Syncing button leds with gameplay

hopwon

@Folly Just looking at my (default) runcommand output:

/opt/retropie/emulators/retroarch/bin/retroarch -L /opt/retropie/libretrocores/lr-mame/mamearcade_libretro.so --config /opt/retropie/configs/arcade/retroarch.cfg "/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/arcade/1944.zip"

To integrate into this would probably mean recompiling with support for mame output features.
I see you are just launching mame with a different cli, default mame, if there is such a thing.
I think I am in above my head here!!
I might see what I can do with LEDSpicer. I have it working to the point that, when a game starts both start and credit flash until credit is pressed at which point it stays steady. Maybe a simple counter output to a file when the button is pressed and watched by a background process so that when it gets to 0 again, I can issue an Emitter command to make it flash again... just some draft thoughts!

Just looking into this:

LED Spicer Docs

Folly

@hopwon

Indeed I use mame standalone for this.
Could be that lr-mame supports it too but it needs adding the options.
Will look at it later.

Edit :
I used my script to produce lr-mame runcommands for arcade :
https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/29682/development-of-module-script-generator-for-lr-mess-lr-mame-and-mame-standalone
(used mamedev.sh, the other is not updated anymore, installed arcade from the category menu item)
This will produce configs and runcommands where we can add the -output network option :

lr-mame-basename = "/opt/retropie/emulators/retroarch/bin/retroarch --config /opt/retropie/configs/arcade/retroarch.cfg --appendconfig /opt/retropie/configs/arcade/retroarch.cfg.basename -S /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/arcade -s /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/arcade -v -L /opt/retropie/libretrocores/lr-mame/mamearcade_libretro.so 'mame  -cfg_directory /opt/retropie/configs/arcade/lr-mame -c -ui_active -rompath /home/pi/RetroPie/BIOS/mame;/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/arcade/ '%BASENAME%''"
lr-mame-basename-network = "/opt/retropie/emulators/retroarch/bin/retroarch --config /opt/retropie/configs/arcade/retroarch.cfg --appendconfig /opt/retropie/configs/arcade/retroarch.cfg.basename -S /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/arcade -s /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/arcade -v -L /opt/retropie/libretrocores/lr-mame/mamearcade_libretro.so 'mame  -cfg_directory /opt/retropie/configs/arcade/lr-mame -output network -c -ui_active -rompath /home/pi/RetroPie/BIOS/mame;/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/arcade/ '%BASENAME%''"

Manually added in the second !
Testing it reveals THAT THIS WORKS !!!! ;-)

Folly

@hopwon said in Syncing button leds with gameplay:

does the command spit out error codes as we can use them...

pi@raspberrypi:~ $ ledspicerd -d
Program terminated by error: Empty devices section

gomisensei

@hopwon If no ones suggested it yet, advanceMame has a scripting system that can take actions on emulated external outputs such as Led's, and other hardware...

https://www.advancemame.it/doc-script here is the documentation for the scripting and outputs.

hopwon

@Folly The computer is telling the truth, you need to populate the /etc/ledspicerd.conf file :)

But this is fantastic, I will have a go at compiling and then give LR-mame a go. I looked at various scripting options last night and while I can create a counter which will increment every time the credit button is pressed, I could not find a way to decrement it, so I went to bed!

Folly

@hopwon

On which hardware do you run retropie ?
lr-mame can be installed from binary when using rpi.

Tell me, what script did you make to count the inserted coins and do you use a joystick or keyboard ?

mitu

@Folly said in Syncing button leds with gameplay:

On which hardware do you run retropie ?

First post:

... I am using LEDSpicer on RPI4.

hopwon

@Folly said in Syncing button leds with gameplay:

Tell me, what script did you make to count the inserted coins and do you use a joystick or keyboard ?

A bit nasty but:

I used inputseeker running in background to grep for a credit button being pressed on(6=P1, 7=P2 in my case) and when it successfully finds a 6 or 7 it increments a counter +1.
You can do it with awk also but I got tired and when to bed :)

hopwon

@Folly said in Syncing button leds with gameplay:

lr-mame can be installed from binary when using rpi.

Installing it now

Folly

@hopwon

I will look at ledspicer with inputseeker again.
Seem a really nice package but I have to take some time to dig into it.
Hopefully I will grasp it.

Folly

@hopwon

I uninstalled my previous install of LEDspice.

