Using MAME Overlays/Bezels and shaders with RetroArch in RetroPie

Floob

This video shows how to add MAME overlays and shaders to your RetroPie setup.
This is using RetroArch (I'm using lr-mame2003) so it wont work with pifba, gngeo, advmame etc..

Before trying it, PLEASE make sure you understand how MAME works:
https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/wiki/Managing-ROMs

Download Link:
http://smartretro.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=8288

chavatar

This is brilliant, thank you! Had great fun trying these out. Using the tool, After Burner II has a slight identity crisis with 1943?

newbie

Cool, but I couldn't get this to work, I got all kinds of errors trying to install it. Is there something missing in this video?

Floob

@chavatar You're right!
I've fixed it here, and will upload it later.

To fix it yourself nano /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/mame-libretro/aburner2.zip.cfg
and change the text 1943.cfg to aburner2.cfg

bazola

This is great! Thanks for your hard work ;)

efraimsangil

It's possible to use in Attract Mode ?

Floob

@efraimsangil Of course, its exactly the same, this is independent of front ends, it just relies on the RetroPie scripts and RetroArch.

Floob

@bazola Thank-you :) Glad you like it.

efraimsangil

@Floob said in Using MAME Overlays/Bezels and shaders with RetroArch in RetroPie:

@efraimsangil Of course, its exactly the same, this is independent of front ends, it just relies on the RetroPie scripts and RetroArch.

Oh yes!

It is working perfectly, thank you very much.

How to get more bezels? :)

Zigurana

Cool!
How do these overlays work on a 4:3 display? Will it cut off the sides or try to stretch to fit?

EDIT: a you mention something about 1080p resolutions

, so I'm guessing it will be quite a bit of work to get this to work on meagre 1024x768 screen...
Then again, based on

, I would need to go into the configs that have explicit resolutions mentioned, and adjust those as well.

Maybe I'll try a batch crop/resize just to see how it ends up looking...

Floob

@efraimsangil said in Using MAME Overlays/Bezels and shaders with RetroArch in RetroPie:

@Floob said in Using MAME Overlays/Bezels and shaders with RetroArch in RetroPie:

@efraimsangil Of course, its exactly the same, this is independent of front ends, it just relies on the RetroPie scripts and RetroArch.

Oh yes!

It is working perfectly, thank you very much.

How to get more bezels? :)

You can create you own bezels, or maybe check the forum post over on
http://libretro.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5085

Floob

@Zigurana said in Using MAME Overlays/Bezels and shaders with RetroArch in RetroPie:

Cool!
How do these overlays work on a 4:3 display? Will it cut off the sides or try to stretch to fit?

EDIT: a you mention something about 1080p resolutions

, so I'm guessing it will be quite a bit of work to get this to work on meagre 1024x768 screen...
Then again, based on

, I would need to go into the configs that have explicit resolutions mentioned, and adjust those as well.

Maybe I'll try a batch crop/resize just to see how it ends up looking...

Probably really badly, they are all 1920x1080, and even if they were resized some of the configs hardcode the res of the game, so probably not an ideal situation for non 1080p output. Worth a bash though, yes as you say you would need to change the configs. A crop would probably be easiest, but then you would probably lose some of the bezel art - although I guess a lot of them dont have much of importance at the extremities.

bengus

Floob: This is absolutely fantastic. Thank you for taking the time to add this to your video manager tool. It is greatly appreciated!

Floob

@bengus No problem. Thanks for the comment, I'm glad its useful.

dabone

Does anyone have a source for overlays without the flare and scratches on the main screen area?
I used to collect real arcade games, and if my games had looked that bad, they would have gotten new glass.

Most of these look like scratched up plexiglass with a light right above you.

Other than that I love this feature.

Later,
dabone

Floob

Lots here:
http://mrdo.mameworld.info/mame_artwork_ingame.php

punking

Hi

Thanks for the effort and time in producing the video manager tool. It works great. I have one question.

For Mame2003 roms that don't have any overlays or shaders pre-made how do I configure a cfg file to at least smooth the screen, scanlines and maybe even the curvature.

For example:

When I run Hyper Sports now it looks terrible because there's no smoothing or any effect applied. It's blocky and sharp.

Would I have to create a cfg for that specific rom and what would I have to put into it.

Thanks for your time.

Floob

@punking said in Using MAME Overlays/Bezels and shaders with RetroArch in RetroPie:

Hi

Thanks for the effort and time in producing the video manager tool. It works great. I have one question.

No problem.

For Mame2003 roms that don't have any overlays or shaders pre-made how do I configure a cfg file to at least smooth the screen, scanlines and maybe even the curvature.

You could enable a shader for the system as a whole using the configuration manager
https://github.com/retropie/retropie-setup/wiki/Configuration-Editor
This would effectively edit /opt/retropie/configs/mame-libretro/retroarch.cfg

For example:

When I run Hyper Sports now it looks terrible because there's no smoothing or any effect applied. It's blocky and sharp.

Yeah, thats the "natural" look - I dont like it either :) Although to be fair typically the resolution would be tweaked.

Would I have to create a cfg for that specific rom and what would I have to put into it.

You can either create a .cfg for that rom, which could include resolution settings, or you can set a system (lr-mame2003) wide settings such as integer scaling and a shader enabled.

Thanks for your time.

punking

Thanks for the quick reply. That all worked.

Higgy

First off as others have said great work Floob.

I am using a PC Monitor (via DVI connection) like I imagine a lot of others must be. Mine has the typical widescreen resolution of 1440x900 (it probably also does 1280x800) so a 16:10 ratio.

I was going to have a bash at just converting one of your files/cfg for 1440x900, I had selected Donkey Kong first.

I got it all working last night, it looks great!!

Before I crack on and convert the others, I have a question:

DKong has a native res of 224 x 256 but RetroArch is displaying it in a 750 x 1000 window. This is not a multiple of the original, so this does not matter? - Does the RPi hardware do all this without much performance punishment?

Scaling your numbers into my 1440x900 I have now the following in the .zip.cfg file:

custom_viewport_width = "750" Custom_viewport_width = "625"

custom_viewport_height = "1000" custom_viewport_height = "833"

custom_viewport_x = "585" custom_viewport_x = "408"

custom_viewport_y = "50" custom_viewport_y = "42"

I am trying to keep the aspect ratio of you Overlay Window correct. So my width/height is just reduced by a factor of 1.2

The start location in x is slightly different as it is initially scaled to 1600 to keep the correct scaling and then cropped to 1440 so I have to scale by 1.2 then subtract 80 pixels [ (1600-1440) / 2]

Is there a fancy way of reading in the parameters for each *.zip.cfg file and performing a maths function then re-writing out the file? It will save me a lot of time :)

I have converted all the Overlay .PNG's using a batch conversion with GIMP to 1440x900

cheers