Updated EmulationStation for Windows

f.caruso

Try "--fullscreen" in the command line. I changed the default mode to fullscreenwindowed, because exclusive fullscreen can create problems (expecially when not hiding when running a game).
I didn't change default timings.
Interesting...
I know, I'm thinking about a theme property to handle that...

@CarissaIsWierd A shadow image underneath the game title ??? What kind of shadow ? On the text, on the image ??? I don't understand what you want...

jero

@f-caruso Well every time this has better things. There could be settings for the videos that appear without making the animation. In other words, an adjustment for on off and maybe put some more animation.

Another thing I do not know if it is already possible to play background music and sounds when moving and selecting the carousel.

Another idea would be a bootscreen video, when you start ES.

Finally, about the padtokey. there is a possibility that it is something within ES without having to be outside of ES. You plan to make a github of padtokey. I think it is a fundamental part of ES in windows, but I understand that everything is done as long as it is to back up as well and that Padtokey makes no sense in retropie. Scheme padtokey is amazing when it works. It would be incredible to be part of It is also that with padtokey could also be used as a mouse also for retro games that are tactile or have 3D gameplay.

For example, the padtokey doesn't work for me now, it's because of a problem with windows. Because if I change it from hdd it works for me I don't know how to solve it, if some place to delete a file or registry so that it works again

As always, thank you for your work.

CarissaIsWierd

@f-caruso Nevermind! I've been updating from inside ES and even though it seems like it's been working, it apparently hasn't. I downloaded directly from github and your new changes are appearing for me now, along with "Gridview : text, marquee, favorite & overlay can now be zOrdered", which is what I wanted. There must be a bug in the updater you added.

f.caruso

@jero said in Updated EmulationStation for Windows:

settings for the videos that appear without making the animation

Supported in theming, using video.effect ( none, bump, size, slideRight )

play background music and sounds when moving and selecting the carousel.

Supported for theming, using <sound><path> in system view (for music) & carousel.scrollSound for scrolling sound.

Bootscreen video, when you start ES

I don't agree. It's not ES responsability. It's the launcher / script role.

Padtokey [...] without having to be outside of ES.

I don't agree. It's not ES responsability.
I know, I shall do a configuration UI & a testing tool for the launcher, but I don't have time for this.

@CarissaIsWierd

There must be a bug in the updater you added.

Yeah, I made a terrible mistake in the auto updater code between Nov 21 and fixed it Nov 26. Versions installed in this range need a manual update, sorry....

ThePlagueIsBack

@f-caruso Fabrice, when I launch games using the retroarch core genesis_plus_gx_libretro the frontend stays in front
and Retroarch in the background, requiring me to do alt + tab on the keyboard to switch over, that does not happen
on other platforms that use a different form, it always does not happen on the "regular" emulationstation build and jrassa's
build, although on their builds it's rather ugly how it opens up a terminal window to launch the emulator (windows pc).

Anyways, the issue does not happen when I switch over to another MS/GS/GG core named "picodrive_libretro", it behaves
as expected keeping ES in the background and Retroarch on top without alt+tab.

I know this seems to be an issue with genesis_plus_gx_libretro but I'm just wondering if you would know of any trick or special
setting to get over this foreground/background issue launching this libretro core or if there is anything code wise that can be
done if not a big deal for you to give it a look.

Thanks a lot.

f.caruso

@ThePlagueIsBack Absolutely no idea... Especilally if it happens with one core & not the others. Try to launch ES with --fullscreen command line argument to go exclusive fullscreen maybe it can help in this case.. . If is does not, try enable "hide when launch" option.... if it does not... mmm I don't know...