This I what I did :

cd ~/Downloads/LEDSpicer-development/
./autogen.sh
./configure --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc --enable-raspberrypi 
make
sudo make install
sudo usermod -a -G users pi #replace user with your username
sudo usermod -a -G input pi #replace user with your username
sudo cp /usr/share/doc/ledspicer/examples/21-ledspicer.rules /etc/udev/rules.d/
sudo chmod 744 /etc/udev/rules.d/21-ledspicer.rules
sudo udevadm control --reload-rules && sudo udevadm trigger
sudo cp /usr/share/doc/ledspicer/examples/ledspicer.conf /etc
ledspicerd -v
ledspicerd -d
sudo ledspicerd -d #seems to be the way to go with RaspberryPi

Running with -d gives :
Program terminated by error: Empty devices section

Added the controller name in /etc/ledspicer.conf :

	<devices
		name="RaspberryPi"
    		boardId="1"
>
	</devices>

or

	<devices>
		name="RaspberryPi"
    		boardId="1"
	</devices>

Still no dice.

Any help would be appreciated.

hopwon

@Folly You need to manually create your ledspicer.conf, I've attached mine to give you some idea (sorry admins no pastebin!), But basically the file maps pins #'s on your LED controller to an "Element", you can then create groups of Elements and address either the group or Element...

FYI On this controller I have 2 x Joystick + Trackball, each player has 8 buttons, plus start, credit, hotkey and exit.

