Newbie questions about Attract Mode ROM names/lists

Questions and tweaks for Attract-Mode on ARpiCADE.

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Azathoth
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Newbie questions about Attract Mode ROM names/lists

Post by Azathoth » Tue Mar 28, 2023 4:08 am

Just got my setup last week. My only prior experience dealing with frontends was using MaLa for a desktop PC and a but of using Emulation Station for Retropie, so please excuse my ignorance on the subject. I had a few questions and searches about them didn't produce any results so I'm forced to make a topic here.

1. When generating a ROM list, is it possible to have the names generated with the full ROM title like other frontends, rather than just simply the game name? For instance, I've got a half dozen entries for "The Simpsons" on my list with no way of differentiating between the 2P, 4P, JP, or US versions.

Edit Looks like I found the answer to that under the "hide brackets" option in Attract Mode settings

2. Is there any way to have Attract Mode scroll the ROM names horizontally when highlighted, so you're not just limited to seeing the first couple words of a name? Even if the name entries were correct, you'd have no way of telling because you never see the full ROM name with the info at the end.

3. How can I update the database (or whatever the proper term is) so a ROM scan will pick up and display everything in the folder? There's quite a few valid ROMs that never get picked up in the scan so I have no way of choosing them, forcing you to manually load them through the Retroarch menu. Initially I thought they were being skipped because the bundled FBA/MAME versions weren't compatible with them but that's not the case, they're just not being picked up as valid ROMS when the folder is scanned. As a comparison, some of these do show up properly titled when using Emulation Station on Retropie. Others, if they don't have a valid entry, will at least show up just as Whatever.zip in the ROM list, so they can at least be loaded by FBA through the frontend.

Any help with this at all is appreciated.

dee2eR
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Re: Newbie questions about Attract Mode ROM names/lists

Post by dee2eR » Sat Apr 01, 2023 3:03 am

2. not sure but I think this would be theme (Attract-Mode layout) specific.

3. probably roms that are not represented in the aml file associated with whatever emulator. The rom scanner uses the aml files as reference so won't list anything not in the aml files. Have a look in /boot/launchers/aml/

Azathoth
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Re: Newbie questions about Attract Mode ROM names/lists

Post by Azathoth » Sat Apr 01, 2023 9:40 am

dee2eR wrote:
Sat Apr 01, 2023 3:03 am
3. probably roms that are not represented in the aml file associated with whatever emulator. The rom scanner uses the aml files as reference so won't list anything not in the aml files. Have a look in /boot/launchers/aml/
Thanks, that's exactly the issue. Unfortunately I can't seem to find a single resource explaining how an aml file is generated or how to go about getting an updated one. Could you point me in the direction of that info?

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Re: Newbie questions about Attract Mode ROM names/lists

Post by dee2eR » Fri Apr 14, 2023 2:55 am

Sorry for the slow reply, one of my kids got hit by a car a couple of weeks ago (he's had surgery and will be fine but it's kept me very distracted lately).

Unfortunatly I cannot find the references for the AML files anymore. Ozfalcon on AussieArcade made the 'Attract-Mode list' format when he overhauled the ARpiCADE romscanner, making my old rom scanning code run much faster in the process. Since then however AussieArcade has switched servers and at this point the old threads/development history of RaspberryJAMMA/ARpiCADE on AA pre the existance of this site is no longer available.

At one point there was actually documentation regarding generating the AML files but I can't find it now. Hopefully I have the stuff Ozfalcon wrote backed up somewhere or I can talk to AA admin about having the old thread restored...

Is it just the FBA list that you're experiencing issues with? I don't use FBA a heap on Pi4 so may not have built the best AML file for it. It could be worth copying another AML file that is more complete (eg. mame172.aml) use a good text editor to change every instance of 'mame172' in the file to 'fba' and save it as fba.aml. It will end up with many games in the file that are not supported by FBA but hopefully more of the games that are supported will also be there.

Azathoth
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Re: Newbie questions about Attract Mode ROM names/lists

Post by Azathoth » Mon Apr 17, 2023 5:12 pm

Sorry to hear about your child's accident, that's an awful thing to go through. I hope everything goes well with their recovery.

Editing the AML file got anything not originally included on it working fine. I hadn't tried that yet because I assumed there would be more to it than just adding or editing a simple line of text. There's quite a few unique games and hacks that work with FBA only (no MAME support yet) and this did the trick.

While it would definitely be nice to have an updated AML file that has every supported ROM already in it, but if there's a must-play game you need to add this is a quick and painless solution.

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