3-sided table.

Thinking about getting a RaspberryJAMMA, or have just purchased one and have a newbie question? Walls here are padded, come on in and bounce your question off of them!

Moderator: dee2eR

dee2eR
Inventor
Inventor
Posts: 1857
Joined: Tue Aug 22, 2017 2:07 pm

Re: 3-sided table.

Post by dee2eR » Fri Jun 21, 2019 8:59 am

What resolution was your old system running in? Does the cab have a scaler board between the gameboard and monitor? Depending on your LCD monitor it may work better with the system running in high res (480p). The default low res settings use a few different low resolutions and are aimed at having the most authentic experience on CRT arcade monitors. I haven't experienced any issues like you've described but I also don't have any LCD monitors that accept low res RGB, I have to assume finding the right settings for the monitor will fix it up for you. If you do have a scaler between the board and monitor I'd recommend removing it and just outputting high res from the RPi. It's probably worth trying the high res mode in config.txt, it may just fix it all up for you. You can also swap to high res mode using the service menu but first will need to uncomment the options in /boot/launchers/servMenu.sh to make them work (they're commented out by default to stop people using the wrong mode for their CRT accidentally.

Your rom issues will be either missing bios or parent roms or wrong romset for that particular version of MAME. If it is the wrong rom for a particular version it may or may not work in a different version, all depends on the rom version. You can use Romcenter or other rom management programs to audit (and often fix/convert) your roms for particular MAME versions. Some datfiles are included in the USER_GUIDE folder to help with the rom management side.

I'm not sure if the Optiwiz supports 2 trackballs simultaneously, I think mine is limited to one trackball and one spinner (could be wrong I only use it for a trackball as I have no spinner). Although I bought mine years ago and there may have been new revisions that added support for more axis. I believe you can ask for different device IDs if you need to use more than one Optiwiz so they will work independently of each other. I had to wire between the Optiwiz and trackball, only crimping was required, not sure if I got wiring with mine I remember having to make it work with what I had lying around.

aod
Community Member
Community Member
Posts: 16
Joined: Tue Jun 11, 2019 4:13 pm

Re: 3-sided table.

Post by aod » Tue Jun 25, 2019 6:42 pm

I've tinkered some more and of course I have more questions! I'm betting you're really getting sick of me at this point. ;)

I know that version 3.82 didn't work with 3 b+ wifi, is 3.84 still not working with it? That is what I'm running and I followed the instructions on how to get wifi running on it but I'm not seeing it connect to my wifi network. It would make things so much easier if I could get it on wifi.

Thanks!
Last edited by aod on Wed Jun 26, 2019 3:05 am, edited 2 times in total.

aod
Community Member
Community Member
Posts: 16
Joined: Tue Jun 11, 2019 4:13 pm

Re: 3-sided table.

Post by aod » Wed Jun 26, 2019 3:03 am

Oof. Okay, now I've added a couple of games that I'd like to run in vertical mode and cocktail mode. Just for testing, Ms. Pac Man and Satan's Hollow. I can get into the MAME menu on the games (using P1+P1 joystick right) and set it to cocktail mode. However, I dunno how to start the games vertical. They start horizontal. I know you said that one could edit launcher scripts, and I do have a very good background in writing in Linux shell scripts, I have no idea what these do without context. Is there a way to make it so certain games load in a vertical setup while others load in horizontal or is that not possible currently without some serious hacking?

Thanks.

P.S. I'll also add that I've uncommented the hi-res stuff in the ServMenu.sh script but none of those options show up when I hit the service menu button. I do get a service menu, but nothing about hi-res to vertical or horizontal.

aod
Community Member
Community Member
Posts: 16
Joined: Tue Jun 11, 2019 4:13 pm

Re: 3-sided table.

Post by aod » Thu Jun 27, 2019 1:07 pm

Update:
I have found how to change the attract layout for each display and can put it in vertical mode. Unfortunately, I still can't get the game to go vertical. I do see in the configuration for each game where there is a Rotation and you can set it to 0, 90, 180, or 270. However, no matter what you set that to it makes no difference as the game is not rotated. Is there something that needs to be enabled in a script to get this working?

Thanks!

dee2eR
Inventor
Inventor
Posts: 1857
Joined: Tue Aug 22, 2017 2:07 pm

Re: 3-sided table.

Post by dee2eR » Thu Jun 27, 2019 10:41 pm

aod wrote:
Tue Jun 25, 2019 6:42 pm
I've tinkered some more and of course I have more questions! I'm betting you're really getting sick of me at this point. ;)

I know that version 3.82 didn't work with 3 b+ wifi, is 3.84 still not working with it? That is what I'm running and I followed the instructions on how to get wifi running on it but I'm not seeing it connect to my wifi network. It would make things so much easier if I could get it on wifi.

Thanks!
WiFi should work but you need to add your router info into the WPA_supplicant file, it can be done from the service menu with a keyboard. The info you need are router ID, password and your country code. Assuming you have done that I'm not sure why it wouldn't be working.

dee2eR
Inventor
Inventor
Posts: 1857
Joined: Tue Aug 22, 2017 2:07 pm

Re: 3-sided table.

Post by dee2eR » Thu Jun 27, 2019 10:55 pm

aod wrote:
Wed Jun 26, 2019 3:03 am
Oof. Okay, now I've added a couple of games that I'd like to run in vertical mode and cocktail mode. Just for testing, Ms. Pac Man and Satan's Hollow. I can get into the MAME menu on the games (using P1+P1 joystick right) and set it to cocktail mode. However, I dunno how to start the games vertical. They start horizontal. I know you said that one could edit launcher scripts, and I do have a very good background in writing in Linux shell scripts, I have no idea what these do without context. Is there a way to make it so certain games load in a vertical setup while others load in horizontal or is that not possible currently without some serious hacking?