pi@pacman:~ $ cat /etc/ledspicer.conf 
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<LEDSpicer
    version="1.0"
    type="Configuration"
    fps="30"
    port="16161"
    colors="webColors"
    loglevel="Info"
    userId="1000"
    groupId="1000"
    craftProfile="true"
>
    <devices>
        <device
            name="UltimarcUltimate"
            boardId="1"
        >
            <element
                name="P1_BUTTON1"
                red="54"
                green="53"
                blue="52"
		defaultColor="Red"
            />
            <element
                name="P1_BUTTON2"
                red="57"
                green="56"
                blue="55"
		defaultColor="VeryDarkMagenta"
            />
            <element
                name="P1_BUTTON3"
                red="60"
                green="59"
                blue="58"
		defaultColor="Blue"
            />
            <element
                name="P1_BUTTON4"
                red="63"
                green="62"
		blue="61"
		defaultColor="Yellow"
	    />
            <element
                name="P1_BUTTON5"
                red="66"
                green="65"
		blue="64"
		defaultColor="Salmon"
	    />
            <element
                name="P1_BUTTON6"
                red="69"
                green="68"
		blue="67"
		defaultColor="Lime"
	    />
            <element
                name="P1_BUTTON7"
                red="72"
                green="71"
		blue="70"
		defaultColor="Violet"
	    />
            <element
                name="P1_BUTTON8"
                red="75"
                green="74"
		blue="73"
		defaultColor="VeryDarkYellow"
	    />
            <element
                name="P1_START"
                red="79"
                green="80"
		blue="81"
		defaultColor="DarkOrange"
            />
            <element
                name="P1_CREDIT"
                red="93"
                green="92"
		blue="91"
		defaultColor="DarkOrange"
            />
            <element
                name="P1_TRACKBALL"
                red="28"
                green="29"
                blue="30"
 	        defaultColor="Cyan"
            />
            <element
                name="P1_JOYSTICK1"
                red="49"
                green="50"
		blue="51"
		defaultColor="Lime"
	    />
            <element
                name="HOTKEY"
                led="85"
            />
            <element
                name="EXIT_KEY"
                led="88"
            />
            <element
                name="P2_CREDIT"
                red="84"
                green="83"
		blue="82"
		defaultColor="DarkOrange"
            />
            <element
                name="P2_START"
                red="78"
                green="77"
		blue="76"
		defaultColor="DarkOrange"
            />
            <element
                name="P2_BUTTON1"
                red="4"
                green="5"
                blue="6"
		defaultColor="Red"
            />
            <element
                name="P2_BUTTON2"
                red="7"
                green="8"
                blue="9"
		defaultColor="Green"
            />
            <element
                name="P2_BUTTON3"
                red="10"
                green="11"
                blue="12"
		defaultColor="Blue"
            />
            <element
                name="P2_BUTTON4"
                red="13"
                green="14"
		blue="15"
		defaultColor="Yellow"
	    />
            <element
                name="P2_BUTTON5"
                red="16"
                green="17"
		blue="18"
		defaultColor="Salmon"
	    />
            <element
                name="P2_BUTTON6"
                red="19"
                green="20"
		blue="21"
		defaultColor="Lime"
	    />
            <element
                name="P2_BUTTON7"
                red="22"
                green="23"
		blue="24"
		defaultColor="Violet"
	    />
            <element
                name="P2_BUTTON8"
                red="25"
                green="26"
		blue="27"
		defaultColor="VeryDarkYellow"
	    />
            <element
                name="P2_JOYSTICK1"
                red="1"
                green="2"
		blue="3"
		defaultColor="HotPink"
	    />
        </device>
    </devices>
    <restrictors>
      <restrictor name="ServoStik" boardId="1" player="1" joystick="1" />
        <!-- Player 2 with ServoStik -->
      <restrictor name="ServoStik" boardId="1" player="2" joystick="1" />
    </restrictors>
    <layout defaultProfile="default">
        <group name="whole board">
            <element name="P1_JOYSTICK1"/> 
	    <element name="P1_TRACKBALL"/>
            <element name="P1_START"/>
            <element name="P1_CREDIT"/>
            <element name="P1_BUTTON1"/>
            <element name="P1_BUTTON2"/>
            <element name="P1_BUTTON3"/>
            <element name="P1_BUTTON4"/>
            <element name="P1_BUTTON5"/>
            <element name="P1_BUTTON6"/>
            <element name="P1_BUTTON7"/>
            <element name="P1_BUTTON8"/>
            <element name="P2_JOYSTICK1"/>
            <element name="P2_BUTTON1"/>
            <element name="P2_BUTTON2"/>
            <element name="P2_BUTTON3"/>
            <element name="P2_BUTTON4"/>
            <element name="P2_BUTTON5"/>
            <element name="P2_BUTTON6"/>
            <element name="P2_BUTTON7"/>
            <element name="P2_BUTTON8"/>
            <element name="P2_CREDIT"/>
            <element name="P2_START"/>
        </group>
        <group name="Player1">
            <element name="P1_JOYSTICK1"/>
            <element name="P1_TRACKBALL"/>
            <element name="P1_START"/>
            <element name="P1_CREDIT"/>
            <element name="P1_BUTTON1"/>
            <element name="P1_BUTTON2"/>
            <element name="P1_BUTTON3"/>
            <element name="P1_BUTTON4"/>
            <element name="P1_BUTTON5"/>
            <element name="P1_BUTTON6"/>
            <element name="P1_BUTTON7"/>
            <element name="P1_BUTTON8"/>
        </group>    
        <group name="Player2">
            <element name="P2_JOYSTICK1"/>
            <element name="P2_BUTTON1"/>
            <element name="P2_BUTTON2"/>
            <element name="P2_BUTTON3"/>
            <element name="P2_BUTTON4"/>
            <element name="P2_BUTTON5"/>
            <element name="P2_BUTTON6"/>
            <element name="P2_BUTTON7"/>
            <element name="P2_BUTTON8"/>
            <element name="P2_CREDIT"/>
            <element name="P2_START"/>
        </group>
        <group name="Players">
            <element name="P1_JOYSTICK1"/>
            <element name="P1_TRACKBALL"/>
            <element name="P1_START"/>
            <element name="P1_CREDIT"/>
            <element name="P1_BUTTON1"/>
            <element name="P1_BUTTON2"/>
            <element name="P1_BUTTON3"/>
            <element name="P1_BUTTON4"/>
            <element name="P1_BUTTON5"/>
            <element name="P1_BUTTON6"/>
            <element name="P1_BUTTON7"/>
            <element name="P1_BUTTON8"/>
            <element name="P2_JOYSTICK1"/>
            <element name="P2_BUTTON1"/>
            <element name="P2_BUTTON2"/>
            <element name="P2_BUTTON3"/>
            <element name="P2_BUTTON4"/>
            <element name="P2_BUTTON5"/>
            <element name="P2_BUTTON6"/>
            <element name="P2_BUTTON7"/>
            <element name="P2_BUTTON8"/>
            <element name="P2_CREDIT"/>
            <element name="P2_START"/>
        </group>
	<group name="Whole board as a circle">
    	    <element name="HOTKEY"/>
            <element name="P1_CREDIT"/>
	    <element name="P1_START"/>
            <element name="P1_JOYSTICK1"/>
            <element name="P1_BUTTON5"/>
            <element name="P1_BUTTON1"/>
            <element name="P1_BUTTON6"/>
            <element name="P1_BUTTON2"/>
            <element name="P1_BUTTON7"/>
            <element name="P1_BUTTON3"/>
            <element name="P1_BUTTON8"/>
            <element name="P1_BUTTON4"/>
            <element name="P1_TRACKBALL"/>
            <element name="P2_JOYSTICK1"/>
            <element name="P2_BUTTON5"/>
            <element name="P2_BUTTON1"/>
            <element name="P2_BUTTON6"/>
            <element name="P2_BUTTON2"/>
            <element name="P2_BUTTON7"/>
            <element name="P2_BUTTON3"/>
            <element name="P2_BUTTON8"/>
            <element name="P2_BUTTON4"/>
            <element name="P2_CREDIT"/>
            <element name="P2_START"/>
	</group>
        <group name="Ctrl keys">
    	    <element name="HOTKEY"/>
            <element name="P1_CREDIT"/>
	    <element name="P1_START"/>
            <element name="P2_CREDIT"/>
            <element name="P2_START"/>
            <element name="EXIT_KEY"/>
	</group>
        <group name="TopRow">
	    <element name="P1_CREDIT"/>
	    <element name="P1_START"/>
            <element name="HOTKEY"/>
            <element name="EXIT_KEY"/>
	    <element name="P2_CREDIT"/>
	    <element name="P2_START"/>
        </group>
    </layout>
</LEDSpicer>

hopwon

@Folly said in Syncing button leds with gameplay:

@hopwon

I uninstalled my previous install of LEDspice.