LiveFreeDead

@f-caruso The --fullscreen method scales from a much smaller resolution, would it be possible to make it set the resolution to the used screen numbers current resolution if no --resolution is supplied? this would not have the scale issue if enabled. Thanks

-EDIT-

I just did some more testing, if I set my High DPI screen to scale 125%, it looks poor when the window is active but looks fine if I click off it (or alt tab out), as soon as the window is active again with 125% DPI it goes blocky again. But if I set DPI to 100% it works perfect if the windows is active or not. I can improve the results if I use --resolution 1920 1080, but if I make the resolution the same as my desktop res it loses the extra 25% scaling size amount of ES on the screen (ES is too big due to it upscaling)... So I am not sure how you could fix this now I know it's related to multiple causes.

https://github.com/Aloshi/EmulationStation/issues/378

Link takes you to the issue affecting a few other people, seems manually changing the DPI scaling back to 100% is the only way to fix it... I have a QHD screen, so that isn't going to happen :(

ThePlagueIsBack

@LiveFreeDead , Just a few thoughts, have you tried these approaches?

Tool: shorturl.at/uyQY6
Batch:

REG ADD "HKCU\Control Panel\Desktop" /v DpiScalingVer /t REG_DWORD /d 0x00001018 /f
REG ADD "HKCU\Control Panel\Desktop" /v Win8DpiScaling /t REG_DWORD /d 0x00000001 /f
REG ADD "HKCU\Control Panel\Desktop" /v LogPixels /t REG_DWORD /d 0x00000078 /f

https://www.windowscentral.com/how-change-high-dpi-settings-classic-apps-windows-10-april-2018-update (System (Enhanced))

LiveFreeDead

@ThePlagueIsBack I tried all the options and nothing seems to fix it except setting the DPI Scaling back to 100% from the default 125%

Here is an example taken with a phone as ANY and all video and/or screen capture software does not capture the issue, it is perfect for them:
https://i.imgur.com/Ajt4EZb.jpg

The only difference between the first and second photo is the first one had me click the start key on my keyboard to make it inactive (or click desktop of my 2nd screen) and the second image is when I click ES and make it the active Application.

I have tried disabling my second screen with all the tips and tricks also, it's such a weird little issue.

-EDIT-

I've also played with nVidia Control Panel, nothing is making any difference, apart from changing any DPI Scaling to 100%, which makes my OS unusable (small) and I can't change it from command line. Not sure it'll be something fixable, but perhaps if others can reproduce the issue it has more possibilities of being fixed one day.

ThePlagueIsBack

@LiveFreeDead There's an SDL flag for high dpi usage, not sure if it will help you but might be worth a try, it's quite a work to compile ES but perhaps @f-caruso could help you out by parsing a new argument that adds the fullscreen flag, just an idea...

SDL_WINDOW_ALLOW_HIGHDPI
https://wiki.libsdl.org/SDL_CreateWindow

ThePlagueIsBack

@LiveFreeDead Try this build which I just added the the SDL high DIP flag: https://ci.appveyor.com/project/Cereal-Killa/emulationstation/builds/29207246/job/dct323wq9gsx3cbl/artifacts

f.caruso

@ThePlagueIsBack Ran some tests. Problem occurs only with exclusive fullscreen ( using --fullscreen ) only. SDL_WINDOW_ALLOW_HIGHDPI does not change anything... The problem comes from SDL_GetDesktopDisplayMode that gives wrongs values (1536x864 instead of 1920x1080 for 125%). This is a bug in SDL. My recommandation : ~~don't use exclusive fullscreen~~....

EDIT : Fine, I found a way do fix it. SDL_WINDOW_ALLOW_HIGHDPI is necessary but was not enough.

jero

@f-caruso said in Updated EmulationStation for Windows:

@jero said in Updated EmulationStation for Windows:

settings for the videos that appear without making the animation

Supported in theming, using video.effect ( none, bump, size, slideRight )

Thank you it worked perfect

play background music and sounds when moving and selecting the carousel.

Supported for theming, using <sound><path> in system view (for music) & carousel.scrollSound for scrolling sound.

Carousel.scrollSound work perfect for me, but background music did not work, I tried this way.Dont work for me.I also searched for information on gitub and found nothing. Also in Themes.md

<view name="system">

	<carousel name="systemcarousel">
		<type>horizontal</type>
		<color>00000000</color>
		<logoScale>1.22592592592593</logoScale>
		<scrollSound>./sounds/notice.ogg</scrollSound>
	</carousel>

        <sound>
		<path>./sounds/bgm.ogg</path>
	</sound>

Bootscreen video, when you start ES

I don't agree. It's not ES responsability. It's the launcher / script role.

