Dynamic Marquee setup for all platforms

pdapice

I have finished and (mostly) tested a dynamic Marquee setup using dual computers.
here is a quick video of it in action. I have batocera installed on a laptop USB drive, and a pi connected to the larger monitor behind it. sorry for the quick and sloppy video, I just wanted to put something up there so you all can see it in action
Dynamic Marquee

This setup requires the following:

working Batocera V.33 install (or higher) connected to your local network (tested on x86-64 and pi ⅔/4 but should work on any platform with network connectivity)
dedicated marquee computer (pi2, pi3 or pi zero for example) installed with Raspbian lite 32bit. Must also be connected to local network. Static IP address is preferred but as long as you know the IP it should be fine

Keep in mind that this should work on ANY computer/device that has linux installed, FFMPEG, and FBV installed. But - I have only tested it with pi2 and pi3 as the marquee display computer.

There are lots of tutorials on how to install Raspbian, how to find out your ip address, etc so I will let you figure that part out to keep this as short as possible so I am only listing the broad strokes here.

This tutorial assumes a PI based install, but again should work with most any linux computer.

**
Steps to take on pi**

Install Raspbian lite (32 bit) (download and burn to SD card) – Pi OS imager is a good solution

Run updates: sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade
Install FFMPEG: sudo apt-get install ffmpeg
Install GIT (for installing FBV): sudo apt-get install git

FBV install
Dependencies first: sudo apt-get install libjpeg9-dev libjpeg9 libpng16-16 libpng-dev
Install FBV: sudo git clone https://github.com/godspeed1989/fbv.git
Cd fbv
sudo ./configure
Sudo make
Sudo make install

Create startup script on pi to launch NC at boot:

Sudo nano /etc/rc.local

Add to file (before the exit 0 line at the end.):

cd /home/pi
nc -vklp 5555 | /bin/bash &

Edit bootup file:

sudo nano /boot/cmdline.txt
change: console=tty1 to console=tty3**
add to end of line:** logo.nologo vt.global_cursor_default=0

Artwork must be loaded on the Marquee computer. For the pi it seemed best to keep it in the /home/pi directory. Here I created a subdirectory called Marquee.

In the “Marquee” folder you will need the following:
in the root of the marquee folder place your default.png file. This will be what is displayed when no artwork is found, and also at boot up.
optionally, you can create a subfolder for higher resolution artwork. I was able to find a marquee pack with 300 or so higher resolution images, so I made a subfolder called “hires” and placed them all there (in the root of the Marquee folder). This is the first place that the script checks for images before looking for a lower quality image and then eventually showing the default image.

For the images displayed while scrolling through the different gaming systems, you will need a folder called sysimages (located in the same Marquee folder) and add all of your system artwork there (using the same naming convention as batocera uses for the system names.)

Check below for a text representation of the file/folder structure

---———————————–
Scripts on Batocera machine:

---—–Game start

#!/bin/bash
Marqueeip=192.168.123.147#enter your marquee computer ip address here.
case 1 in
gameStart)
        romname={5##*/}
gamename=${romname%.*}$
$echo ./marquee.sh GameStart$ 2 "\\"$gamename\"" | nc $Marqueeip 5555 >temp.log &
;;
gameStop)
echo sudo pkill ffmpeg | nc 192.168.123.147 5555 &
;;
esac

**——–game selected script. create script here:
/userdata/system/configs/emulationstation/scripts/game-selected/sel.sh
remember to make it executable! (**sudo chmod +x sel.sh)

#!/bin/bash

Marqueeip=192.168.123.147#enter your marquee computer ip address here.
System=$1 #system name
Romname=${2%.*} #romname
rom=${Romname##*/}

echo ./marquee.sh Gameselected$System “\”$rom\"" | nc $Marqueeip 5555 >temp.log &

**——–system selected script. create script here:
/userdata/system/configs/emulationstation/scripts/system-selected/sys.sh
remember to make it executable! (**sudo chmod +x sys.sh)

