Rotating screen on the fly

[GalagaKing]

Hi guys. I got a 3 sided cocktail cabinet and want to be able to rotate the screen dependant on what game is chosen i.e. when Double Dragon is chosen I want side 2 with the duel controls to be setup for this. If I choose Galaga I want sides 1 and 3 with single controls to be rotated to suit. Is this possible taking into account i'm not programmers crack hole?
Cheers
Troy

[genesis14]

I know that you can rotate your screen 180 deg by pressing the F2 button on a keyboard, not sure about 90 degrees or 270 .

[GalagaKing]

Thanks Genesis14. I wont have a keyboard plugged in but thanks for the message. I want it to do it on the fly like in MAMEUI dependant on what game is chosen (Y)

[caver01]

@GalagaKing your setup sounds exactly like mine. I am primarily using libretro cores for arcade games, and I have all of my games setup the way you describe. Games fall into three basic categories. First, the horizontal games which is basically my default. Console games fit into this category too. For these, I setup the retroarch.cfg the way I want it in my roms folder (arcade) with the controls and shaders. I use lr-mame2003 and lr-fba-next with the CRT shader with curvature.

Second are the vertical (often classic) arcade games. I use in lr-mame2003. For these, I use per-rom configs in the rom folder next to each game (romname.zip.cfg) in which I specify the rotation I want. My config for these games contain this:

video_allow_rotate = true
video_rotation = 3

I also have to map controls to the end panels and enable cocktail cabinet dip switch using the mame GUI menus <tab>

The third category are games like 1941 that are technically vertical, but that I need to keep in the horizontal position because players work together side by side. For these, I also use a the CRT shader but the one with the vertical variation. My per-rom configs look like this:

video_allow_rotate = true
video_rotation = 4
# Index of the aspect ratio selection in the menu.
# 19 = Config, 20 = 1:1 PAR, 21 = Core Provided, 22 = Custom Viewport
aspect_ratio_index = "19"
video_aspect_ratio_auto = false
video_aspect_ratio = .75
video_shader = /opt/retropie/emulators/retroarch/shader/crt-pi-vertical.glslp
video_shader_enable = true

Finally, for vector games, trackball and spinner games, I use advancemame which uses its own config (does not use any of these).

It can be a bit of work to get each game configured the way you want, but it's worth it.

[GalagaKing]

Thanks @caver01 appreciate the detailed email. Im a little confused being a bit of a noob to this reading your email but will have a crack and see what I can do
Have you got a pic of your cabinet?
Cheers
Troy (Y)

[caver01]

@GalagaKing Yeah, my project post is here. The images should be loading properly now.

[Omar007]

@caver01 Dude you're awesome! I've been looking for a solution forever now. This is the best! I literally made an account to thank you!

[caver01]

@Omar007 Thanks! I hope you continue to be active in the forums. Perhaps you could share your project details. A single post like this which has a small gem of detail comes with a lot of trial and error, not to mention many hours of reading and research. With so many different projects out there, you rarely find anyone building exactly what you wan to build so there are no step-by-step instructions beyond the basics. As soon as you try to do something unique or specific, you start to wanter into undocumented territory. Luckily, there is usually someone (or collection of someones) who have done what you want in part. I think it's important to share successes like this for anyone like yourself to find.

So, are you building a system that requires game rotation considerations beyond what happens automatically? I have found that most of my arcade games fall into one of a small list of categories: Horizontal, Vertical Cocktail, Controls Constrained.

Horizontal is pretty self-explanatory. Vertical Cocktail are the many classics (Pac-Man) that render in a portrait aspect and can be played on my cabinet on the vertical ends. Controls Constrained are either side-by-side vertical games whereco-operative gameplay requires the players to stand side-by-side, or vertical games that use a trackball which I have on the horizontal side. For these, I need to play in pillar-box form from the horizontal side of my cabinet because that's the only way two players have controls next to each other or have access to a trackball.

[Omar007]

@caver01 Actually, What I needed was very simple. I had recently soft modded my 3ds but couldn't find anywhere on how to edit specific roms. I wanted to view vertical roms horizontally.

However in the future I may look into making a mame system with a RP3. Thanks for the help I'm trying this out today