Vs. Balloon Fight - single screen in AdvMAME?

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Tapper
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Vs. Balloon Fight - single screen in AdvMAME?

Post by Tapper » Fri Apr 12, 2019 9:24 pm

Is it possible to only display the first (left-most) screen in Vs. Balloon Fight (balonfgt) using AdvMAME?

So far no luck. I've tried making it noSDL in the launcher, choosing 256x240 resolution, and entering "balonfgt/display_skipcolumns -127" into advmame.nosdl.rc. The idea being to skip 127 pixel columns to the left, so only the left screen is shown. But there was no change onscreen. Is the "display_skipcolumns" setting not active in this build of AdvMAME? I found that setting here: https://www.advancemame.it/doc-advmame#8.4.1

There are no UI settings in AdvMAME that allow moving the display either. The various scaling effects etc. do nothing useful in this case.

You can play it in .172 and .203, which more easily allow you to choose only one screen. But it runs much better in AdvMAME. *sigh*

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Re: Vs. Balloon Fight - single screen in AdvMAME?

Post by dee2eR » Sat Apr 13, 2019 12:29 am

I don't think AdvMAME can do what you want, or at least I don't know how. It's possible the display_skipcolumns option only works in older builds or under certain conditions maybe.

If it runs well in any Retroarch version of MAME you could make it work, although some logic would need to be added to the launcher to automate it.

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Re: Vs. Balloon Fight - single screen in AdvMAME?

Post by Tapper » Sat Apr 13, 2019 12:35 am

Thanks. Oh well. It's just one game.

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Re: Vs. Balloon Fight - single screen in AdvMAME?

Post by dee2eR » Sat Apr 13, 2019 12:45 am

I'll try and take a look at Balloon Fight today, maybe I can figure it out.

EDIT:
here's a 2 file fix for Balloon Fight in MAME078 to run only the left screen (player 1 only) at 240p:
balonfgt fixup.zip
(2.82 KiB) Downloaded 276 times
it has a modified version of the launcher with a new array for left screen only with balonfgt in it already and a new config file that goes in /home/pi/.config/retroarch/aconfig/

This fix is only suitable to ARpiCADE 3.84 without modifying the launcher some more as it's using the libretro-MAME2003-plus core.

I didn't check the framerate but it seemed to be OK, hopefully it runs good enough in 078.

EDIT again:
the same rom from AdvMAME worked in 078 for me.

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Re: Vs. Balloon Fight - single screen in AdvMAME?

Post by Tapper » Mon Apr 15, 2019 9:37 pm

Thank you for this, but unfortunately it just kicks back to Attractmode.

I've tried the AdvMAME version of the ROM, as well as the reference set ROM for 0.78. Same thing.

I copied the 2 files to these folders like this and confirm they are there:
mSD: home\pi\.config\retroarch\aconfig\leftmonitoronly240p.cfg
mSD: boot\launchers\mame078.sh

Note, I also backed up the original mame078.sh file.

The ROM is placed in:
mSD: boot\roms\mame-078\balonfgt.zip

I did a ROM scan in Arpicade prior to trying to run the game.

Here is the content of the ROM being used:
# Archive O:\roms\mame-078\balonfgt.zip
1996-12-24 23:32 8192 5721 bf.1a
1996-12-24 23:32 8192 5956 bf.1b
1996-12-24 23:32 8192 5870 bf.1c
1996-12-24 23:32 8192 5715 bf.1d
1996-12-24 23:32 8192 1994 bf.2a
1996-12-24 23:32 8192 3830 bf.2b
1996-12-24 23:32 8192 5781 bf.6a
1996-12-24 23:32 8192 5956 bf.6b
1996-12-24 23:32 8192 5870 bf.6c
1996-12-24 23:32 8192 5651 bf.6d
1996-12-24 23:32 8192 1994 bf.8a
1996-12-24 23:32 8192 3830 bf.8b
#
# Total Size Packed Files
# 98304 58168 12

