Gamestation Pro

[fluxit]

On 12/29/2023 at 7:19 PM, big_guitar said:

so not much. 

I passed -y and -k to RA without values (separately) hoping it would reference what they represent, but just the simplistic result (which I guess i normal for retroarch)

 

retroarch: option requires an argument -- 'y'

 

I was determined to figure out what the -k option was, since it varies among the included games.  I've got it.  If -k is 1, the save menu allows saving(this can also be disabled via the .cfgs,) if -k is 0, the option of saving state is not provided for a game.  I tried always enabling saving, and it works(saving and loading was tested) for internal games that had it disabled, and external games.  Possibly not all RetroArch cores support saving, though?

 

In case the keyboard being disabled in RetroArch was due to "game" still running in the background, I "killall -s STOP game" the process(also tested, it *does* make the "game" process nonresponsive,) "CONT" the process after RetroArch exits.  It makes no difference, still no keyboard in RetroArch.  We need to find another compatible build of the RetroArch frontend.  I did manage to get MAME to display a menu via "mame2003_display_setup = "enabled"" that worked with the GsP stick, except I wasn't able to successfully map a button to 'select,'  so I couldn't configure anything.

Edited January 7 by fluxit
enabled, not disabled of course;-P

[big_guitar]

23 hours ago, fluxit said:

If -k is 1, the save menu allows saving

👍 Thanks for figuring that out! Do you mean for saving to the "states" folder? 

What's the cfg setting for that?  The cfg would override the value of 'k' passed then (or vice versa)?

 

I tried to get that xterm reference to run but it came back with "permission denied". 

/data/start_local_sd.sh: /mnt/sdcard/agsp/runme.sh: line 2: /usr/share/terminfo/x/xterm: Permission denied

 

23 hours ago, fluxit said:

I did manage to get MAME to display a menu via "mame2003_display_setup = "enabled"" that worked with the GsP stick

So what action did you perform to cause this to display?  A keyboard or GsP action?  Or just load a core without a game rom?  Perhaps it was trying to write to that squash partition which has no space?  

 

I asked the developer of GearColeco if there was a linux-arm build, because that emulator handles the blue & purple buttons (Fire3/Fire4), which neither of the other CV emulators we got working support.  He said he didn't think retroarch team maintains any arm builds at this time, but we could build it ourselves (with his github source).  I don't really have a proper environment to perform a test build for that though.

Edited January 8 by big_guitar

[big_guitar]

On 1/7/2024 at 2:53 PM, GB_Baker said:

No buttons on the Pro 2 trigger the save menu while in X-input or D-input modes.

That's a switch on the controller right?  Interesting, that would seem ideal then to be able to properly assign the north button as designed by the core being used.  Using an actual xbox controller, it will typically invoke the menu regardless of RA config files, although if I remap the north button to something odd, the menu will misfire a lot more I think, but it never completely goes away, which is annoying.  But if I need what would normally be the North button action, I assign the "value" associated with it to another button like L3 via remapping.

Edited January 8 by big_guitar

[GB_Baker]

4 hours ago, big_guitar said:

That's a switch on the controller right?  Interesting, that would seem ideal then to be able to properly assign the north button as designed by the core being used.  Using an actual xbox controller, it will typically invoke the menu regardless of RA config files, although if I remap the north button to something odd, the menu will misfire a lot more I think, but it never completely goes away, which is annoying.  But if I need what would normally be the North button action, I assign the "value" associated with it to another button like L3 via remapping.

Yup.  4 hardware modes via switch on the back;  S, A, D, and X.   I've been trying to configure in RA and move configs over, but I can never get the right stick to recognize in the GSP for Battle Zone. 

 

[Velvis]

What are the chances we will be able to add games and artwork to the default menu rather than going through the text based sd card interface? 

[fluxit]

21 minutes ago, Velvis said:

What are the chances we will be able to add games and artwork to the default menu rather than going through the text based sd card interface? 

Barring MyArcade releasing an update that makes this possible, not very good.  There are a couple of ways that we could make it happen, but it would involve a lot of work, a lot of testing, and risking bricking GsP(s).  I'm not really interested in pursuing this, but there are a couple of ways it could happen.  One could decompress the write-only root squashfs, carefully modify it, and produce a new firmware that allows the menu to draw from the SD card as well as the internal data partition.  Another possibility, would be to 'liberate' /usr/bin/game to the SD card, produce a new environment for it, kill the old "game" menu, and start the new.  Less risky, but again- a lot of work.  More than I'm willing to do at the moment.

 

Why is it difficult?  Because the internal, writable data partition that contains the builtin games and graphics is almost completely full.  The database for the menu is located in the non-writable squashfs.  And our exFAT SD card does not support symlinks, making creating(and taking🙂) shortcuts more messy.

[xboxiso]

4 hours ago, Velvis said:

What are the chances we will be able to add games and artwork to the default menu rather than going through the text based sd card interface? 

@Brad_from_the_80s did this for the Flashback. I wonder if he would have any interest in doing something similar for the GSP?

