[SOFT] dynquee: dynamic marquee for Recalbox

[poppadum]

I'm building a bartop arcade machine based on Recalbox and I wanted to have a dynamic marquee which can change depending on which game system is selected and which game is being played.

As my Pi4 has dual HDMI outputs I wanted to drive the marquee from the second HDMI output.

dynquee (say "dinky") is the program I wrote to do that. It's a bit over-engineered for what it does, but it seems to be stable now so I've decided to release it in case others find it useful (it has been asked for a few times before; see e.g. 1 2 3 4).

For more info see the project page on github.

All comments / questions / criticism welcome.

[toniosj]

Amazing!! Thanks for your work!!

Two questions:

1. Where did you buy that LCD?

2. Does it work on Recalbox PC?

[toniosj]

@toniosj

3rd question

Does it work in Pi4 if I am using RGBDUAL ?

[digitaLumberjack]

@poppadum nice project ! Thanks for sharing

[poppadum]

@toniosj said in [SOFT] dynquee: dynamic marquee for Recalbox:

1. Where did you buy that LCD?

I ordered it from Caison LCD in China - the model is DV190FBM; was not cheap though

If you can put up with a TN panel there are some less expensive options around e.g. here or here.

2. Does it work on Recalbox PC?

I've only tested it on Raspberry Pi so far, but I think it can be made to work. If you've already got Recalbox running on PC, I'd be interested in the output of the command ls -al /dev/fb*

Does it work in Pi4 if I am using RGBDUAL ?

Again, not tested but I don't see why not. Let's give it a try.

[toniosj]

@poppadum

ls -al /dev/fb*

ls: /dev/fb*: No such file or directory

[poppadum]

@toniosj said:

ls -al /dev/fb*
ls: /dev/fb*: No such file or directory

Hmm, so no framebuffer device at all

For testing I've installed Recalbox PC on an old Atom-based nettop. It has HDMI & VGA outputs and I connected 2x HD monitors. After Recalbox boots (I do get /dev/fb0) I ran xrandr:

Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1920 x 1080, maximum 8192 x 8192
HDMI-1 connected primary 1920x1080+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 16mm x 9mm
   1920x1080i    60.00*+  50.00    59.94  
...
VGA-1 connected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
   1920x1080     60.00 +
...

OK, try placing the second monitor to the right of the primary:
xrandr --output VGA-1 --pos 1921x0
and run xrandr again:

Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 3841 x 1080, maximum 8192 x 8192
HDMI-1 connected primary 1920x1080+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 16mm x 9mm
   1920x1080i    60.00*+  50.00    59.94  
...
VGA-1 connected 1920x1080+1921+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 477mm x 268mm
   1920x1080     60.00*+
...

Better: now we should be able to get images/video on the second screen:

mpv --vo=gpu --geometry=+1920:+0 -loop media/system/zxspectrum.logo.png
mpv --vo=gpu --hwdec=vaapi --geometry=+1920:+0 -loop media/mame/chasehq.mp4

Yes, it works Or at least, it's a promising start...

[poppadum]

I have managed to get it working on Recalbox PC

Because EmulationStation runs under X with Openbox it needs a few tweaks. Please see the first draft of the instructions here.

[toniosj]

@poppadum Hi! Thanks for your work!

I've followed your guide, I think that it's all OK, Screen is ON, but it doesn't show logos.

Testing cd /recalbox/share/dynquee
mpv --screen=2 --alpha=blend --loop media/system/zxspectrum.logo.png

I see logo on 2nd screen.

What would I need to do?

[poppadum]

@toniosj said in [SOFT] dynquee: dynamic marquee for Recalbox:

I've followed your guide, I think that it's all OK, Screen is ON, but it doesn't show logos.

Testing
mpv --screen=2 --alpha=blend --loop media/system/zxspectrum.logo.png

I see logo on 2nd screen.

If you run that mpv command manually and it shows an image on your marquee screen, that probably means your screen layout is correct.

If nothing shows on the marquee screen after a reboot, check the following:

1. Is dynquee running?
   Try ps -ef | grep dynq: if it's running, you should see python3 dynquee.py listed. If not, check your /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc & startup_pc.sh.

2. Check the log file /recalbox/share/dynquee/logs/dynquee.debug.log
   Is dynquee trying to run the correct mpv command? You should see DEBUG _runCmd():423 cmd=['/usr/bin/mpv', '--screen=2', '--alpha=blend', '--loop', '/recalbox/share/dynquee/media/startup/startup01.png']

If that doesn't help, could you let me see a copy of these files (put them on pastebin and send me a link, or post them in a forum chat):

• dynquee.ini
• startup_pc.sh
• logs/dynquee.debug.log
• /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc
• /etc/openbox/rc.xml

[toniosj]

@poppadum I've sent you the info via chat.

[toniosj]

@toniosj It works fine on Recalbox PC!!!

Good job!!

[poppadum]

@toniosj Many thanks for all your help testing and troubleshooting.

I will update the docs & install script and then do a new release.

[poppadum]

Version 0.9.6 released featuring much improved support for Recalbox on PC

[poppadum]

Version 0.9.7 released: adds support for showing images/videos when the Recalbox screensaver is active.