Steam/Moonlight - Running games directly from EmulationStation

[StonedEdge]

Hi all,

I'm currently trying to setup a small script whereby I can run my Steam Games via moonlight by game title directly, rather than having to open up steam and then navigate to the game I want to play.

Currently, I have 3 files:

1. GoW.ml - located in /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/steam

config = /opt/retropie/configs/all/moonlight/global.conf
app = GoW.exe

2. emulators.cfg - located in /opt/retropie/configs/steam

moonlight = "/opt/retropie/supplementary/moonlight/moonlight.sh stream -config %ROM%"
default = "moonlight"

3. gamelist.xml - located in /home/pi/.emulationstation/gamelists/steam

<gameList>
  <game>
    <path>./Steam.ml</path>
    <name>Steam</name>
    <players>1</players>
  </game>
  <game>
    <path>./Ryujinx.ml</path>
    <name>Ryujinx</name>
    <players>1</players>
  </game>
  <game>
    <path>./Cemu.ml</path>
    <name>Cemu - Wii U Emulator</name>
    <players>1</players>
  </game>
  <game>
    <path>./citra-qt.ml</path>
    <name>Citra - 3DS Emulator</name>
    <players>1</players>
  </game>
  <game>
    <path>./rpcs3.ml</path>
    <name>rpcs3 - PS3 Emulator</name>
    <players>1</players>
  </game>
  <game>
    <path>./pcsx2.ml</path>
    <name>PCSX2 - PS2 Emulator</name>
    <players>1</players>
  </game>
  <game>
    <path>./dolphin.ml</path>
    <name>Dolphin - GC &amp; Wii Emulator</name>
    <players>1</players>
  </game>
  <game>
    <path>./GoW.ml</path>
    <name>God of War</name>
    <players>1</players>
  </game>
</gameList>

I've been able to get this to succesfully launch emulators such as Dolphin and CEMU, but for some reason, God of War and other emulators such as RCPS3/PCSX2 don't launch.

Could someone please help me figure out where I am going wrong? I imagine it's something probably quite trivial but I can't for the life of me figure it out.
/dev/shm/runcommand.log shows the following outputs:

Parameters: 
Executing: /opt/retropie/supplementary/moonlight/moonlight.sh stream -config "/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/steam/GoW.ml"
Can't find app GoW
Searching for server...
Connect to 100.64.1.21...

I'm guessing this means that I haven't named the game correctly. Does anyone know how to find out the specific extension I need to launch steam games directly from ES? Thanks!

[mitu]

The moonlight package in RetroPie has a configuration menu and one of the options is to generate gamelist entries based on the remote Steam host's library - have you tried using it ?
See https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/19872/moonlight-request-for-comments-and-testing

[StonedEdge]

@mitu

Oh, cool! This seems to work well. However I have got around 14 titles in my Steam Library and only 5 of them were parsed via the "generate config files" selection within the RetroPie setup menu... let me see if I can figure out why that would be the case.

[StonedEdge]

@mitu OK, I figured it out after a bit of reading. Just need to add the games to GEForce experience, not steam! Thanks for your help.

[StonedEdge]

@mitu Would this theoretically be possible with directly launching ROMs over moonlight? Unfortunately if the game is not part of the NVIDIA Gamestream compatible list it seems it cannot be added to GEForce Experience...

[mitu]

@StonedEdge said in Steam/Moonlight - Running games directly from EmulationStation:

Would this theoretically be possible with directly launching ROMs over moonlight?

Would what be possible .. ?

[StonedEdge]

@mitu

I'd like to use something like this to allow to add individual ROM files (not executable programs) to the GeForce Experience gamelist, so they can be ran from EmulationStation and thus generated as gamelist entries. Will report back if it works.

https://github.com/Uklosk/nvidia-gamestream-presets-tool

[StonedEdge]

@StonedEdge

The above rust script works well and I can now load ROMs directly from the EmulationStation/Pegasus-FE front ends! For anyone interested, see here:

The only issue I’ve found with Pegasus-FE and moonlight is that HDMI blanks (i.e the HDMI signal completely cuts off) consistently after 10 mins of streaming. The stream however keeps running fine as audio is present and my controller still functions as normal.

Is there something emulationstation does to keep HDMI from blanking mid-stream in moonlight that I could carry over to Pegasus-FE environment? I don’t experience the same HDMI blanking when launching moonlight from emulationstation.

[mitu]

@StonedEdge said in Steam/Moonlight - Running games directly from EmulationStation:

The only issue I’ve found with Pegasus-FE and moonlight is that HDMI blanks (i.e the HDMI signal completely cuts off) consistently after 10 mins of streaming. The stream however keeps running fine as audio is present and my controller still functions as normal.

It's the screensaver.

[StonedEdge]

@mitu

Ah, gotcha! Is there a way to disable that? I assume with xscreensaver?

[mitu]

@StonedEdge said in Steam/Moonlight - Running games directly from EmulationStation:

Ah, gotcha! Is there a way to disable that?

Yes, your desktop environment should have some settings to disable the screensaver or monitor blanking. What is your desktop env ?

I assume with xscreensaver?

I doubt it.

[StonedEdge]

@mitu I’m using the standard LXDE package with the official RetroPie image, installed from RetroPie-Setup. I tried installing xscreensaver and disabling it that way but unfortunately the screen is still blanking... tvservice -p command brings it back to life so its definitely something to do with the blanking... despite it being disabled, strange...

[mitu]

Run

xset -dpms s off s noblank

after starting desktop session and before starting any program.

[StonedEdge]

@mitu Hmm, unfortunately this didn't seem to work. I tried adding the below to the moonlight.sh script in the /opt/retropie/supplementary/moonlight directory, but it didn't seem to change anything... EDIT: Nvm, turns out the dpms commands wouldn't work for me unless I enabled it. See here: https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=329548

#!/usr/bin/env bash
export XDG_DATA_DIRS=/opt/retropie/supplementary/moonlight/share
export XDG_CONFIG_DIR=/opt/retropie/configs/all
export XDG_CACHE_DIR=/opt/retropie/configs/all
xset -dpms s off s noblank
/opt/retropie/supplementary/moonlight/bin/moonlight "$@" -audio default

[StonedEdge]

@mitu

After to speaking to the developer it seems that Pegasus-FE doesn’t run in an X11 environment but rather on top of Open GLES/EGL, so perhaps X11 commands don’t work here. Is there a way to pause it somehow using EGLFS that you’re familiar with? Perhaps xset commands have no affect...

[mitu]

@StonedEdge said in Steam/Moonlight - Running games directly from EmulationStation:

After to speaking to the developer it seems that Pegasus-FE doesn’t run in an X11 environment but rather on top of Open GLES/EGL, so perhaps X11 commands don’t work here. Is there a way to pause it somehow using EGLFS that you’re familiar with? Perhaps xset commands have no affect...

This is the same display method used by EmulationStation, so there shouldn't be a difference here. Most likely Pegasus is not controlling the display video during a gameplay so I don't think it has any influence on how the display blanking is checked.

[StonedEdge]

@mitu Hmm, OK then. Well I'm a bit stumped... tvservice -p brings back the display entirely so it is definitely a HDMI related blanking problem.

[StonedEdge]

@mitu

OK, finally figured it out!

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/25149143/linux-kernel-consoleblank-argument-ignored

Needed to add export QT_QPA_PRESERVE_CONSOLE_STATE=1 to the autostart file. It seems the consoleblank=0 gets overriden by Qt applications. Seems like a bit of an undesirable behaviour but glad it works now.