#!/bin/bash

SMarqueeip=192.168.123.147

System=$1 #System name
echo ./marquee.sh Systemselected $System | nc $Marqueeip 5555 >temp.log &

**————-marquee.script, create this on the marquee computer in /home/pi/marquee.sh
remember to make it executable! (**sudo chmod +x /home/pi/marquee.sh)

#!/bin/bash

case $1 in
GameStart)
Systemname=$2
Romname="$3"

if [ -f "/home/pi/Marquee/hires/$Romname.jpg" ]
then
fbv "/home/pi/Marquee/hires/$Romname.jpg" -fel
elif [ -f "/home/pi/Marquee/$Systemname/images/$Romname-marquee.png" ]
then
fbv "/home/pi/Marquee/$Systemname/images/$Romname-marquee.png" -fel
else
fbv /home/pi/Marquee/default.png -fel
fi
;;

Gameselected)
Systemname=$2 #system name
Romname="$3" #romname
if [ -f "/home/pi/Marquee/$Systemname/images/$Romname-marquee.png" ]
then
fbv "/home/pi/Marquee/$Systemname/images/$Romname-marquee.png" -fel
else
fbv /home/pi/Marquee/default.png -fel
fi
;;

Systemselected)
imagepath="/home/pi/Marquee/sysimages/$2"
if [ -f "$imagepath.png" ]
then
fbv "$imagepath.png" -fel
else
fbv /home/pi/Marquee/default.png -fel
fi
;;
esac

Directory Structure

Marquee/

├─ Hires/

│ ├─ 1943.jpg

├─ Atari2600/

│ ├─ images/

│ │ ├─ Air Raid (USA)-marquee.png

├─ Mame/

│ ├─ images/

│ │ ├─ a51site4.png

├─ nes/

│ ├─ images/

│ │ ├─ Super Mario Bros. (World)-marquee.png

├─ sega32x/

│ ├─ images/

│ │ ├─ BC Racers (USA)-marquee.png

├─ Default.png

├─ Daphne/

│ ├─ images/

│ │ ├─ ace-marquee.png

├─ Sysimages/

│ ├─ fbneo.png

├─ 3do/

│ ├─ images/

│ │ ├─ Space Hulk - Vengeance of the Blood Angels (USA)-marquee.png

Atari

pdapice Edit bootup file:

sudo nano /boot/cmdline.txt
change: console=tty1 to console=tty3**
add to end of line:** logo.nologo vt.global_cursor_default=0

In this part, could you post an example of what your final cmdline.txt looks like?

pdapice

Atari

good idea!

here is my /boot/cmdline.txt, with changes in bold

console=serial0,115200 console=tty3 root=PARTUUID=692a6271-02 rootfstype=ext4 fsck.repair=yes rootwait logo.nologo vt.global_cursor_default=0

Atari

I’ve reformatted the guide into https://wiki.batocera.org/hardware:lcd_led_marquees#using_two_computers , will wait for you to give them both a proper revision.

pdapice

Atari looks like i found a few $ that went missing in the game start script. not sure where they went, but i have added them back in.

also in the marquee.sh portion, there is a space between the $ and Romname-marquee.png that i can’t seem to get rid of but did not exist in my original document. weird

it is not there in the wiki though, luckily (which looks fantastic by the way!)

Atari

pdapice It would be preferable for you to update that wiki page directly instead of me doing so, I don’t know the exact changes you made.

pdapice

Atari i would be willing to just let me know how

Atari

You make a wiki account (ask on discord) and do the edits? If you want general help with formatting you can check out the good style page: https://wiki.batocera.org/wiki:wiki-editing-practices and for syntax https://wiki.batocera.org/batocera_wiki_code_snippets

nhousset

Hit here,

I am working on this subject and I encounter an issue that I can’t understand.

