[Theme] ESDEE

[mitu]

@shadowron said in [Theme] ESDEE:

Quite sure this has to do with the amount of VRAM.

Could also be a problem with the theme definition (wrong image path ?), so please be more specific so @Dal1980 can check if there's any error.

[Shadowron]

@mitu said in [Theme] ESDEE:

@shadowron said in [Theme] ESDEE:

Quite sure this has to do with the amount of VRAM.

Could also be a problem with the theme definition (wrong image path ?), so please be more specific so @Dal1980 can check if there's any error.

@shadowron said in [Theme] ESDEE:

The system that give those white images with scanlines change every reboot, so the files aren't missing. Quite sure this has to do with the amount of VRAM.

Can't imagine paths do change at reboot. ;)

Edit: To be more precise. For example GBA doesn't show correct, i only see white background with scanlines on top. PSX shows correct. After a reboot (emulationstation/system) the same system (GBA) does appear with the correct image, but now the PSX shows the white image with scanlines. All of this happens in sytem (over)view.

[mitu]

@shadowron Limit the VRAM settings, it's what's probably causing the issue. Give it a try.

[Shadowron]

@mitu If I go bellow 120 MB it doesn't handle well, images start popping up and disappear again. That's the reason why i increased at the first place. Had same experience with RVGM.

Edit: I think it has to do with the images used, as I enabled framerate on both i could see Tex VRAM was going on the loose. With themes that use less images i can't detect this behavior.

[mitu]

@shadowron I'd say it's normal to see this behavior - some themes might be too heavy for the PI to handle. That's why the VRAM limit settings has been implemented.

[Shadowron]

@mitu Well, after a bit of testing i used 110 MB VRAM and disabled transitions. This gives the most stable result (multiple runs 4 or 5) on my system. No images disappearing and no white screens with scanlines.

I also made three video's to show what exactly is going on. Hope to put them here within a hour or so.

100 MB VRAM, transition enabled

100 MB VRAM transition disabled (looks fine, but after multiple test same result as with transition enabled)

120 MB VRAM, transition enabled

[Dal1980]

Hey guys

UPDATE: Grr, just started having problems with this theme myself. Seriously, this theme has minimal graphics. I'll have a play around to see if I can get a more stable experience by decreasing theme quality.

Yeah I started a thread because I was having the same problems. Turns out that was solved with a few scripting hacks which have been implemented into the theme.

I'm really disappointed that this isn't working for you so lets see if I can't help shed light

Hardware: I'm using a standard Raspberry 3 board (not the latest one), I know these will be like the performance/cpu lottery although this theme really isn't anything complex (unlike my Attract Mode themes which all work on Pi too).
Overclocking: None (you might find this to help although I'd recommend you read up on that and buy some heatsinks but really you shouldn't need to)

Items in Italic probably have no baring

UI Settings
UI Mode: Full
Screensaver Settings ... na
Quick System Select: on
Carousel Transitions: on
Transition Style: Instant
Theme Set: ESDEE (obviously haha)
Gamelist View Style: Video
Start On System: none (but this is optional)
On-Screen Help: On (I might hardcode this into the theme since it's all over the place for different resolutions)

Other Settings
VRAM limit: 110Mb (seems 110Mb is optimal but I've heard that 120 Mega bits or even 130 is still within the limits of a Pi3)
Power saver modes: Disabled (not sure if anything here knacks performance)
Save Metadata on Exit: on
Parse Gameslists only: Off
Show hidden files: off
Use OMX Player (HW Accelerated): On (I was having problems with video and tried this, it didn't help but turns out it was my directory where I keep my videos and read somewhere to leave this on anyway)
Show Framerate: Off

Videos
I'm new to ES so big learning curve for me. Because the theme is always (?) separate from the gamelist.xml (the file that tells ES about your games and the assets associated with it like video, boxart etc) then the theme can only control if their is video support or not. This makes sense but I did not understand why the gamelist directory is not used for gamelist.xml haha. Anyway my setup was the same as ETA Prime (btw: thanks for the video if you ever stumble on this)

Inside the gamelist.xml file
Example entry for 3 Ninjas

<game id="2742" source="ScreenScraper">
	<path>./3 Ninjas Kick Back (USA).zip</path>
	<name>3 Ninjas Kick Back</name>
	<desc>You must help an old samurai ...(content removed for example)... overcome and defeat.</desc>
	<image>./boxart/3 Ninjas Kick Back (USA).png</image>
	<marquee>./wheel/3 Ninjas Kick Back (USA).png</marquee>
	<video>./snap/3 Ninjas Kick Back (USA).mp4</video>
	<thumbnail/>
	<rating>0.5</rating>
	<releasedate>19941101T000000</releasedate>
	<developer>Malibu Interactive</developer>
	<publisher>Sony Imagesoft</publisher>
	<genre>Platform</genre>
	<players>1-2</players>
</game>

So for <video>./snap/3 Ninjas Kick Back (USA).mp4</video> we have our videos pointing to snaps inside the same directory as the gamelist.xml.

The full path to the current example snes "gamelist.xml" is /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/snes/gamelist.xml
The video file path is /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/snes/snap/3 Ninjas Kick Back (USA).mp4

Hope that clarifies the path issues which I had to stumble around for a bit to get working.

I've set the video to start at 3 seconds in as I like box art and didn't want to overload the screen with box and video for this theme. This is where allowing a theme to create it's own option on the user menu would be great as you could easily manage if you wanted instant video to show or have a 1, 2, 10 second delay or completely shut the video off. This unfortunately doesn't look like it's a thing with ES so you'll need to change it in the script to your own personal preference.

