Attract Mode with RetroPie - Alternative to EmulationStation

Brigane

@Floob This is not to rush on you or anything. But can you say anything about when the next attract update will happen? I'm only asking because since I can't compile to the new version correctly, I might as well wait for the next image file.
Thanks for your amazing work putting this together for us. Also I always enjoy watching your youtube videos. They are much appreciated.

Floob

@Brigane I doubt the next version will be vastly different to v0.4 - I'd try that.

InsecureSpike

are there any plans to add an update feature? so as re-flashing isn't required.
also, are zipped files supported on most of the libretro emu's?

Floob

@InsecureSpike These images arent really designed in mind with a long term roadmap, they are more proof of concept.
So I probably wont add an update feature..
A lot of/all? the retroarch based emulators support compressed files - you can see the list on the Wiki or in es_systems.cfg

InsecureSpike

@Floob does this mean there are no plans to turn this into a on going project like RetroPie, or a sister project to RetroPie?

Finhead

@InsecureSpike said in Attract Mode with RetroPie - Alternative to EmulationStation:

@Floob does this mean there are no plans to turn this into a on going project like RetroPie, or a sister project to RetroPie?

It wouldn't be a project like RetroPie regardless it would be more like EmulationStation since it's just a frontend for RetroPie just like ES is.

InsecureSpike

@Finhead sorry, yeah that's what I ment, 2 flavours of RetroPie?
as i'm actually really loving AM, and i'm sure i'm not the only one who'd like or hope this could become fully supported alternative to ES,
thats unless someone can dive into updating the theming issues

Brigane

If some of you would like some music to use on your arcade machine while scrolling the game menu, this track might be a good example. I intend to use it on my own machine that's for sure.

darthpaul

Can AM be rotated for both vertical and horizontal games?

senkun

@darthpaul said in Attract Mode with RetroPie - Alternative to EmulationStation:

Can AM be rotated for both vertical and horizontal games?

Yes, you might have to get a "theme" or layout as it's called specifically for vertical games. You can curate sets and have different "displays" set for your games. AM is really flexible and my fave FE now.

For example,

bazola

Hi floob
Thanks for your image, i love attract mode!
Quick question, is there a way to automount usb devices on boot?
All my roms are on a USB stick, in retropie i can fin them in "/media/usb0", but with your image it remains empty.
I've tried to manually mount my usb stick and it works, but it would be nice if there was a way to do it automatically.
I've tried to edit the fstab file in "/etc/fstab" as i read somewhere, but it messed everything up, it gets stuck after splash screen, i had to format my sd card and start from scratch :(

robertybob

Will there be an update of this when RetroPie 4 gets released?

Floob

@robertybob I will probably put another together at the end of July with a few bells and whistles, but remember its just a proof of concept image as opposed to a supported version. If you want a more stable system you will be better off with the standard RetroPie build.

vfrvulcan

New to this Attract Mode stuff, been using RetroPie for a couple of months now, also pretty new to Linux.

But a couple of questions if I may...not sure if these should be asked here of in the Attract Mode forum.

Floob's Attract Mode image 0.4 with Artwork - 17GB image - I spent ages trying to download it from Mega only for it to barf at 10.0GB, had this happen several times on several machines with several browsers. Only after a bit of searching I found that Mega will not complete a >10GB download (although it will pump out the first 10GB to fsck you off) unless you install their extension/tool. Having done that on a VM I now have the image. Floob, maybe you could make a note to others that are unaware of Mega's limitations/crippling and warn that the Mega extension is required to download your image.

Having said that, your image works great and I appreciate your efforts and look forward to your next release.

Installing AM on top of ES:
I followed the instructions in the video to install AM 2.0 on top of ES as your image is a couple of months old and I have another card with RP4.0 as my main build.

Running AM from the ~ prompt as suggested above fails with command not found - I needed to type ~/develop/attract/attract to get it to load. Maybe I missed something in the video but I don't think so.

Once running there is one emulator set up - MAME, with no options configured but when attempting to configure the options the fields can be selected but anything typed into those fields is ignored. Is it something I'm doing/did wrong? I can create a new emulator but have the same problem when trying to edit the runcommand etc.

I suppose the following could be regarded as feature requests if not already incorporated and I haven't found them yet:

Is there a way to do a global update of games in all emulators? At the moment it's a case of editing each emulator and telling it to update the catalog - would be nice to have a smoother way of doing it. E.g. you've just built a new image, copied your games across, it would be nice to just hit a global catalog update.

Create emulators based on those already installed in ES. This would b a massive time-saver as the ES config could be read and emulators created in AM to match - they use the same runcommands and pass the same arguments. The creation could also create default flyer/snap/wheel folders in the config and in the filesystem if not already there.

Would also be nice to have an apt-get method of installing, or even better integrated into the main RP installer script given that ES is no longer in development.

InsecureSpike

@Floob said in Attract Mode with RetroPie - Alternative to EmulationStation:

@robertybob I will probably put another together at the end of July with a few bells and whistles, but remember its just a proof of concept image as opposed to a supported version. If you want a more stable system you will be better off with the standard RetroPie build.

~~Floob, is there anyway that this could become a fully supported version? donations? etc~~
~~i much prefer this to the permanent hiatus status of EmulationStation, and by the looks of it I'm not the only one.~~
~~you've done such an awesome job to get this far with the proof of concept, would the next step not be a supported version?~~

i think i've asked this before

DragonNinja

@vfrvulcan said in Attract Mode with RetroPie - Alternative to EmulationStation:

Floob's Attract Mode image 0.4 with Artwork - 17GB image - I spent ages trying to download it from Mega only for it to barf at 10.0GB, had this happen several times on several machines with several browsers. Only after a bit of searching I found that Mega will not complete a >10GB download (although it will pump out the first 10GB to fsck you off) unless you install their extension/tool. Having done that on a VM I now have the image. Floob, maybe you could make a note to others that are unaware of Mega's limitations/crippling and warn that the Mega extension is required to download
your image.

Use MegaDownloader instead. No issues downloading it here.

Floob

Now updated to RetroPie 4. Link in first post.

InsecureSpike

thank you

Chillimonster

Issues with the latest build when using dragonrise encoders (Zero Delay)

All controls configure and work in ES / Games, but will not configure and work in Attract mode.

I'm not the only one from a quick google and looks to be a Linux issue?

Chillimonster

OK, so the issue it with V2.1 of attract mode, so that leads to my next question.

I have a retropie 4.0 image that is just how i like it, is it possible to install attract mode 2.0 onto this and have the best of both worlds as i know V2.0 works without issues.

If so how do i go about it, to ensure i install the 'older' version rather than the newer version.

Thanks