I understand thanks for answering

Padtokey [...] without having to be outside of ES.

I don't agree. It's not ES responsability.
I know, I shall do a configuration UI & a testing tool for the launcher, but I don't have time for this.

I understand your time is money, it was just a comment, I think Padtokey is something very very powerful for windows. As I said is windows problem, sure that using admin and removing admin or something like that creates a conflict in windows and does not work for me, but with ES in another hdd it works perfectly now. That's why I don't know how to fix it so that I can go back to work.

As always great work and thanks

f.caruso

@jero said in Updated EmulationStation for Windows:

background music did not work

Missing sound name :

<sound name="bgsound">

About pad2key I know I have things to do to make it better... I will... One day ;-) Maybe I should opensource that project on git too...

jero

@f-caruso said in Updated EmulationStation for Windows:

@jero said in Updated EmulationStation for Windows:

background music did not work

<view name="system">

	<carousel name="systemcarousel">
		<type>horizontal</type>
		<color>00000000</color>
		<logoScale>1.22592592592593</logoScale>			
		<scrollSound>./sounds/scroll.ogg</scrollSound>
		
	</carousel>

	<sound name="bgsound">
		<path>./sounds/bgm.ogg</path>

	</sound>

I used this for sounds. But bgmsound, restarts every time I change system and scrollSound does not sound

About pad2key I know I have things to do to make it better... I will... One day ;-) Maybe I should opensource that project on git too...

oooo it's great news, I hope one day this in ghitub

f.caruso

@jero You're right about the music replaying when changing system, it should not when the music is common to the systems. I just fixed it.

ThePlagueIsBack

@f-caruso said in Updated EmulationStation for Windows:

@ThePlagueIsBack Ran some tests. Problem occurs only with exclusive fullscreen ( using --fullscreen ) only. SDL_WINDOW_ALLOW_HIGHDPI does not change anything... The problem comes from SDL_GetDesktopDisplayMode that gives wrongs values (1536x864 instead of 1920x1080 for 125%). This is a bug in SDL. My recommandation : ~~don't use exclusive fullscreen~~....

EDIT : Fine, I found a way do fix it. SDL_WINDOW_ALLOW_HIGHDPI is necessary but was not enough.

Awesome man! Will wait for your build ;)

ThePlagueIsBack

Call me crazy but I could swear there was a menu option to choose the theme variations if the theme supports it (nes-mini for the instance), could have been on recalbox, have you guys seen anything like it on any ES build before?

LiveFreeDead

@ThePlagueIsBack Me too :) I tested your compile, it has the same issue as usual :( I wish I could compile ES myself, I tried for weeks but it kept failing for me - I use windows 10 LTSC and tried with Microsoft Visual Studio 2015, but I could never get a complete compile, I kept adding missing features/addons etc, but still would just error out mid compile. I even had a direct copy of other peoples source/build folders and it still failed. I had to give up and just report bugs instead. I think the only way I'll ever get to compile it myself is if someone shared a Virtual Machine HDD with it working :P

-EDIT-

REG ADD "HKCU\Control Panel\Desktop" /v DpiScalingVer /t REG_DWORD /d 0x00001018 /f
REG ADD "HKCU\Control Panel\Desktop" /v Win8DpiScaling /t REG_DWORD /d 0x00000001 /f
REG ADD "HKCU\Control Panel\Desktop" /v LogPixels /t REG_DWORD /d 0x00000078 /f

The reg's above do actually fix it, but it requires I log out and back in, same to disable it again... But thanks for this, I can use this fix for now until another option is available.

CarissaIsWierd

@f-caruso Now that I've been messing around with grid view a lot more, I thought I'd mention a slight annoyance in how selecting games is done. Using a 3x3 layout (or more), it keeps the selected game in the middle row (unless it's the very top or very bottom.) It's not pretty. Compare that to Kodi where it feels less jarring.

Is adding proper grid movement a change that can be made? (๑ơ ₃ ơ)ノ︵ ♡