I have no problems helping people change stuff around as at the end of the day, this is your experience and you should be allowed to tailor it.

Let me know what you get working and what you don't.

[Dal1980]

Video Support fixed (thanks to EctoOne for identifying my issue)

As for memory, I have this currently set to VRAM: 120Mb, it's not perfect but the problem with memory does seem to be related to the weather. Basically, if you're having issues just wait until the cloud passes above you, it may just be that Emulation Station can't communicate with the satellite :P

[EctoOne]

@dal1980 Your theme is over 100mb, no wonder that there are memory issues, maybe you can optimize some of your images.

[Dal1980]

@ectoone

Are you saying that ES loads all assets into memory?

I honestly thought it would have only loaded what was on screen which would work out at no more than a few MB?

I've looked at jpg compression and I could probably get everything down to 300-400KB which should help. I've flattened my SD so I'll not be able to test this yet but I'll try get through updating the images and update them on github.

Thanks for pointing this out. I knew I had images that were about 1MB but did not think they would cause a problem but did not think for a second that every asset was preloaded.

[Dal1980]

OK got this down to under 60MB (previously 153MB) with a 13% JPEG compression factor and I removed the progressive encoding type as I'd forgot to change that when saving these files. I'll see how this pans out now.

Github updated

Thanks again EctoOne :D

[EctoOne]

@dal1980 I'm actually not quite sure how images are loaded nowadays, I believe that they are dynamically loaded but I assume that big images take longer to load.

[Shadowron]

@dal1980 Performance seems a lot better now. VRAM now at 100 MB, with transitions enabled and so far i haven't encountered missing images or white images.

[darknior]

Cool, excellent skin, i really like your design :)
But when i see your first image i immediately think you will have the same memory problem than me :(

https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/16454/rvgm-retro-retropie-video-game-museum-theme-in-development/

You also use many images and sprites at same time for each systems and ES don't like it :(
It's really so bad nobody can fix this issue :(

I also try to play with VRMA, transitions, make a Light version of my skin with only one image by system, reduce it to 720p, and many other things ... and nothing working fine, i always have the memory issues :(

I have open an issue there if you want to write too : https://github.com/fieldofcows/EmulationStation/issues/22

[Dal1980]

I don't have all my systems setup at the moment so can't test this fully, but, seems fine for me.

I have my VRAM set to : 120Mb
I have 7 Systems
I have version 2.7.5RP <- forgot to mention this

I needed to uncomment your code on 242 of the main theme.xml
<!-- <path>./_art/bg-game-help-${langue}.png</path> <!-- IN HELP XML -->
to
<path>./_art/bg-game-help-${langue}.png</path>

So that the overlay was shown but had no problems with anything.
I don't think there should be any problems with your file sizes, I think they work out less than my theme.

Cool theme, I like it.

Cheers
Dal1980

[A12C4]

Just wanted to see what this cool theme could look like with the grid view.

[darknior]

@dal1980 Thanks for your test, strange you must un comment this line, i will verify what i have committed because this line is now in an other file to let user choose to have the HELP bar or not.

I will try your settings, but i think i have already do it before.
The problem is i don't use like you 7 systems ... i'm using 75 systems !!!
And i think ES don't like we have so many systems :(

@A12C4 Excellent i like it, i must try it on my theme too :p

[Dal1980]

@A12C4 Ha cool :D. There doesn't seem to be much in the way of information on building themes. Grid view sounds nice.

@darknior : I previously had 96 systems setup (most with just dummy roms so they would appear). Perhaps it's an issue when you have that many but I have a feeling it's not. I say this because the issue I had went away when scrolling further on which meant that it must clear memory at some point during the list cycling (guess). Do you not have a different Pi to test on?

[A12C4]

@dal1980 It's not on the stable branch yet, that's why you didn't see any reference to the grid in the theming documentation.

[darknior]

@dal1980 said in [Theme] ESDEE:

I previously had 96 systems setup (most with just dummy roms so they would appear). Perhaps it's an issue when you have that many but I have a feeling it's not. I say this because the issue I had went away when scrolling further on which meant that it must clear memory at some point during the list cycling (guess). Do you not have a different Pi to test on?

Yes i already try my theme on two PI i have, a PI2 and a PI3.
I have two friends of my team that have the same problems. They have 75 systems too.
And now i release a beta of my theme, i have some users with same bug too :( I don't know how many systems they have but if i remember fine the problem come with more than 10 systems.

I have try my Light Skin version i've don't release for the moment with 120 Mb VRAM like you write (before i use 110) and it works really fine. I'm impressive, and with my 75 systems ... it's really so cool :)
Light version is a version of my skin with only one background image by system, i merge all my little sprite and the background in one JPG, the theme RVGM of 230 Mo go down for the moment to 30 Mo lol
It is really lighter and i always have the language selection, and help or not help bar choice, i use a PNG layer for it.
But i lost the idea of my theme to be easily modified by users that can change only one image, a console or a logo if they prefer an other one than me, because i give many different console and logo image with my RVGM theme.

I also try my official RVGM theme with 120 Mb but ... it's really crappy :(
Not smooth, really slow. ES take so many time to take and show each images :(
I don't understand because there are light, i compress all of them but it change nothing ... 200 / 300 Ko for a background, 1 Mo MAX for a system with all the sprites, it is not really hard to show for a PI 3 with a 4 core and 1 Go of RAM.
There is a memory problem in ES, but i'm not a good coder to understand what and why ?