Attract Mode with RetroPie - Alternative to EmulationStation

Finhead

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

Gui method of switching to and from emulationstation and attract mode:
I came up with a solution for this a few days ago.
I wrote a quick and dirty script to help you setup the same thing on your pi.
This will create a "scripts" section on attract mode. In there it will give you a script to reset the default front end and reboot.
"Launch EmulationStation to Configure Controllers"
This will put you in emulationstation after the reboot.
Under RetroPie I added a script to put you back into attract mode.
" Switch To Attract Mode"

To install just run the following on your pi. It only takes a second. Feel free to look at the code. Its nothing fancy.

cd
wget http://eazyhax.com/downloads/attract/installswitchAM.sh
chmod 755 installswitchAM.sh
./installswitchAM.sh

Hope this helps yall!

Just tried this out, it works great for a one click solution. But it's much faster to just exit to command line and type "xinit attract" or "emulationstaion" no need for a full reboot.
Is there a way to make the script run from command line rather than a full reboot?

Rion

@Shakz

Great job man!

This is exactly what i needed.
The less i have to pull up the keyboard the better.

Great for my son to :)

robertybob

@Shakz Thanks, I'll give this a go. Just installed it via RetroPie-Extra but forgot to install X ! Whoops!

Floob

@robertybob
Have you run Attract Mode at least once before installing the script?

@Shakz Is it ok if I include your script in my next image?

Shakz

@Floob Absolutly man. Thanks for all you contribute to this project. I use your stuff all the time. Glad you can use some of mine.

Thanks everyone else. Glad the script is working out.

Shakz

@Finhead Well the problem is that if you call a script from x then kill x....the script dies. Attract runs in X.....I dont see any issues from the emulationstation side.....its nice and clean. Gotta figure a way around it. Perhaps calling it with nohup would work?

Finhead

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

@Finhead Well the problem is that if you call a script from x then kill x....the script dies. Attract runs in X.....I dont see any issues from the emulationstation side.....its nice and clean. Gotta figure a way around it. Perhaps calling it with nohup would work?

Ah makes sense I never thought of that, that's too bad would cut the switch time in half or less. Regarless works great, it'll be super handy for setup on a new install for sure.

Floob

@Shakz
Thanks very much, I'll add credit in the readme. Should have an image this weekend with a lot more tweaks.

Floob

New version released v0.2
Download: http://smartretro.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=8277
Video:

Version History
10th April 2016 - v0.1

First Version

16th April 2016 - v0.2

RetroPie 3.7
Attract Mode 2.0.0 - 15th April 2016
Shaders configured for RetroArch emulators
AM configs pre-configured to match most RetroPie emulators
Artwork directories created in the roms directories of the systems
Extra AM layouts/themes pre-installed
Exit to from AM to ES and vice versa
Fixed keyboard hang (hacked boot delay)
Added boot script by Shakz (to flip between ES and AM)
Hide motd and raspberry logo appearing
Stop white screen with X boot info showing
Selected new version of Robospin as default theme

To Do

Auto resize image partitions
Remove X console output for clean boot
Work out if runcommand from RetroPie will play nicely with AM
Other Stuff

Finhead

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

New version released v0.2
http://smartretro.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=8277

Version History
10th April 2016 - v0.1

First Version

16th April 2016 - v0.2

RetroPie 3.7

Attract Mode 2.0.0 - 15th April 2016

Shaders configured for RetroArch emulators

AM configs pre-configured to match most RetroPie emulators

Artwork directories created in the roms directories of the systems

Extra AM layouts/themes pre-installed

Exit to from AM to ES and vice versa

Fixed keyboard hang (hacked boot delay)

Added boot script by Shakz (to flip between ES and AM)

Hide motd and raspberry logo appearing

Stop white screen with X boot info showing

Selected new version of Robospin as default theme

To Do

Auto resize image partitions

Remove X console output for clean boot

Work out if runcommand from RetroPie will play nicely with AM

Other Stuff

Nice! This should make it super slick for new installs. Is Daphne one of the emulators pre-configured ?

senkun

@Floob Thanks for v2! Looks very polished with all the updates incorporated, gonna put this in another new Pi3 incoming. but I'm sticking to the v1 I have on the current Pi, weeding out MAME and have spent ages matching wheels and vidsnaps. It's running really well now.

