back to the MiSTer can be earlier or later.
The 8266 based tty2oled Display's are much slower than ESP32 based Displays.

@rhester72, which tty2oled hardware are you using?

[rhester72]

Mine is ESP32. Like I said, once I updated tty2oled to the latest, the skips are very infrequent...but if you watch long enough, you'll see one. It was far worse before, skipping every 4-5 seconds.

[venice]

As i run actually my tty2oled with an ESP32S3
I will connect my ESP32 and will check.

Which serial controller is used on your ESP32 Board?
Any other devices on your MiSTer which use tty dev‘s.
Any other tasks running on the MiSTer which makes him busy?

See here for some information how to get system infos:

https://github.com/venice1200/MiSTer_tt ... leshooting

[venice]

All my Systems (ESP-32/32S3/8266) are working fine with SAM.
Here and there is the actualization of the timer a bit late but nothing lost so far.

[rhester72]

Serial controller is CP2102N. Only the one TTY device. No tasks running except tty2oled and SAM. CPU clocked at 1.2GHz, RAM at 1GHz.

If I stare at an entire 3-minute cycle of a game on SAM, it 'skips' one second twice during the 168-second countdown, roughly equally spaced apart. It would seem that each 'second' actually lasts 1.0119 seconds, leading to a cumulative error that causes the 'skip'. This is a fairly common problem where time is kept inside a processing loop, since it doesn't account for actual processing time. The only way to avoid the problem is to use a time reference that is outside the computational code.

[venice]

Serial controller is CP2102N. Only the one TTY device. No tasks running except tty2oled and SAM. CPU clocked at 1.2GHz, RAM at 1GHz.

Sounds good to me.

If I stare at an entire 3-minute cycle of a game on SAM, it 'skips' one second twice during the 168-second countdown, roughly equally spaced apart...

The timer is a great feature, but it's all scripting (bash & co) and far away from beeing accurate.
But generall no problem for me.

//Edit
My timer runs just for 60secs, maybe too short to show a timer jump.

[rhester72]

OK...as long as it's not just me, it's not an issue...you have to literally stare at the countdown to see it, and I'm normally looking at the games.

[mrchrister]

The timer does not show every second counting down for me either. It's more meant to give you an approximation when the core is about to change.

[rhester72]

Quick SAM question specific to Amiga - when games/demos run in SAM, the aspect ratio is messed up and they display entirely full-screen (i.e. widescreen), but look 'normal' under MegaAGS. Is there anything I can do about that?

EDIT: Even though aspect ratio for the Minimig core was set to 'Original', I had to set it to Original again (by toggling it back and forth) and saving the config before it "took". Works fine in SAM now.

[Mewcenary]

I've got a SAM issue. I think.

I want to disable SAM. I've done this using the script, I've even uninstalled it via update_all.

However - ATTRACT MODE IS STILL RUNNING FROM THE MAIN MISTER MENU.

Help! What am I missing? Could there be another attract-mode type program I've forgotten about? What are the files on a Linux level where I can investigate?

[pbsk8]

One thing I wish I could do was when I see a game interesting running the demo I would like to press a button and start playing it, but no,

everytime it reboots the mister, dont know if I have to change something in settings.

[IRONBERG]

I have an issue.

I dont get any commercial videos with SAM video. Only the sound. mister menu still shows and the background picture flickers when it plays. after its done, a corresponding game loads as expected,

hdmi
mister.ini settings is what sam set it to;
[menu]
video_mode=8
fb_terminal=1
fb_size=1

[mrchrister]

I've got a SAM issue. I think.

I want to disable SAM. I've done this using the script, I've even uninstalled it via update_all.

However - ATTRACT MODE IS STILL RUNNING FROM THE MAIN MISTER MENU.

Help! What am I missing? Could there be another attract-mode type program I've forgotten about? What are the files on a Linux level where I can investigate?

Use Sam menu to uninstall or click on MiSTer_SAM_off.sh. Disabling SAM in update all will not update it but won't uninstall anything.

