Attract Mode with RetroPie - Alternative to EmulationStation

ashmck73

Awesome stuff - going to go give this a try now. Gives it the Hyperspin look and feel.

dankcushions

you can even use hyperspin themes, apparently.

i like it, but right now i'd need some sort of way of integrating ES (my 'library' view of ALL my games) and attract-mode (what i consider better suited as a 'curated' view of favourites/classics). i guess you could launch it as an ES menu item...

senkun

Thanks @Floob and @Finhead

Yes indeed it is really simple to change themes or in AMspeak, "Layouts". Once I had the media/artwork assets in place and located, the Layouts built into AM switch easily and work perfectly.

Funny thing is, I just can't seem to get third party Layouts working. For example, this wonderful Layout based on Cools is what got me 'attracted' to AM in the first place but it just doesn't work for me;

http://forum.attractmode.org/index.php?topic=473.msg3271#msg3271

Not sure if it's something I did or didn't do, and before I start tearing into my build, can anyone please give it a quick try and see if it just works out of the box?

edit: I restarted with a fresh img and everything works they way it should now. I probably messed up my initial install poking around all the files looking at the new structure around AM haha

Finhead

@senkun said:

Thanks @Floob and @Finhead

Yes indeed it is really simple to change themes or in AMspeak, "Layouts". Once I had the media/artwork assets in place and located, the Layouts built into AM switch easily and work perfectly.

Funny thing is, I just can't seem to get third party Layouts working. For example, this wonderful Layout based on Cools is what got me 'attracted' to AM in the first place but it just doesn't work for me;

http://forum.attractmode.org/index.php?topic=473.msg3271#msg3271

Not sure if it's something I did or didn't do, and before I start tearing into my build, can anyone please give it a quick try and see if it just works out of the box?

It somewhat works for me, I'm running my display vertical and it doesn't seem to like that and pushes the video 1/2 off the screen. What you need to do is make sure your layout is in it's own directory name (blastcity) with the 3 files default.png, layout.nut,mask.png
Then you'll need to copy the "pan-and-scan.nut" file into the modules directory which should be just under yout layouts directory in .attract

senkun

@Finhead thanks for checking, I have all the assets in place and "pan-and-scan.nut" is in the modules directory, all the built in Layouts work fine just that blastcity isn't showing anything. I must have messed up somewhere, will check further.

One more thing, and this seems major, how do you configure a hotkey (preferably the standard select-start combo) to exit a game/emulator once you're playing?

If I set a hotkey from the AM frontend, it drops me back to the frontend but the game is still running. :(

InsecureSpike

I tried Floobs .img on my pi 2 but the dsmn thing keeps locking up on me after around 10mins, I over clocked to high and upped the memory split to 256, but still no help! any ideas? should I build if myself? would that help?

edit: ok, is Floob's for pi 3 only?

Brigane

@InsecureSpike Did you check out the link that Finhead provided us for Pi2 earlier?

http://forum.attractmode.org/index.php?topic=223.0

InsecureSpike

@Brigane said:

@InsecureSpike Did you check out the link that Finhead provided us for Pi2 earlier?

http://forum.attractmode.org/index.php?topic=223.0

ahh nope, thank you! just wanna play about on the pi 2 before I go for it on the pi 3, although probably be better using the pi 3, I'll have a play around over the next few days, thank you

senkun

@InsecureSpike said:

edit: ok, is Floob's for pi 3 only?

@Floob said:

This image seems to work fine on both the Pi2 and Pi3. If I could find my Pi1 I'd try it on that.

fwiw I had it running on both pi2 and pi3, better on the pi3 obviously but still having some trouble configuring it on mine.

Finhead

@senkun said:

@Finhead thanks for checking, I have all the assets in place and "pan-and-scan.nut" is in the modules directory, all the built in Layouts work fine just that blastcity isn't showing anything. I must have messed up somewhere, will check further.

One more thing, and this seems major, how do you configure a hotkey (preferably the standard select-start combo) to exit a game/emulator once you're playing?

If I set a hotkey from the AM frontend, it drops me back to the frontend but the game is still running. :(

Odd mine does not have this issue, mine you I'm not using Floobs image either. I complied mine about 2 weeks ago and I also installed a few things he did not do on his build. I did that way as it's the only way I could get mine to compile, keep in mind I have never used linux or a Pi until 3 weeks ago so I am 100% sure I did things the wrong way. lol
I did the extra steps outlined in this thread, and found it was not need (so I have been told) after the fact. But my Pi runs great and I don't have the Keyboard issue or I guess the hotkey issue either.

