Game Launching Video Loading Screen Timing Issues

Grumbles

Hi everyone,

I'm currently configuring "game launching video loading screens" (i.e. videos that will play after a game has been launched, to cover up the ugly text screen that appears). I understand it's easy to get a static image during this load time, but I'd prefer a nice video if I can make it work. For reference, I'm using the methods discussed in this forum thread.

I'm running into some issues though on the timing of the videos:

Issue #1: The loading video plays, but then the game doesn't start loading until after the loading video completes (and you end up seeing the text loading screen anyways).

To combat issue #1, I've found the advice to add an ampersand after the omwplayer shell commands, like the following:

omxplayer "$ifsystem" > /dev/null 2>&1 &

The & makes it so the game starts loading concurrently while the video plays (loading in the background). This leads to another issue though:

Issue #2: The loading video has a set duration. If the game loads too quickly, it starts up while the video is still playing (and you hear sounds from both the video and the game starting up).

Does anyone have any suggestions to fix this?

I'm looking to do something like one of the two following, or a better idea if someone has a better fix:

Idea #1 (Ideal): If the game loads and is ready to start, it pauses the process and doesn't actually start the game until the video is done playing.

Idea #2 (Acceptable): If the game loads, the loading video ends early.

Any help or ideas on this is greatly appreciated! Thanks!

mitu

@grumbles said in Game Launching Video Loading Screen Timing Issues:

Idea #1 (Ideal): If the game loads and is ready to start, it pauses the process and doesn't actually start the game until the video is done playing.
Idea #2 (Acceptable): If the game loads, the loading video ends early.

Neither of the above are possible, since the video player and emulator are started independently and don't have any support for signalling each other to stop.

If you don't want to wait until the video stops (i.e. no & for the omxplayer command), you can either add a max play time for the video or shorten the videos.

Grumbles

@mitu Ah dang, that's too bad. Thanks for the response.