[mrchrister]

One thing I wish I could do was when I see a game interesting running the demo I would like to press a button and start playing it, but no,

everytime it reboots the mister, dont know if I have to change something in settings.

Use Sam menu to configure your controller (start button will then play current game) otherwise set play current game=yes to have all buttons start the current game

[mrchrister]

I have an issue.

I dont get any commercial videos with SAM video. Only the sound. mister menu still shows and the background picture flickers when it plays. after its done, a corresponding game loads as expected,

hdmi
mister.ini settings is what sam set it to;
[menu]
video_mode=8
fb_terminal=1
fb_size=1

Try changing this in MiSTer_Sam.ini https://github.com/mrchrisster/MiSTer_S ... M.ini#L113

[IRONBERG]

Try changing this in MiSTer_Sam.ini https://github.com/mrchrisster/MiSTer_S ... M.ini#L113

Doesnt seem to help. I tried 25 for displaywait and I still only get a shaky wallpaper (tried to change to default moving ants thingy too) I only get the sound.

[mrchrister]

I just experienced the same thing, it stayed on the menu. What happens when you push F9 while in the menu? Does it switch to Terminal? I had to do this 2 times just now and then it started playing the commercials. Not sure why this is happening but playing video on MiSTer is a pretty hacky feature so unexpected behavior is expected

[samspot]

EDIT: F9 wasn't working because i disabled my framebuffer per instructions I thought were from SAM, in fact it was my CRT not liking the shell.

I followed the instructions to configure the start button per controller. I didn't understand initially that I had to do this.

One thing I wish I could do was when I see a game interesting running the demo I would like to press a button and start playing it, but no,

everytime it reboots the mister, dont know if I have to change something in settings.

Use Sam menu to configure your controller (start button will then play current game) otherwise set play current game=yes to have all buttons start the current game

Is there a trick to getting into the SAM menu? When i run the script it very quickly scrolls past some instructions about holding up or down, but those buttons don't seem to do anything. Also since I set it up F9 no longer takes me to the shell, so I'm trying to figure out if i can run the SAM script from the shell somehow.

I have found that all the buttons quit SAM including the start button

[mrchrister]

It sounds like you are using a CRT. There are instructions on GitHub on how to set up the menu for CRT
https://github.com/mrchrisster/MiSTer_S ... e#features

Easiest would be to just edit MiSTer_SAM.ini. you'll find it in /media/fat/Scripts folder. It has most of the settings you see in the menu.

[pbsk8]

Is it possible to select arcade, but only to run CPS1 and CPS2 games?

Also, to this day even if I select neogeo no game of this system runs on SAM. That's the only system I have this problem. And yes, the roms are in its folder like the other systems.

[mrchrister]

Is it possible to select arcade, but only to run CPS1 and CPS2 games?

Also, to this day even if I select neogeo no game of this system runs on SAM. That's the only system I have this problem. And yes, the roms are in its folder like the other systems.

Yes, that's possible!
There are two ways. Please open MiSTer_SAM.ini in Scripts folder.
You can set sam_goat_list to yes which will only show great looking arcade games from the Arcade and NeoGeo cores.

For more control set arcadepathfilter to CPS like so:

Code: Select all

# --------- PATH FILTER ---------
# If you would like to only play games from a subdirectory of your games folder, put it here
# Partial match is all you need. Can be part of the path or filename.
# Please reboot for path filter to take effect.
#
# nespathfilter="(Japan)"

amigapathfilter=""
arcadepathfilter="CPS"
atari2600pathfilter=""
atari5200pathfilter=""
atari7800pathfilter=""
atarilynxpathfilter=""

The way it works is it checks the Organized folder in your _Arcade directory. There is a CPS-2 folder for example, so if you only want those games, set it to "CPS-2". One more tip: If the list includes games you don't like just issue a ssh command:

Code: Select all

 /media/fat/Scripts/MiSTer_SAM_on.sh ignore

or for easier access issue

Code: Select all

 /media/fat/Scripts/MiSTer_SAM_on.sh sshconfig

then open a new ssh session and simply type

Code: Select all

m ignore

As for NeoGeo not working, you are probably using zipped mame roms which are not supported. Please find a set with .neo games. Easiest way is to google "htgdb gamepacks".

