Demo mode (random starting of games) for ES/Retropie-menu

pootis spencer

I need some help if possible.. I installed this and it loads a random game but it doesn't change game after 60 seconds. It just stays on the game till I exit out. Anyone know why this happens? I have not altered the files in any way and they are placed in the correct location.

A Former User

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MapleStory

@mth75 Huge thanks for this! It works perfectly and I've wanted this feature on my pi for a long time now.

I just have a small issue that I hope is an easy fix. I've scraped all my games, so inside each of my rom folders is a folder named "media" which houses all relative images/videos and it's corresponding gamelist.xml. Your script will sometimes try to open "media" or "gamelist.xml" as a rom, which will load a black screen for 60 seconds before launching the next game.

Is there a way to prevent it from loading folders/files that aren't roms? Thank you again for this awesome feature!

mth75

@maplestory said in Demo mode (random starting of games) for ES/Retropie-menu:

mes try to open "media" or "gamelist.xml" as a rom, which will load a black screen for 60 seconds before launching the next game.

Nice to hear maplestory! Yes, this should be possible by excluding (you should even be able to do this is yourself). I will look into it!

byron8805

This sounds like it has the exact functionality I've been thinking about for a while, so I'd love to get this to work. I have tried to follow the install instructions as closely as possible but am seeing the same behavior as @pootis-spencer , namely that the Demo Mode launcher WILL load a random game but it doesn't cycle to a new game.

Perhaps of note: I did not have a gameslist.xml in my /home/pi/RetroPie/retropiemenu directory. I just copied the supplied gameslist.xml file to that location...All other steps in the install guide were followed to the letter.

blip

Thanks for making this script, it works brilliantly!

I don't suppose there's a way to trigger demo mode when the screensaver starts?

I know you can put scripts into emulationstation/scripts/screensaver-start/ but so far I can't get it to run the py.

I have a weird feeling this may not be possible due to the file location or lack of button input but I am very much a n00b... happy to be proved wrong!

WeirdH

@mth75 This is a very cool option to have. However, I'm seeing the same behaviour as previously reported: never cycling to another game.

Also, right before launching the game, my screen shows a pkill failed message, stating 'operation not permitted'. Are these two issues related and is there a fix? Thanks in advance.

ProjectFirestart

@weirdh I have same issue, no game starts and i get the pkill not permitted message, i followed all the steps.

ProjectFirestart

@mth75 Please can you help me to resolve this issue? I want so hard this script towork but i get a permission error message when i run the script, then i kicked back to emulationstation. I followed instructions at letter. I use last Retropie version on Rpi4.

mth75

@projectfirestart

The issue seems to be not within the demoscript. I noticed this behaviour a few months ago, thinking that all the joy2key changes are the culprit. I reverted back to an older image and now I tried again. I updated to the latest retropie-setup and the script works again, although with pkill error. Looking into the pkill proces id resulted in ...!

ps -Flww -p 4762
F S UID        PID  PPID  C PRI  NI ADDR SZ WCHAN    RSS PSR STIME TTY          TIME CMD
5 S root      4762     1  0  80   0 -  5865 -      12284   0 21:09 tty1     00:00:00 python3 /opt/retropie/admin/joy2key/joy2key_sdl.py /dev/input/jsX kcub1 kcuf1 kcuu1 kcud1 0x0a 0x20 0x1b 0x09 kpp knp

The script does not try to close Joy2Key, I think runcommand does?

Anyway: update to the latest RetroPie-Setup, I will try to iron out this annoying error message.

WeirdH

@mth75 Very cool, thanks for replying. Will update and test this weekend.

mth75

@weirdh @ProjectFirestart

Add:

sudo pkill -f joy2key_sdl.py

to demomode.sh.

Problem solved!

WeirdH

@mth75 The error message is gone, but it still doesn't switch games for me.

mth75

@weirdh said in Demo mode (random starting of games) for ES/Retropie-menu:

@mth75 The error message is gone, but it still doesn't switch games for me.

Are you running a RetroPie image or one of the pre-build images?

WeirdH

@mth75 Retropie image from the official site.

I was also thinking: I did update to the latest RetroPie-Setup, but didn't use it to install the script. Is it in there somewhere? Wouldn't a manual installation bypass the usage of the RetroPie-Setup?

mth75

@weirdh

no, the demoscript is on GitHub only and not part of RetroPie-Setup. I did not wrote a installscript for it.

https://github.com/mth75/retropie-demomode

@weirdh said in Demo mode (random starting of games) for ES/Retropie-menu:

Wouldn't a manual installation bypass the usage of the RetroPie-Setup?\

No.

wstanek

@mth75 Awesome script! Works great.

I am trying to get this to fire as a screen saver. I've added the required emulationstation script directory: (~/.emulationstation/scripts/screensaver-start/). I dropped demomode.sh in there but when I start the screensaver it doesn't get to it.

Any thoughts?

ws

WeirdH

@mth75 Okay, good to know. Could the issue be that I'm on a Pi3? I believe the RetroPie images don't use all the same folders when run on a Pi3 vs a Pi4 (stuff like gamelist.xml being in different locations if I'm not mistaken). For instance, the gamelist-addition for the demomode to show up uses another folder on my Pi3 than stated in your instructions.

buzzardbait

@mth75 This works great- awesome job. I'm going to try to tinker with the timing as mentioned above, but it totally works!

barbudreadmon

@mth75 fwiw, you could also use the timeout command, it closes a process after running it for X second (ex.: timeout 10 retroarch will run retroarch and close it after 10s), i use that a lot when running batch for debugging purpose.