A newer ROM I tried that runs fine on my PC using a recent MAME build, but doesn't work on Arpicade from the mame-078 folder:
# Archive E:\Emulation\MAME\roms\balonfgt.zip
1996-12-24 23:32 8192 5721 mds-bf4 a-3.1a
1996-12-24 23:32 8192 5956 mds-bf4 a-3.1b
1996-12-24 23:32 8192 5870 mds-bf4 a-3.1c
1996-12-24 23:32 8192 5715 mds-bf4 a-3.1d
1996-12-24 23:32 8192 1994 mds-bf4 a-3.2a
1996-12-24 23:32 8192 3830 mds-bf4 a-3.2b
1996-12-24 23:32 8192 5781 mds-bf4 a-3.6a
1996-12-24 23:32 8192 5956 mds-bf4 a-3.6b
1996-12-24 23:32 8192 5870 mds-bf4 a-3.6c
1996-12-24 23:32 8192 5651 mds-bf4 a-3.6d
1996-12-24 23:32 8192 1994 mds-bf4 a-3.8a
1996-12-24 23:32 8192 3830 mds-bf4 a-3.8b
1996-12-24 23:32 192 94 rp2c04-0003.pal
#
# Total Size Packed Files
# 98496 58262 13

Any idea what the issue might be? I tested the zip file, and even extracted and rezipped it. It should be fine.

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Re: Vs. Balloon Fight - single screen in AdvMAME?

Post by dee2eR » Tue Apr 16, 2019 2:10 am

That's weird. It works for me...

Maybe trying to run it from the command line will let you know the issue. Exit all the menus to the command line and try the command:
/boot/launchers/./mame078.sh balonfgt

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Re: Vs. Balloon Fight - single screen in AdvMAME?

Post by Tapper » Tue Apr 16, 2019 3:54 am

I did what you suggested. The Arpicade loading screen comes up, then it kicks back to the command line and it just says "Powering on HDMI with explicit setting..." and nothing else. :(

I also tried with the "-verbose" switch at the end of the command line, but it didn't show anything more.

UPDATE: so I copied another game (beezer.zip) to the mame 0.78 rom folder, scanned and tried to run it. Same thing, kicked back to AM. Seems like there is something messed up with running MAME 0.78 on my setup for some reason. Ugh.

UPDATE 2: switched back to the original mame078.sh file, and now the games do run. So, it seems something is wrong with the sh file you posted?

UPDATE 3: found the problem! In the sh code you have changed mame2003 to mame2003plus. I just uncommented the original line and deleted the new one, and now it runs. But, still not single screen?! I guess I need the plus version for it work?

Code: Select all

# launch game 2003 original
#/home/pi/.config/retroarch/bin/retroarch -L /home/pi/.config/retroarch/cores/lr-mame2003/mame2003_libretro.so --config /home/pi/.config/retroarch/mame078_libretro.cfg --appendconfig /home/pi/.config/retroarch/aconfig/$aconfig.cfg /home/pi/.mame078/roms/$1.zip

# launch game 2003plus
/home/pi/.config/retroarch/bin/retroarch -L /home/pi/.config/retroarch/cores/lr-mame2003plus/mame2003_plus_libretro.so --config /home/pi/.config/retroarch/mame2003_plus_libretro.cfg --appendconfig /home/pi/.config/retroarch/aconfig/$aconfig.cfg /home/pi/.mame078/roms/$1.zip
I don't have mame2003plus in ARpiCADE\home\pi\.config\retroarch\cores\. Do you have it? I haven't added or removed anything there since downloading your image, so did you add that later? Can you please upload that folder and files so I can add it to cores?

Thank you.

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Re: Vs. Balloon Fight - single screen in AdvMAME?

Post by dee2eR » Tue Apr 16, 2019 8:47 am

That is odd. You should have libretro MAME 2003-plus if you upgraded to ARpiCADE 3.84.

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Re: Vs. Balloon Fight - single screen in AdvMAME?

Post by Tapper » Tue Apr 16, 2019 5:13 pm

Ah, didn't realize there was an update! :-)

Thanks again.

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Re: Vs. Balloon Fight - single screen in AdvMAME?

Post by Tapper » Tue Apr 16, 2019 11:10 pm

Updated to 3.84. Unfortunately balonfgt is still not displaying as a single screen. I have triple checked that the 2 files you sent are in the right places etc.

UPDATE: I tried editing mame078.sh to explicitly use leftmonitoronly240p.cfg, and that DOES result in a single screen! BUT, it is displayed as a horizontal display, but squished to only occupy the top half (i.e. the left half of my vertical monitor). Using the code you originally sent the game still displays 2 small screens side-by-side, albeit correctly oriented for the vertical monitor.

I'm not a programmer, but understand enough to muck about. :-P Here is what I did as a test:

Changed from this:

Code: Select all

--appendconfig /home/pi/.config/retroarch/aconfig/$aconfig.cfg
To this:

Code: Select all

--appendconfig /home/pi/.config/retroarch/aconfig/leftmonitoronly240p.cfg

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