Also, as always, please make sure you update SAM to the latest version by using SAMs updater. Update all should work as well but it doesn't always download the latest version.

[antibolo]

Been messing with SAM for the first time tonight, some feedback:

• Amiga doesn't seem to be working for me, no matter the game/demo I only get the Minimig-AGA boot screen with the error "No Kickstart loaded. Press F12 for settings. ** Halted! **" I have the latest AmigaVision installed (2023.12.25 release), with no particular changes to the configuration. Launching the "Amiga" core directly brings up the MegaAGS main menu as expected. Is there anything in particular I should look for?
• For MD/Genesis, the old "Genesis" core is used rather than the new "MegaDrive" core, which is where I have my games and everything else setup, is there a way to define which core to use? And if not, do you plan on eventually making the "MegaDrive" core the one that SAM uses?
• Similarly, it would be interesting to have the option to launch Game Boy games in the SGB core.
• As I use my MiSTer mostly with my CRT (a PVM 20M2U to be specific), I've been trying to select only 15kHz-capable cores. This is easy enough for non-arcade cores (basically, only ao486 needs to be disabled), but might require maintaining a whitelist for arcade? I could contribute a first list if needed.
• Whenever I press Start to end SAM and play the current game, the core reboots after a few seconds. This doesn't seem like intended behaviour? All inputs are working before the reboot.

Very cool project overall! I can see myself spending time with the roulette mode, when I'll find the time...

[pbsk8]

Is it possible to select arcade, but only to run CPS1 and CPS2 games?

Also, to this day even if I select neogeo no game of this system runs on SAM. That's the only system I have this problem. And yes, the roms are in its folder like the other systems.

Yes, that's possible!
There are two ways. Please open MiSTer_SAM.ini in Scripts folder.
You can set sam_goat_list to yes which will only show great looking arcade games from the Arcade and NeoGeo cores.

For more control set arcadepathfilter to CPS like so:

Code: Select all

# --------- PATH FILTER ---------
# If you would like to only play games from a subdirectory of your games folder, put it here
# Partial match is all you need. Can be part of the path or filename.
# Please reboot for path filter to take effect.
#
# nespathfilter="(Japan)"

amigapathfilter=""
arcadepathfilter="CPS"
atari2600pathfilter=""
atari5200pathfilter=""
atari7800pathfilter=""
atarilynxpathfilter=""

The way it works is it checks the Organized folder in your _Arcade directory. There is a CPS-2 folder for example, so if you only want those games, set it to "CPS-2". One more tip: If the list includes games you don't like just issue a ssh command:

Code: Select all

 /media/fat/Scripts/MiSTer_SAM_on.sh ignore

or for easier access issue

Code: Select all

 /media/fat/Scripts/MiSTer_SAM_on.sh sshconfig

then open a new ssh session and simply type

Code: Select all

m ignore

As for NeoGeo not working, you are probably using zipped mame roms which are not supported. Please find a set with .neo games. Easiest way is to google "htgdb gamepacks".

Also, as always, please make sure you update SAM to the latest version by using SAMs updater. Update all should work as well but it doesn't always download the latest version.

Thanks, I got the .neo roms and it is appearing neogeo games now. Also I set the path to 'CPS' as recommended. Just a question now:

is it possible for the games not to repeat so soon? I have been running for example cps1 and 2 and neogeo for an hour now and megaman power battle appears every 3 or 4 games every time.

[mrchrister]

SAM's default is to not repeat games. There is a norepeat option in the ini. If you see the same game playing more often it might be different versions of the same game (different file names). SAM is stripping out any duplicates as well if multiple versions of a game are found in different places but the file names are identical.

[pbsk8]

SAM's default is to not repeat games. There is a norepeat option in the ini. If you see the same game playing more often it might be different versions of the same game (different file names). SAM is stripping out any duplicates as well if multiple versions of a game are found in different places but the file names are identical.

CPS 1 and 2 are good for test because they show the release on the first screen and it is always the euro version, same date.