new scriptmodules (lr-vice-xvic, gsplus, proper lr-mess integration!)

DTEAM

@folly
This is very nice. If I understand. You are able to convert MAME Artworks to be usable with retroarch. If It's that... It's excellent ! Or you are using a functionality in Lr-Mess (with Vectrex) and you are using that for handheld games and the Artworks stay in the MAME Artworks folder (great also).

Folly

@dteam said in new scriptmodules (lr-vice-xvic, gsplus, proper lr-mess integration!):

@folly
This is very nice. If I understand. You are able to convert MAME Artworks to be usable with retroarch. If It's that... It's excellent !

Yes, the first one.
I just get the background picture from the mame artwork.
Then I use Retroarch to do the overlay with some configs.
Thats about it.

Cool isn't it !

EDIT :
It looks promising now.
I was thinking that my script wasn't good.
But it turns out runcommand.sh only appends configs if the name or id of the installed script begins with "lr-*" .
As my "id-name" began with cmd within the script.
No configs are appended.

Found this by searching for '|' in the runcommand script.
(first with grep then in a texteditor)

So I converted the id-names in this, manually made, script into "lr-mess-gameandwatch".
Now the artwork is automatically appended when running the rom.
Discovered that the filename, of the script, doesn't matter.

Tested this with running a .zip and also a .cmd.
Both work, but remember you have to match the config file with the game file like this :
1 - (konamih handheld example working with lr-mess command script)
kgradius.zip
kgradius.zip.cfg
or
2 - (konamih handheld example working with lr-mess command script)
kgradius.cmd
kgradius.cmd.cfg

For systems that also have to run media (a cartridge for example) ( like vectrex) the second options will work directly.
The first option will only work, if (possible, but not ideal):

the bios is in the same directory as the game
the <system>.xml or, in this case, vectrex.xml is in /home/pi/RetroPie/BIOS/mame/hash
you use the software_name of the game from the hash table.

Conclusion :
Game specific retroarch configs can be use when using a basic lr-mess commandline, just like the standard one found in the original Retropie (used in for example : arcadia)

~~Next step is to implement that in my script somehow.~~
It's implemented in version 1v4-alpha.

EDIT 1 :
Did also a test to see if such config appending works when the rom is loaded through the valerino run_mess.sh script.
(with valerino or valerino alike scripts)

It seems the game specific retroarch config is added in the commandline.
But trouble is, run_mess.sh creates a temporary .cmd file and will run this .cmd again with lr-mess. Because this is done from within the run_mess.sh the config isn't added anymore. Presumably.

Conclusion :
So it looks like these configs can not be loaded with valarino alike scripts, for now.

TPR

Has anyone had any luck getting controls re-mapped for GSplus or lr-mess-apple2gs?

Under GSPlus I can't seem to find much in the way of controller re-mapping and in several games, like Arkanoid for example, the controller just keeps going to the right no matter what I press.

For lr-mess-apple2gs I can bring up the machine options by pressing SCROLL LOCK and then TAB but I can't figure out how to re-map buttons per game. It seems like I can only re-map globally and I'd have to do that for every game I load up because keyboard mappings might be different per game.

Also can't seem to get some buttons mapped. Like Thexder seems to need the "Option" key mapped and I don't see that anywhere in the re-map options.

If someone could point me in the right direction I would appreciate it. Thank you.

Folly

@tpr

Perhaps others have a better idea or an other opinion.

But I think this is still an issue, in the way valarino's scripts setup the config files.
All lr-mess configs are stored in :
/opt/retropie/configs/<system>/<configs>
This is done to clean it all up, and try to intergrade the configs into the Retropie structure.
This is ofcourse really nice !
Possible drawback can be that you can't configure per game.
But perhaps I am wrong.

Theoretically it's possible that the configs are stored in the same directory as where the game is in. (mame/cfg)
So it's possible to use different directory's for different joystick settings.

Edit : this is not the solution
I am not sure, but I think you have to experiment with this :
(/opt/retropie/configs/apple2gs/custom-core-options.cfg)
Solution :
https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/25576/new-scriptmodules-lr-vice-xvic-gsplus-proper-lr-mess-integration/377

TPR

@roslof I'm having trouble getting lr-mess-ti99 working. I can get the system working under ti99sim but not under lr-mess. I'm assuming I have the right bios files but in the wrong place for MESS. Can you let me know which files and I need and where they are supposed to go and I can give that a try?

Thank you.

TPR

@roslof I've checked with this page: http://adb.arcadeitalia.net/dettaglio_mame.php?game_name=ti99_4a

And I seem to have the correct TI99_4A.ZIP with the files having the crc matching. I currently have that file in: /home/pi/RetroPie/BIOS/ but anytime I try to load a rom I'm just taken back to the ES menu.

Any ideas?

UPDATE: I put my ti99_4a.zip file in this folder: /home/pi/RetroPie/BIOS/ti99_4a and now it crashes at the initialize screen.