Floob

@senkun said:

One more thing, and this seems major, how do you configure a hotkey (preferably the standard select-start combo) to exit a game/emulator once you're playing?

If I set a hotkey from the AM frontend, it drops me back to the frontend but the game is still running. :(

Exactly in the same way as normal as it uses the RetroPie / RetreoArch configs. You can see me exit games in the video, and I'm just using the select/start exit combo. Obviously if you are using a non retroarch emulator, then you use the config for that but it should be read in the same way as if running from EmulationStation - unless you configure the executabel oddly.
I'll do a new image soon with all the emulators pre-configured.

senkun

@Finhead hmmm extra steps meaning the patch? Seems the makefile has been updated and there is no need for the patch, but someone else in that thread still had to use the patch so I don't know. Maybe @Floob did patch his?

I cleared the game quit hotkey I set from within the AM frontend, it's weird to have it return to the frontend and have the game still running in the background. I think a path got messed up somewhere. Perhaps it's best to wait for Floob to update more config files geared to the RetroPie setup

senkun

@Floob ahh thanks for clearing that up, I must have messed up something on my install. Will wait for your new image :)

Finhead

@senkun said:

@Finhead hmmm extra steps meaning the patch? Seems the makefile has been updated and there is no need for the patch, but someone else in that thread still had to use the patch so I don't know. Maybe @Floob did patch his?

I cleared the game quit hotkey I set from within the AM frontend, it's weird to have it return to the frontend and have the game still running in the background. I think a path got messed up somewhere. Perhaps it's best to wait for Floob to update more config files geared to the RetroPie setup

Like I said found out later it wasn't needed. ;) I did find AM does not like to use a combonation of key presses in it's control config. If it will only except 1 key per input so the start/select combo press wouldn't work for me at least.

Floob

@InsecureSpike

I tried Floobs .img on my pi 2 but the dsmn thing keeps locking up on me after around 10mins, I over clocked to high and upped the memory split to 256, but still no help! any ideas? should I build if myself? would that help?

I've noticed this is in the /boot/config.txt

# Enable audio (loads snd_bcm2835)
dtparam=audio=on
gpu_mem_256=128
gpu_mem_512=256
gpu_mem_1024=256
overscan_scale=1
gpu_mem_256=128
gpu_mem_512=256
gpu_mem_1024=256
overscan_scale=1

I'm not sure why its duplicated, so maybe take out the last 4 lines. I need to check as I build it to see when that happens really, I cant see why they should be in there twice.

Although it seems fine on my Pi2 for whatever reason.

InsecureSpike

@Floob ok, i'll have a look, altho, its still in development so..... these things take time....

also, is there a way of running roms from usb's?

thank for all your work on this guy's!!

senkun

@Floob FWIW on a fresh install of Retropie 3.6 those duplicates are there as well. Been wondering about that, but I had taken them out and forgotten until your post.

Rion

With this setup can you have both emulation station and Attract on the same image.

Attract started from Emulationstation,
Emulationstation started from Attract?

ashmck73

I downloaded Floobs prebuilt Attractmode image dated April 10 and it all setup fine.

The only issue I have is trying to add another layout to it. I have downloaded the Nevato layout from the Attractmode forum and copied the folder over into the /home/pi/develop/attract/config/layouts folder on the Raspberry Pi but it will not show up as one on the available layouts.

I also see Robospin is listed as one of the available layouts, but I do not see a Robospin folder in the layouts directory as listed above.

Just wondering if it is loading the layouts from somewhere else.

Finhead

@ashmck73 said:

I downloaded Floobs prebuilt Attractmode image dated April 10 and it all setup fine.

The only issue I have is trying to add another layout to it. I have downloaded the Nevato layout from the Attractmode forum and copied the folder over into the /home/pi/develop/attract/config/layouts folder on the Raspberry Pi but it will not show up as one on the available layouts.

I also see Robospin is listed as one of the available layouts, but I do not see a Robospin folder in the layouts directory as listed above.

Just wondering if it is loading the layouts from somewhere else.

Layouts are found in /home/pi/.attract/layouts
And for the nevato layout it doesn't like vertical monitors layout. You'll need to mode the layout.nut to make it work at all.