Edited January 9 by xboxiso

[big_guitar]

4 hours ago, xboxiso said:

@Brad_from_the_80s did this for the Flashback. I wonder if he would have any interest in doing something similar for the GSP?

Also in the UK they did this for TheC64, although I think it worked better with the non-usa firmware, I removed it and just navigated the SD card. Larger community in that scenario supporting the effort though.

[Shannon]

What they did for TheC64 was nice and all... but it was slow as molassess.

 

[big_guitar]

11 hours ago, GB_Baker said:

I can never get the right stick to recognize in the GSP for Battle Zone.

First you have to get it recognized in the retroarch cfg file passed with the "-c" parameter.  I don't believe any of the built-in cfg retroarch files have this defined as needed, since the GSP controllers only have a single stick.

Using xbox controller this includes these changes: 

 

[Right analog]: 

input_player1_r_y_plus_axis = "+4"
input_player1_r_y_minus_axis = "-4"
input_player1_r_x_minus_axis = "-3"

input_player1_r_x_plus_axis = "+3"

 

[left analog]: The left uses +0/-0 for "x axis" and +1/-1 for "y axis"

 

-- Then you use the Mame cfg file (bzone.cfg) created via mame-2003 (or retroarch after loading mame-2003 core) on your computer, where you configure the right analog with the left to work as navigation.  I haven't verified this since I last tested prior to getting the right-stick recognized, but it should now work so the left and right stick work together as navigation. Before that I made a bzone.cfg file that handled the navigation with the left-stick alone.  Elsewhere in this thread, I believe Domeshtan provided a mame cfg file to use 2 GSP controllers with bzone, but for a single controller, this should work, I'll try to verify this for xbox controller.  Also, if I make a version that works, I may want to have R3 act as a fire button (or as an additional fire button) so there would be no need to move your thumb.

 

Edited January 9 by big_guitar

[atariman72]

New joystick and gamepad announced at CES today.  And a portable Gamestation 🙂

[big_guitar]

Battle Zone with a single 2-stick controller

-One issue is that the Mame 2003 interface does not properly handle right analog, however, you can configure the right analog to behave as buttons.

Unfortunately, this is the only way to do it with Mame 2003.  Newer versions of Mame such as the latest provide a proper analog axis setting for the right stick.  So far, I've not been able to get any of the other Mame cores that reside in the GSP to launch properly.

 

-The default core options file "retroarch-core-options.cfg" in GSP does have this configured properly to allow the right stick to be used with Mame 2003: 

mame2003_rstick_to_btns = "enabled"; 

 

Without the rstick setting, I don't believe the right stick will ever do anything in Mame 2003.

 

But you will still need the retroarch cfg setting file passed to the retroarch executable to include the +3/-3 and +4/-4 settings I mentioned before.  The default GSP config file used for mame (zip_4_3.cfg) will not work properly if you want to use both sticks for navigation.   

You could then use this attached cfg file bzone-right-stick for battle zone. You would have to rename this cfg of course to bzone.cfg.  I have included the cfg file I pass to retroarch, named here as retroarch-bzone.cfg.  I do have some custom folders referenced in there, but you could tweak those as needed.

 

I did enable R3 to fire, but it's kind of clunky since it can cause the vehicle to move at the same time and thus your aim is off, so there is still the A - south button on xbox (which should be B on some others) I have enabled to fire as well.   I suppose assigning the right bumper to fire as well could have been beneficial.

 

 

bzone-right-stick.cfg

retroarch-bzone.cfg

Edited January 9 by big_guitar

[GB_Baker]

15 minutes ago, big_guitar said:

Battle Zone with a single 2-stick controller

-One issue is that the Mame 2003 interface does not properly handle right analog, however, you can configure the right analog to behave as buttons.

Unfortunately, this is the only way to do it with Mame 2003.  Newer versions of Mame such as the latest provide a proper analog axis setting for the right stick.

 

-The default core options file "retroarch-core-options.cfg" in GSP does have this configured properly to allow the right stick to be used with Mame 2003: 

mame2003_rstick_to_btns = "enabled"; 

 

Without the rstick setting, the right stick will never do anything in Mame 2003 I believe.

 

But you will still need the retroarch cfg setting file passed to the retroarch executable to include the +3/-3 and +4/-4 settings I mentioned before.  The default GSP config file used for mame (zip_4_3.cfg) will not work.   

You could then use this attached cfg file for battle zone. You would have to rename this cfg of course to bzone.cfg.

 

I did enable R3 to fire, but it's kind of clunky since it can cause the vehicle to move at the same time and thus your aim is off, so there is still the A - south button on xbox (which should be B on some others) I have enabled to fire as well.    

 

 

bzone-right-stick.cfg 1.56 kB · 0 downloads

The Pro 2 controller has the ability to swap D-pad with left stick and right buttons with right stick as a custom profile.  That's the path that I'm on.  I wish the GSP used the Mame 2003 plus core.  Part of my issue has been with trying to send configs from the 2003 plus core on my PC to the GSP.  That definitely does not work.  So far I am not running modified firmware. 

 

The two stick configs that Domeshtan shared are very cool. 

