Configurable/Variable Scrolling Speed and/or Name Options?

[rayman147]

Hi mrchrisster! I continue to be blown away by how well SAM is working. It's awesome. I have been using the extra tty2oled options (THANK YOU so much for those!), and thought I'd suggest another update, if it's possible:

Can we have a set of options for the speed at which tty2oled scrolls the name of the game? With the bigger font, which is great, many of the longer names take so long to scroll that it can be confusing and/or frustrating as you're waiting for it to cycle back. I'd love to be able to speed it up.

Thanks also for the kid-friendly flags! Awesome. Keep on rocking it. :)

[rayman147]

Another related thought as I'm thinking about reducing what is displayed on the tty2oled device: would it be possible to parse the ROM/Game name and filter out characters/strings so we can avoid displaying unwanted/needed stuff on the tty2oled device? Maybe call the flag 'tty2oled_name_hide' and have it work in a similar fashion as the folder & file exclusion option... some examples off the top of my head might be:

tty2oled_name_hide=( JPN NTSC PAL '(USA)' '(PAL)' )

In the above example the various region strings would be removed from the game name entirely.

If feasible, maybe even set up a limited 'find and replace' method, maybe using a pipe character? Where SAM would replace the string on the left of the pipe with what is on the right? Sort of like:

tty2oled_namereplace=( 'find|replace' '| ' )

So in the above example, 'find' would be replaced by 'replace' in the game name showing on the tty2oled device, and any underscore would be replaced by a space. This would give some additional granular control over how game names are displayed.

NO worries if this is a step beyond, but it may be a fun way to further configure things in a super nerdy way ;)

[rayman147]

OK, final mind dump about this (Fridays are my day to muck about with my MiSTer and update things and I'm having fun tweaking MiSTer_SAM settings today, LOL). It would be pretty cool to simply have the option to remove common 'non essentials' from game names, such as any parenthetical items. Lots of times there are date strings in between parentheses in names, like (12345678) or (USA), (JPN), etc. It would also be great to just have a basic option to replace underscores with spaces too. I still LOVE having granular control as mentioned above but a few basic options may make it easier for a wider user base to tweak things to be more readable on the tty2oled. Thinking something like:

remove_name_parentheticals=yes replace_name_underscores=yes

or even (if you wanted to create an internal list of common region makers):

hide_region_info=yes

or if you wanted to roll all of this stuff into a single option/flag maybe something like:

name_cleanup=yes

[mrchrisster]

Hey hey, thanks for your suggestions! It's always great to hear when people use SAM and feature requests are always welcome. Unfortunately we can only make the tty2oled speed slower, it is currently set to update as fast as possible. I'll play around with it when I have some time to see if there is a trick to speed it up.

For now I have implemented a new option: ttyname_cleanup=yes removes all brackets

[rayman147]

Thanks, I'm so glad you're encouraged – SAM is amazing and brings a lot of joy to our house. :) Not just to me, but my kids, their friends and other folks who head in to see 'the museum.' Thank you for all you do!

AWESOME and thank you for the cleanup option! :) I can't wait to check it out tonight.

[mrchrisster]

Scroll speed can now be made faster as well. In the ini there is a new option for it in the advanced tty section. Thanks so much for the great feedback, it encourages me to keep working on it :)

[rayman147]

I'm so encouraged by all the work you're putting in!! SAM is really special. :) I LOVE the scroll speed - looks like some frame skipping was the ticket? Looks GREAT. I noticed a few things that aren't a huge deal but for what it's worth:

• Some cores (PSX in particular) don't seem to scroll text, while others do. Not sure why. • I'm still noticing bracketed info - stuff in between [ xx ] brackets and even a few ( xx ) parenthetical things still showing up, but not sure why. • I was pulling from the 'test' branch in the .ini file, but wasn't seeing the latest updates working so I went back to the 'main' branch and then it all worked. Probably best for me to stick with the main I'm guessing.

Seriously - amazing work. Thank you!

[mrchrisster]

Hey rayman, thanks for your feedback.

I actually just pushed the new samvideo functionality from test branch to main. It plays video game commercials in between other cores. If you update and check in the menu under add ons, you can activate it. I'd appreciate any feedback since I haven't been able to test it much yet.

I'll look into the other issues. The double speed seems to be hit and miss. I got some reports it's stopping the display from working for a while so I switched mine back to normal speed. The PSX not scrolling issue is strange since it's running the same code as all the other cores. Maybe it's related to the double speed setting?