My zip file contains this exactly:

NAME | SIZE | BIOS | STATUS | MERGE | REGION | OFFSET | OPT | CRC | SHA1
---------------------+-----------+----------------------+---------+----------------------+-------------------+------------+-----+----------+-----------------------------------------
994a_grom0.u500 | 6144 | | good | | cons_grom | 0 | no | 2445a5e8 | ea15d8b0ac52112dc0d5f4ab9a79ac8ca1cc1bbc
994a_grom1.u501 | 6144 | | good | | cons_grom | 2000 | no | b8f367ab | 3ecead4b83ec525084c70b6123d4053f8a80e1f7
994a_grom2.u502 | 6144 | | good | | cons_grom | 4000 | no | e0bb5341 | e255f0d65d69b927cecb8fcfac7a4c17d585ea96
994a_rom_hb.u610 | 4096 | | good | | console_rom | 0 | no | ee859c5f | a45245707c3dccea902b718554a882d214a82504
994a_rom_lb.u611 | 4096 | | good | | console_rom | 1 | no | 37859301 | f4e774fd5913b387a763f1b8de5524c54b255434

Folly

@tpr

You have to look in your runcommand.log to find out whats wrong :
/dev/shm/runcommand.log

TPR

@folly I did that. I couldn't tell what the issue was though...

(removed)

Folly

@tpr

You can remove your log from the post.

I think some bios files are not found :
cd2325a.u2a NOT FOUND (tried in ti99_speech ti99_4a)
cd2326a.u2b NOT FOUND (tried in ti99_speech ti99_4a)

I think you have to add ti99_speech.zip .
Look in your ti99_speech.zip and ti99_4a.zip for those files.
I think you have to put it in the normal root of the BIOS directory. (no subdir)
Experiment with this until you don't see this anymore.

TPR

@folly I have tried everything and I just keep getting this crashing screen:

These are the files I'm using:
994a_grom0.u500
994a_grom1.u501
994a_grom2.u502
994a_rom_hb.u610
994a_rom_lb.u611
cd2325a.u2a
cd2326a.u2b

I have checked and double checked the crc with sites that say they are good. I've put them in the BIOS directory on their own, I've zipped them up. I've tried different versions of the files, even ones where the crc doesn't match. I've tried different configurations of the zip file. I've tried everything. I literally spent about 7 hour yesterday just tryng different configurations of everything I can think of. I'm just convinced this core doesn't work.

Any other ideas? Maybe @roslof might have a clue?

Here is my most recent log from a crash that happened right now. It still says those two files are missing. But I've put them in the zip file, I put them in the BIOS folder, I've put them in a ti99_4a folder, I've even put the ti99_speech.zip inside the other BIOS zip and nothing seems to work.

Please help! I'm about to give up on this one! :D

TPR

@folly @roslof Well, this is interesting...

I tried putting those two speech files in a folder /ti99_speech inside of the ti99_4a.zip and it no longer crashed, but just brought me back to the ES menu, and the log no longer has those files as "not found." But what now? I've checked all the BIOS files and they seem to match all the crc that says are required.

I honestly have no idea what to do at this point. Please help! Thank you.

Folly

@TPR

If we found the solution, it's probably better to remove the logs from your posts.

I think your BIOS part is ok now.

It can't load the cartridge file now :
unzip: /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/ti99/Amazeing.ctg couldn't find ECD
Fatal error: Device TI-99 cartridge load failed: Invalid image

So you have to look at that now.
I think you need amazeing.zip .

I tried to do run over here, but I don't have good bios files now.
So I have too look for them later.

TPR

@folly zipping up the rom didn't work either. It's the same story with all the roms I have. They work just fine with ti99sim but not with MESS.

TPR

@folly I also downloaded the TOSEC ROM archive and I also don't get any better results. Everything works in ti99SIM though so I think I'm just going to give up on this MESS core as I don't believe it actually works and just stick with the other emulator. I was hoping for a Retroarch solution, but that doesn't appear to be the case. Oh well... Thank you for your time.

dmmarti

@tpr Unless I'm mistaken, MESS can't use the *.ctg files for TI99....only TI99SIM uses those.

If you are wanting to use the MESS core within Retroarch, you can use *.rpk files though. There's a set out there of *.rpk files that work great with Retroarch / lr-mess core.

I have it working great on my Pi 4 with *.rpk files this way.

TPR

@dmmarti Damn you for sending me down another rabbit hole! lol Ok, I'm off to search those out now!

TPR

@dmmarti Aaaand I'm up and running! Wow! That one took a while with lots of curve balls. Thank you everyone for helping out!

FYI this thread on AtariAge was a great resource to find things you may be looking for: https://atariage.com/forums/topic/267055-new-to-the-group-ti-994a-faq-hardware-and-software-resources-read-first/

Folly

@tpr said in new scriptmodules (lr-vice-xvic, gsplus, proper lr-mess integration!):

@dmmarti Aaaand I'm up and running! Wow! That one took a while with lots of curve balls. Thank you everyone for helping out!

FYI this thread on AtariAge was a great resource to find things you may be looking for: https://atariage.com/forums/topic/267055-new-to-the-group-ti-994a-faq-hardware-and-software-resources-read-first/

I have it working also.
I can confirm, use the .rpk files.
Nice !

TPR

@folly Yep! works for me now, too! Thank you!

TPR

Here's an issue I'm having with GSPlus. Out of about the 150 games for the system, I've gotten most of them to work, but about 15 of the games throw this error at me:

needs system tools.jpg

Any ideas on how to fix this? I did some Googling around and I couldn't find anything specific to GSPlus to fix it.

I got this error on games like Deja Vu, Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego, and Uninvited.

Any ideas?