Thanks.

P.S. I'll also add that I've uncommented the hi-res stuff in the ServMenu.sh script but none of those options show up when I hit the service menu button. I do get a service menu, but nothing about hi-res to vertical or horizontal.
By default all games will run in whatever orientation the system is setup in. The launchers have a bunch of logic in them to make the image appear right, adding -ror to one could be a little as you need to do to make some games run rotated. Each launcher is a little different due to the various emulators having their differences. Which MAME versions are you using? Some launchers are more/less complex than others due to the differing requirements. There's not really a function to arbitrarily rotate certain games. I'm guessing for your 3 sided setup you will want to adjust the options for vertical games on horizontal monitors (the concept of the monitor being mounted one way or another gets really confusing when you have 3 sides....).

The high res options will show up in the ARpiCADE service menu if they are commented out of not. They just don't actually do anything when they're commented out of the script. To get to the ARpiCADE service menu press 'service' (cabside) or 'f4' (keyboard) while in the game select menu, a new instance of the menu will load with some service options (it's the same menu used to get to the WiFi info). These options are system wide.

dee2eR
Inventor
Inventor
Posts: 1857
Joined: Tue Aug 22, 2017 2:07 pm

Re: 3-sided table.

Post by dee2eR » Thu Jun 27, 2019 10:58 pm

aod wrote:
Thu Jun 27, 2019 1:07 pm
Update:
I have found how to change the attract layout for each display and can put it in vertical mode. Unfortunately, I still can't get the game to go vertical. I do see in the configuration for each game where there is a Rotation and you can set it to 0, 90, 180, or 270. However, no matter what you set that to it makes no difference as the game is not rotated. Is there something that needs to be enabled in a script to get this working?

Thanks!
The various Attract-Mode layouts control their own rotation but don't effect anything else. Not sure where the rotation options you're seeing are, not sure they're what you want though...

aod
Community Member
Community Member
Posts: 16
Joined: Tue Jun 11, 2019 4:13 pm

Re: 3-sided table.

Post by aod » Mon Apr 13, 2020 3:30 pm

Now with covid-19 keeping me at home a lot more, I've had time to sit down and learn the system better. I put an advancemame rom set on the system and it is mostly working with pretty much all the games I want to play and then a lot of others. I'm definitely going to have to trim it down. I've now learned that I can just go into service menu and switch between horizontal and vertical orientation. What I'd like to do is have a different game list for when in vertical orientation than a game list in horizontal. Or maybe even have some of the games available in both orientations. I'd like all vertical games that have a cocktail cabinet option to be set to cocktail as well. Is there a good way to do this?

Thanks!

dee2eR
Inventor
Inventor
Posts: 1857
Joined: Tue Aug 22, 2017 2:07 pm

Re: 3-sided table.

Post by dee2eR » Tue Apr 14, 2020 4:45 am

You're in luck. AdvMAME can set cocktail mode from it's config file (at least for games that used dipswitches to set cocktail mode) and it can also have vertical dedicated settings. If you were using any other MAME it wouldn't be so easy.

You need to edit 2 files, /home/pi/.advance/advmame.rc & /home/pi/.advance/advmame.nosdl.rc - if you need to do it on the Pi after exiting Attract-Mode with F4 (and the service menu instance too), type:
nano .advance/advmame.rc
be careful as any mistakes in this file could stop advmame from working right. You want to add the line:
vertical/input_dipswitch[cabinet] cocktail
to both files. (ctrl+x to exit nano, it will ask if you want to save press 'y' then 'enter' to overwrite the existing file)
When you're done type:
sudo reboot
rebooting will make sure the changes are properly written to the SD card.

aod
Community Member
Community Member
Posts: 16
Joined: Tue Jun 11, 2019 4:13 pm

Re: 3-sided table.

Post by aod » Thu Apr 23, 2020 7:27 pm

That works great! So, on to the next thing I'd like to have on here. Vertical games only when in vertical mode and horizontal games only while in horizontal mode. So here is my line of thinking, if there is an easier or better way before I go down this path, please let me know.

Make 2 directories in /boot/romsAracde for mame-106-hori and mame-106-vert. Put horizontal roms in mame-106-hori and vertical in mame-106-vert.
In /boot/launchers/servMenu.sh, when it changes modes from horizontal to vertical or vice-versa, do a:

Code: Select all

if [ -d "/boot/romsArcade/mame-106-vert" ] && [ ! -d "/boot/romsArcade/mame-106-hori" ]
then
   mv /boot/romsArcade/mame-106 /boot/romsArcade/mame-106-hori
elif [ -d "/boot/romsArcade/mame-106-hori" ] && [ ! -d "/boot/romsArcade/mame-106-vert" ]
then
  mv /boot/romsArcade/mame-106 /boot/romsArcade/mame-106-vert
else
  echo "Something went horribly wrong!"
  exit
fi
That should put enough sanity checks in place to not rename to the wrong vert or hori directory. After doing that, when horizontal is selected, you simply mv /boot/romsArcade/mame-106-hori /boot/romsArcade/mame-106 and when vertical is selected you mv /boot/romsArcade/mame-106-vert /boot/romsArcade/mame-106.

This is a bit kludgy, I realize. I was really hoping I could do this by simply creating a symbolic link to one of the directories when starting that mode. IE: ln -s /boot/romsArcade/mame-106-hori /boot/romsArcade/mame-106 for horizontal and ln -s /boot/romsArcade/mame-106-vert /boot/romsArcade/mame-106 for vertical but as I sat and started putzing around I was quickly reminded that FAT filesystems do not support symbolic links. :(

So, again, am I on the right path here or is there an easier or a more accepted way to do this? Thanks so much!

Post Reply