[big_guitar]

1 hour ago, GB_Baker said:

The Pro 2 controller has the ability to swap D-pad with left stick and right buttons with right stick as a custom profile.

Where is the profile stored, on the device itself?  If you aren't able to ever get both sticks to be recognized on GSP, you still likely would need to pass the custom configuration. 

Newer retroarch has those controller-specific cfg files, I think mame-2003 used ini files with some mappings, but I don't see any of those on the GSP partitions.

 

This is how my bzone.cfg file was set to use both sticks for navigation (but assumes axis settings are defined in passed cfg):

 

Edited January 9 by big_guitar

[+Living Room Arcade]

4 hours ago, atariman72 said:

New joystick and gamepad announced at CES today.  And a portable Gamestation 🙂

Hey guys, GenXGrownUp Jon is reporting live from the My Arcade exhibit at CES right now!

Edited January 9 by Living Room Arcade

[GB_Baker]

27 minutes ago, big_guitar said:

Where is the profile stored, on the device itself?  If you aren't able to ever get both sticks to be recognized on GSP, you still likely would need to pass the custom configuration. 

Newer retroarch has those controller-specific cfg files, I think mame-2003 used ini files with some mappings, but I don't see any of those on the GSP partitions.

 

This is how my bzone.cfg file was set to use both sticks for navigation (but assumes axis settings are defined in passed cfg):

 

Yes the Pro 2 stores it's own profiles on the device.  3 custom profiles per mode for X-input and D-input.  Really 4 counting the base mapping.  ABXY don't always map to the same position when I go from my PC to the GSP so I fix that with the profile on the Pro 2 itself.  

[big_guitar]

50 minutes ago, Living Room Arcade said:

Hey guys, GenXGrownUp Jon is reporting live from the My Arcade exhibit at CES right now!

Nice, out in Vegas then today (not sure where he's from).  Will be interesting to try their new controllers (or see full review), flat one looks interesting.  

Edited January 9 by big_guitar

[ComputerSpaceFan]

I saw some of GenX'es info from CES. Sad to see the new Gamestation joysticks seem to be for a new console model and not something I can synch to my existing Gamestation cuz the one I have is perfect (other than the B and C button locations) so I really don't want to buy yet another console just for better button placement.

[clyde]

1 hour ago, big_guitar said:

This is how my bzone.cfg file was set to use both sticks for navigation (but assumes axis settings are defined in passed cfg)

Not sure if that's the same cfg, but @Domeshtan got dual-stick working in Battle Zone with the attached version.

  

He linked to some other configs in this YouTube vid for Black Widow, Robotron, Smash TV, Total Carnage, Vindicators, and Wacko.

 

On another note, there was a comment regarding the paddle that Avalanche and Super Breakout (MAME) both work when loaded from SD card. Since both games are also built-in to the GSP, does that mean it already has a paddle config stored somewhere for these games? Could that reveal how to enable the paddle in other arcade games like Tron?

 

bzone.cfg

Edited January 9 by clyde
paddle info

[big_guitar]

32 minutes ago, clyde said:

Not sure if that's the same cfg, but @Domeshtan got dual-stick working in Battle Zone with the attached version.

Yeah, different.  That one is for 2 controllers.  Mine is for a single controller using the left and right sticks (not a GSP controller).

Edited January 9 by big_guitar

[Riko]

1 hour ago, ComputerSpaceFan said:

I saw some of GenX'es info from CES. Sad to see the new Gamestation joysticks seem to be for a new console model and not something I can synch to my existing Gamestation cuz the one I have is perfect (other than the B and C button locations) so I really don't want to buy yet another console just for better button placement.

If they were wise they would make an update for the first GSP to sync with the new tech, and add options to buy the controllers online or something separately, i would buy in a heart beat, but a whole new console nah i cant do that, i bought 3 gsps for family and friends and 1 for myself already.

Edited January 9 by Riko

[clyde]

29 minutes ago, big_guitar said:

Mine is for a single controller using the left and right sticks

Oh okay. I have an old left/right-stick X-Arcade unit I've yet to try with the GSP.

  

I guess this would be considered a single controller?

Edited January 9 by clyde

[xboxiso]

1 hour ago, ComputerSpaceFan said:

I saw some of GenX'es info from CES. Sad to see the new Gamestation joysticks seem to be for a new console model and not something I can synch to my existing Gamestation cuz the one I have is perfect (other than the B and C button locations) so I really don't want to buy yet another console just for better button placement.

From what I understand the new GSP joystick and gamepad are backwards compatible with the gen 1 GSP and will be sold separately for those of us that bought the gen 1 GSP. Also, they include rechargeable batteries which is a nice touch.

[+Living Room Arcade]

A while ago, people were discussing gamepads for GSP such as XBox 1 controller, but some said they didn't work.  What is the recommended gamepad for GSP so far?  

Edited January 9 by Living Room Arcade

[Atari8264]

1 hour ago, clyde said:

Could that reveal how to enable the paddle in other arcade games like Tron? 

Unfortunately, Tron uses a spinner that can be turned in one direction forever.  A paddle has hard stops, like the Atari 2600 paddle has, is on the GSP controller and can not be used with Tron.