[rayman147]

Hi Christoph! You're most welcome. That samvideo functionality sounds INCREDIBLE! I keep a playlist of old game commercials on an Android TV device connected to my CRT, it would be MUCH better to utilize SAM for it. I'll check that out right away and give you feedback for sure. Very cool!

I'll have to try changing some settings and do more tests to see if I can isolate the behavior for what I'm experiencing with the scroll, I haven't looked too closely into it but noticed that PSX games just didn't seem to scroll. Might take me a few days as I'm swamped with work (and graduating kids LOL) but will loop back in once I've had some time to test. I was telling my wife how impressed I am with the work you've done on this - thanks again for all you do!

[rayman147]

Oh! Just had a thought, and wondered if this would be something easy to do? The 'countdown' timer that shows up underneath the large type... any way we can have a toggle option to, instead of the countdown, display the System/Core instead? So "Arcade" or "NES" or "Genesis/MegaDrive" etc... I'd probably find that more useful as sometimes it's unclear which system you're looking at (when there are multiple versions of a game on different consoles/systems).

[rayman147]

WOAH! Christoph - the video functionality is INCREDIBLE. I love it! The perfect addition to SAM. :)

I was wondering - are you pulling from a particular YT playlist, etc...? I would love to be able to specify what video(s) get pulled... curious how you're approaching/populating it. I know from your earliest release that you're a total NES nerd like me, and so I'm partial to commercials from that era of gaming. I'd imagine this could be a very fun 'rabbit hole' where the customization options would be amazing, but potentially cumbersome for you. There is no doubt about it, though, this makes the 'museum of gaming' aspect of SAM even richer. Let me know if there's any particular testing needs you have, and I'm happy to dig in.

On my CRT when a video is about to play there are a few seconds where the refresh/resolution switches and I see the MiSTer menu and then the command line (a bit stretched and distorted at 240p). I'm sure this may be the behavior of the video module, I wonder if it would be possible to buffer in and display/overlay an image, or MP4 video, for those 3-5 seconds? It would be killer to put a custom look there, as it could brand each individual's setup. Anyhow - happy to test anything on this... it's sweet!

[rayman147]

Just a thought on potential videos, beyond commercials - might be super cool to try and show speedruns of famous/popular classic games. Even TAS runs would be super fun to watch!

[mrchrisster]

Hey rayman, thanks for testing and I'm glad it's working for you. ( I'm having some issues with it myself currently ) NES was my first console so I have a soft spot for NES/Gameboy commercials and would love to put together a comprehensive list with your help if you don't mind? I was thinking eventually we could play commercials from a certain system before showing that game as a mode for SAM. The black screen is necessary unfortunately to get video mode working. Right now there is also a blinking cursor. None of this would have been possible without wizzo looking into it and we're still actively investigating if there is a better way to play video on the Mister.

For modifying the list, check MiSTer_SAM.ini You'll find the link to the playlist: sv_youtube_crtlist="/media/fat/Scripts/.MiSTer_SAM/sv_yt240_list.txt"

YES! speedruns would be cool to show and I atually did that during the testing phase!

[rayman147]

I saw it was wizzo's module as it installed, VERY cool. Super encouraging to see the community come together on this. Ah, thanks for the list - I should have looked deeper but trying to work at the same time, super distracting and fun watching my CRT today LOL - yeah, perhaps my son and I can try to create a segmented list of commercials and speedruns. :)

[mrchrisster]

That would be cool, thanks :)

[rayman147]

you got it. Let me know what issues you see - I've only had a chance to watch a handful of the videos but it does appear that there's some sync-issues on my CRT, wavy horizontal video that I originally thought was part of the video itself (from a bad VHS rip or something) but now I think it's probably just video issues. Not so bad as to wreck the experience but probably should be more stable. If you want some video of it let me know and I can upload a clip, but my guess is you're aware.

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update: after watching a few more I do think it's actually just the VHS quality of most of the vids haha. But I do see that blinking cursor in the upper left quadrant :) Still, such a great addition!

[mrchrisster]

I used video mode settings that work on my CRT, so I'm glad they work on yours as well! You can customize them in MiSTer_SAM.ini if it appears stretched. If you switch to archive streaming in the settings, they are more curated and also appear in a higher quality.