If I launch (from mobaxterm on another pc), for example, the command ./marquee.sh Gameselected mame batc it works correctly, the image is well displayed on my Pi screen

However, when I go through NC, so a remote connection, I just see the display and it disappears, as if the connection is interrupted. Is this due to the launching parameter of nc side batocera?

glabrecque

I was hoping someone on here might be still active with this and help. I have a Pi 4 running my games and a Pi Zero W for the marquee screen. I followed all the steps I think but nothing seems to happen on the marquee computer at all? Not sure the best way to trouble shoot this I am sure it is something small I may have missed?

emilioj

Is this running on v34 batocera?

UncleSlim

emilioj

Yup, it works on v34

Sorthious

Sorry to rehash this old thread, but I need help. I’m using two Linux Mint Laptops and I want one to be the marquee. I’m using Batocera v35. This talks about modifying the /boot/cmdline.txt file on Pi. As I’m using Linux Mint, I don’t have this file, nor the /etc/rc.local file. I know a few Bash commands, but that’s it. Can someone let me know what files in Mint/Ubuntu I could modify/add to get my marquee working? I’m not using the Pixelcade Maquee. It’s a 1280×390 VSDisplay 14.9″ monitor. Thanks in advance for any help!

Atari

Sorthious A tutorial written for a Pi would not be working on a standard PC running Mint.

You could try setting up a webserver on your Mint PC to “receive” the requests instead and show them in a web browser, but you must be a developer at that point. Maybe someone will make a tool in the future to do just that.

Sorthious

Atari

Atari , actually, “receiving” would be a Client-side machine, whereas, the Batocera OS would be the Server. I found a program called FBI(Frame Buffer Image Viewer), that I have displaying a marquee I made; I couldn’t get FBV to work. Anyway, I now need to figure out how to do the scripting on the Batocera side, and I will use NC to send it to the Marquee side. If I figure it out I’ll post the directions/script for doing it on a PC. I’m also trying to figure out how to make my Spinner/Trackball static; now I have to reconfigure after every reboot. Trying to find a way to assign the Mouse_Index# based on the Device name, as the Index is subject to change on every boot. Well, back to the research! Thanks for the reply!

Atari

Incidentally, I am working on a way to permanently save which mouse index you want to use, but it is on the backburner as more important things have arisen.

Sorthious

Atari, Got the marquee working using two PC’s(no single board cpu’s)! I still have a lot to do to get it where I want it but, when I launch a game, it will load up the game’s marquee(if it exists). I’m using a command-line viewer called “pqiv” to display images. On the Marquee computer I just run a simple script called ncSession.sh.

#!/bin/bash
 
nc -vlkp 5000 | bin /bin/bash &

The 5000 is just an arbitray port designation.

On the Batocera side I put this small script(first_script.sh):

#!/bin/bash
case $1 in
     gameStart)
          #romname without extension
          romname="$basename "${5%.*}")"
          echo ./marquee.sh $romname | nc 192.168.x.x 5000
     ;;
     gameStop)
          echo killall -9 pqiv | nc 192.168.x.x 5000
     ;;
esac

Also, on the marquee computer, I put another script to actually output the marquee image; marquee.sh:

#!/bin/bash 
marqueeName="${1}" 
pqiv -ftic --diplay=:0.0 .Marquee/$marqueeName-marquee.png &

This works well enough to display marquees when you’re playing a particular game. I will refine this to add a default marquee for missing artwork and maybe even add in system related artwork for game systems.

Sorthious

Atari

Atari Incidentally, I am working on a way to permanently save which mouse index you want to use, but it is on the backburner as more important things have arisen.

That would be great. I’m sure there has to be a way to get this to work. I can get both my spinner and trackball to work for each game. So, obviously, Batocera has no problem setting them up. I just need to understand how it is being done, and then figure out a way to make Batocera search for and reference the model/name of the item and then attach the mouse index to the configuration; per game or globally. But, easier said than done!