I made some dirty hacks to suppress X white screen/boot info, but I'm sure you have way more elegant solutions done. And I never did fix the keyboard hang. I would like to incorporate your fixes into my v1 build, could you please share the steps you made to fix them?:

Fixed keyboard hang (hacked boot delay)

Hide motd and raspberry logo appearing

Stop white screen with X boot info showing

Edit: Just watched your video, you mentioned a 10 sec boot delay, would it be as simple as boot_delay=10 in config.txt? That would fix the keyboard hang?

Edit2: Well I just got round to trying boot_delay and of course, no such luck didn't think it would be that easy... so what was the fix?

Edit3: I don't know what you did @Floob but couldn't wait and messed around, added a sleep to /etc/rcS.d/S03keyboard-setup which seems to have fixed it. Just seems so kludgy, but I guess it'd do for now.

robertybob

@Floob Brilliant work!!

zerojay

It would be cool to incorporate some of these changes directly into the installation script I have in my repo. I was planning on doing it manually but if we can save time, all the better.

Floob

@senkun Sorry about the delay, I've tried to fish out most of my notes.

I 'fixed' the keyboard hang with a sleep delay in here: /etc/profile.d/10-emulationstation.sh
Although I think the waitusb value in cmdline.txt may be helpful here, I've not tried it out.

The motd can be removed by blanking out /etc/motd, the logo can be removed with logo.nologo in the cmdline.txt
Also change console=tty1 to console=tty2 in there.

I'm afraid my 'fix' for the X white screen showing is the same as yours with the bg values. I'm still trying to do that in a better way.

Floob

@robertybob Thanks very much. If you get a chance to test it I'll happily try to incorporate changes.

Floob

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

It would be cool to incorporate some of these changes directly into the installation script I have in my repo. I was planning on doing it manually but if we can save time, all the better.

The main ones are in the ~/.attract directory, so that could be copied across wholesale. Its usually not generated until AM first run. Besides the points I've put above to senkun its just edits to the system specific retroarch.cfg files - but you wouldnt want to overwrite users existing ones.
Plus I've added and edited Shaks script from above.
I've also used davejs latest version of the shader he wrote, and I'm tempted to add curvature by default, so thats now hooked up to the retroarch emulators by default. The Retroarch emulators I've configured in AM have also had the artwork directories created in ~/RetroPie/roms/{systemname}.
There have also been various AM themes pre-installed and the robospin beta added by default.
Hmm, now I write it down there is a fair bit. I'll try a write a more formal change doc to make it easier to monitor.

Cheers,

Floob.

Floob

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

Nice! This should make it super slick for new installs. Is Daphne one of the emulators pre-configured ?

Sorry, no, but it should be quick to add in as a new emulator in AM, I'll get that in the next image.

Finhead

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

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

Nice! This should make it super slick for new installs. Is Daphne one of the emulators pre-configured ?

Sorry, no, but it should be quick to add in as a new emulator in AM, I'll get that in the next image.

That would be great since as of now the only way I found to setup multiple games for Daphne in AM is to make a new emulator for each game. I have not found a way to set it up like ES using the same roms directory and multiple folders. If anyone will be able to get that working it'll be you. :)

Floob

@Finhead
Can you put on pastebin one of your Daphne emulator configs for AM?
Should be in here: /home/pi/.attract/emulators

Finhead

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

@Finhead
Can you put on pastebin one of your Daphne emulator configs for AM?
Should be in here: /home/pi/.attract/emulators

Sorry not sure what pastebin is, just uploaded Dragon's Lair and Space Ace into DB. I linked to the public folder so should be downloadable without a DB accoutn etc.

Edit: I'll get them into your pastebin site when I'm home next.