This I what I did :

cd ~/Downloads/LEDSpicer-development/
./autogen.sh
./configure --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc --enable-raspberrypi 
make
sudo make install
sudo usermod -a -G users pi #replace user with your username
sudo usermod -a -G input pi #replace user with your username
sudo cp /usr/share/doc/ledspicer/examples/21-ledspicer.rules /etc/udev/rules.d/
sudo chmod 744 /etc/udev/rules.d/21-ledspicer.rules
sudo udevadm control --reload-rules && sudo udevadm trigger
sudo cp /usr/share/doc/ledspicer/examples/ledspicer.conf /etc
ledspicerd -v
ledspicerd -d
sudo ledspicerd -d #seems to be the way to go with RaspberryPi

Running with -d gives :
Program terminated by error: Empty devices section

Added the controller name in /etc/ledspicer.conf :

	<devices
		name="RaspberryPi"
    		boardId="1"
>
	</devices>

or

	<devices>
		name="RaspberryPi"
    		boardId="1"
	</devices>

Still no dice.

Any help would be appreciated.

Make sure when you are starting for the first time, run the daemon in foreground (-f) as it is the best way to troubleshoot. Its quite verbose in its output so if there is a problem you should get a good indication of exactly what it is.

Folly

@hopwon

Thanks, will have a look when I am using my pi.

hopwon

@Folly So I managed to get the command line options passed to lr-mame based on the info you provided. I can now see that (I am using Missile Command as a test), led0=0, led1=0, led0=1 led1=1, repeating in the console for any button press.
This tells me (I think) that mame is making two led's flash and thats it. No specific output regarding credit or I could be wrong.

From runcommand.log using -output console

led0 = 1
led0 = 0
led0 = 1
led0 = 0
led0 = 1
led0 = 0
led0 = 1
led0 = 0
led0 = 1
led1 = 1
led1 = 0
led0 = 0

These represent a button press, I think one press = 4 log entries

Folly

@hopwon

Yes indeed that is correct.

It's jsut how the original hardware worked and that is implemented in mame.
It's basically the same with the galaga example I used before, only here you have to add 2 credits for 1 player and 4 credits for 2 players.

What you want is not implemented in mame so you need to get the information in an other way just like you did with inputseeker.
I tested that and indeed reading event becomes very easy but you need to add a whole script for doing stuff with that information.

I see the problem getting some uniform data for every game it seems a bit different.
Basically it could mean that for every game you need to make a script.

If you want more advanced ways you could look at mame lua plugin scripts.
With that you might be able to extract data in a different / better way.
FYI I used them for tests but I never wrote them.

hopwon

@Folly @MeduZaPaT talks about doing the part to make credit flash here:

link text

If there was a way to set a counter or write to an output, then that's the solution...

Folly

@hopwon

Ok, I used your ledspicer.conf and customised it for use with RaspberryPi (GPIO).
For error sake I made all red, green and blue use the same pin (red=4, green=5 and blue=6) and added an empty profile which is explained over here.

Now I don't get errors anymore when running :

ledspicerd -d

Then I tried :

ledspicerd -f

That gave me :

2023-09-21 21:23:41 initCheckPermitted: 
+---------------------------------------------------------+
|Sorry, you don't have permission to run this program.    |
|Try running as root, e.g. precede the command with sudo. |
+---------------------------------------------------------+
Program terminated by error: Failed to initialized Raspberry PI GPIO

So now I know RaspberryPi needs running with sudo, like this :

sudo ledspicerd -f

I might have to check ledspicer.conf again for correct values and then I have to add some game profiles.
Would like to check first if the mame "-output network" is detected without using emulationstation.

sudo ledspicerd -f should do that trick right ?

Will have look later again.

hopwon

@Folly the -f option runs in foreground so yes, you should see something...

Folly

@hopwon said in Syncing button leds with gameplay:

These represent a button press, I think one press = 4 log entries

Missed that part.
No they aren't really button presses.
On the other end you could see it that way but inserting a coin while playing the game does nothing.
Taking galaga as example, it's that led0 goes on and off after inserting a coin and when the start button is not pressed yet and not playing the game.
For missile that is 2 coins (led0) and 4 coins(led1).