(REQUEST/IDEA) Dynamic marquess .. or interprocess comms...

del1verance

@kiro I have to admit I'm a complete noob to python, so I can tell that it's outputting default.jpg when it's not getting the right value, and I can see in the first subprocess.popen it grabs where to get that image... but that's about it. :/

kiro

@del1verance hi, let me have a look later today and will try to help you out.

kiro

@del1verance Hi, so I had a look at the Python code (sorry I just didn't reember by heart what I have done)... my setup is like this:

/rompath/system/images
/rompath/system/videos
/rompath/system/marquee

so basically what happens is that the emu.py file will receive as input either the image or video for a game, let's say (/rompath/genesis/images/sonic.png) and will replace '/images/' by '/marquee/' so it would load

/rompath/genesis/marquee/sonic.png

So in principle if the image name is the same as your marquee (but under the marquee directory) it should work.

Rememer also to update /opt/retropie/configs/all/autostart.sh file as described in the readme (https://github.com/zayamatias/EmulationStation/blob/master/README.md)

Hope this helps.

Key points:

You must have an image per game under a directory pathx/images/image_name_you_want.png
You must have the marquee under a directort pathx/marquee/image_name_you_want.png
You must update autostart so it launches the emu.py file and not directly enulationstation

Let me know how it goes.

del1verance

@kiro First, thank you so much for trying to assist with this. I made a copy of my images folder (was previously /roms/system/media/images) and videos (same location), and double checked my autostart.sh, and unfortunately still no dice. Marquee images were already in the right spot.

It's definitely using your build of ES because it shows the default.jpg on the main terminal now (and I'd had to give emu.py permission with chmod 755).

I still get the marquees when launching the game, but still not on the game select screen or screensaver.

Now one other thing is that my gamelist.xml is still pointing to the old locations in the /media/images/ folder and not just /system/images/. Do I need to update each one of the games in there for each system?

kiro

@del1verance no worries. Yes I believe you will have to update the gamelist.xml ....try with one game and see how it works...

del1verance

@kiro Hm.. still not working after changing gamelist.xml. I might try to use your scraper if I can get it to work and see if that helps.

kiro

@del1verance hmmm would it be possible for you to post and extract of the game in the gamelist, and the directory where the images and marquees are? Just to validate everything is ok...

del1verance

@kiro Sure thing. I tried with about 4-5 games just to see if any worked, but here's the first one:

</game>
<game id="39870" source="ScreenScraper.fr">
<path>./10yard.zip</path>
<name>10-yard Fight (World, set 1)</name>
<desc>The game is viewed in a top-down perspective and is vertical scrolling. The player does not select plays for either offense or defense. On offense, the player simply receives the ball upon the snap and either attempt to run with the quarterback, toss the ball to a running back, or throw the ball to the one long distance receiver - basically the option offense. On defense, the player chooses one of two players to control, and the computer manipulates the others. The ball can also be punted or a field goal can be attempted.
10-Yard Fight has five levels of difficulty; from easiest to most difficult: high school, college, professional, playoff, and Super Bowl. If the player wins both halves of an "accelerated real time" 30-minute half at an easier level, the player advanced to the next level of difficulty, like a career mode.</desc>
<rating>0.5</rating>
<releasedate>19840101T000000</releasedate>
<developer>Irem</developer>
<publisher>Irem</publisher>
<genre>Sports / Football-Sports</genre>
<players>1-2</players>
<image>./images/10yard.png</image>
<marquee>./marquee/10yard.png</marquee>
<video>./media/videos/10yard.mp4</video>
<genreid>1538</genreid>
</game>

My directories currently look like this, using that game as an example:
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/arcade/10yard.zip
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/arcade/images/10yard.png (image file)
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/arcade/marquee/10yard.png (marquee file)
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/arcade/media/images/10yard.png (duplicate)
/home/pi/PieMarquee2/marquee/arcade/10yard.png (duplicate marquee file that PieMarquee2 was pulling from before installing your version of emulationstation).

I'm not sure if when the game launches, the marquee that's displayed is from your version of ES or PieMarquee2, but I'm only seeing them in the game select screen in my old/original version of ES.

kiro

@del1verance Hi! looking quickly to your setup I see there's nothing wrong.. quick qustion, do you get any output at all on your second screen?

Other issue I could see is that your gamelist.xml contains relative paths to the images, and this might cause a problem depending from where the image is grabbed... can you try putting absolute paths? such as:

<image>/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/arcade/images/10yard.png</image>
<marquee>/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/arcade/marquee/10yard.png</marquee>

Thx

del1verance

@kiro The second display is always outputting. If 'maintitle.png' is in my /home/pi/PieMarquee2/marquee/system/ directory then it displays that. I get a weird error if I use an .mp4 video though.

If maintitle.png is not in that folder, then I see the default.jpg (though it's small and doesn't fit the screen). While browsing games it stays on that image until I select a game and the game loads, then it shows the marquee as intended. Exiting it keeps the game marquee up and never goes back to default.jpg.

No change with using the absolute paths. Just to be sure we're talking about gamelist.xml in /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/arcade/gamelist.xml right?

kiro

@del1verance Hi, thanks for the info, yes we're talking about the gamelist.xml in your system's folder (so yes /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/arcade/gamelist.xml) ... let's try something else, would it be possible for you to exit emulationstation, then run it as emulationstation &> log.txt, go through a couple of games (no need to play them :-) ), exit emulationstation once more and paste the contents of log.txt here?

You should see something like (this is an output from my system), and do not worry about the weird naming of the files, that's just me ;-)

/etc/emulationstation/themes/nostalgia-pure/3do/../_assets/marquees/3do.png#/etc/emulationstation/themes/nostalgia-pure/3do/../_assets/marquees/3do.png#/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/3do/marquees/99E47FCF4B89884D153F2522A69859027F6E9082-marquee.png#/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/3do/marquees/863E882F770C57A40C8BE84AE0F8F7CE20D7CF82-marquee.png#/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/3do/marquees/863E882F770C57A40C8BE84AE0F8F7CE20D7CF82-marquee.png#/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/3do/marquees/863E882F770C57A40C8BE84AE0F8F7CE20D7CF82-marquee.png#/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/3do/marquees/6F15CD748A931575539834586DB9631E07AB839E-marquee.png#/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/3do/marquees/6F15CD748A931575539834586DB9631E07AB839E-marquee.png#/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/3do/marquees/6F15CD748A931575539834586DB9631E07AB839E-marquee.png#/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/3do/marquees/A205744E37F437D49FF94113002EA3DE006B131A-marquee.png#/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/3do/marquees/A205744E37F437D49FF94113002EA3DE006B131A-marquee.png#/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/3do/marquees/A205744E37F437D49FF94113002EA3DE006B131A-marquee.png#/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/3do/marquees/65F7061DAA262FEF6969FD0FA8436E8D9E076B6D-marquee.png#/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/3do/marquees/65F7061DAA262FEF6969FD0FA8436E8D9E076B6D-marquee.png#/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/3do/marquees/65F7061DAA262FEF6969FD0FA8436E8D9E076B6D-marquee.png#/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/3do/marquees/3D00445762E1AF1C5FDA052353D714849722D638-marquee.png#/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/3do/marquees/3D00445762E1AF1C5FDA052353D714849722D638-marquee.png#/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/3do/marquees/3D00445762E1AF1C5FDA052353D714849722D638-marquee

Thx!

del1verance

@kiro I actually get a really strange string of characters in the log.txt file that creates. Tried it twice just to make sure, same thing both times. This is the paste:

[H[J[3J[?25l[?1c[?25l[?1c[H[J[3J[H[J[3J[?25l[?1c[H[J[3J[H[J[3J[?25h[?0c

kiro

@del1verance Well, that's really strange, are you sure you're running the EmulationStation build from my GitHub? https://github.com/zayamatias/EmulationStation , Otherwise you will not see the image names appearing. Could you double-check? Thx!

Maybe I should be more precise, have you actually built emulationstation from my repository? Maybe the build I made is not 100% compatible with your setup.

del1verance

@kiro Definitely using your build, or at least following the install instructions (using
cmake -DUSE_MESA_GLES=On -DRPI=On . and then make). Tried again just to make sure and I get that same weird string of characters in log.txt.

I haven't tried installing your emulationstation on a blank/new card from scratch though, and have just been installing it on top of my existing ES installation.

kiro

@del1verance Hi, I'm not really sure what to check from here... I assume you're using this an RPI4? To be honest I'm a little bit lost without being able to test on your setup personally...is there anything you might think it could have an impact? Do you use a special encoding for your setup (other than the usual UTF or LATIN ones)? .. I'm not sure about the fact if a new installation would have an impact or if it would be a reason why you have strange characters....what is clear is that if we do not manage to get the filenames in the output, it will not display the images...

del1verance

@kiro Actually not sure what encoding I use but in raspi-config I'm just set up for U.S/regular keyboard (assuming that's where that setting you're talking about would be).

Will try a fresh install on a sd card (using a USB 3 SSD at the moment) and see if that works. I'm unsure what else to try on my end either, it's pretty clearly an issue on my system's end!

kiro

@del1verance Not necessarily at your end, there are so many variables to take into account that maybe my code works under certain setups and not others. Let me know how it goes!

del1verance

@kiro Ok, tried a completely fresh install starting with the official image. Didn't set up anything besides wifi, keyboard, and resolution, and added roms. Installed your version of ES after. It boots up with your default.jpg image on the second display but does not show game marquees in game or in the select screen. Note that on this image I do not have PieMarquee2 installed yet; the other images I was working with already had it installed before attempting to install your build of ES.

I did try to use the &> command to output to log.txt again, and get a similar string of garbage characters, however - this time I opened with sudo nano instead of over SSH, and on the bottom it says "read 4 lines (converted from Mac format). So it may be a formatting issue like you identified before! Which leads to the next question...

How do I change the formatting for the log.txt?

kiro

@del1verance Hi, well, good question... If you try displaying it directly on the terminal you're logged into the RPI? (for example cat log.txt)

Just to be sure, did you configure the marquees <marquee>.....</marquee> in the gamelist.xml?

The fact that there's output in the log.txt file is that emulationstation is sending the information about the marquees, we need to figure out if it is the proper information (marquee image path) or not.