Advancemame 3.5: overlays & resolution problem

Riverstorm

@caver01 said in Advancemame 3.5: overlays & resolution problem:

@riverstorm Just don't become so overworked that you accidentally block your own access to retropie.org.uk!

Right! I have a little "test" VLAN on it's own subinterface that doesn't need logging or any geo-ip filtering of course as there's no viral threats coming from the UK! ;) Since I also do all the switching I can tap the routing from the core to the internet switch upstream. Actually I could bypass it all by terminating a drop in the WAN VLAN but keeping most of the security services in place is good and getting to retropie.org.uk is an essential work service! ;)

UDb23

@riverstorm I understand your situation very well; continuing to accumulate holidays but not being able to actually take them due to important business matters.
Same happens to me.
As soon as you complete/solve one situation, another project or issue already started.
As important our Business Life is, and it is, still we need to find and dedicate some time for ourselves. Also taking no vacation and accumulating stress does NOT improve quality of our work ;-)
Hope you can get the holidays you deserve soon.

Riverstorm

@udb23 said in Advancemame 3.5: overlays & resolution problem:

Also taking no vacation and accumulating stress does NOT improve quality of our work ;-)

Agreed. I was reading an article that said people who take their vacations are actually more productive and feel better overall.

We do have some small trips planned for area events (within a 5 or 6 hour drive) over long weekends and we have a bigger trip planned for Trinidad & Tobago to do the Carnival experience (like a Mardi Gras).

My significant other has quite a bit less vacation per year so mine accumulates faster. I take a day or two hear and there to go to a movie or some other activities for the day but getting away from the tech...mostly...for a few weeks is very refreshing! ;)

Things are flexible now with planning/implementation but once the go live date for the cut over/transition is set it will be a busy few weeks. Plus we carry on-call phones and we do get calls all hours of the night, weekends and holidays. Even on vacation they will pick up the tab for international rates when leaving the country (which we do about half the time). I guess the perk is a new iPhone every year with all the bells and whistles of unlimited data, hot spot, etc. etc. but honestly I would trade it in a heartbeat and buy my own phone/plan to not carry it.

UDb23

Created a request for support on the advancemame forum.
Hope the developer can find time to help on this matter.

Riverstorm

@udb23 said in Advancemame 3.5: overlays & resolution problem:

Created a request for support on the advancemame forum.
Hope the developer can find time to help on this matter.

That's great it'll be interesting to see if it's possible. Everyone getting back to work now that the holiday is over?

UDb23

Advancemame 3.6 is available. Changes mention : "Fixed screen size computation using backdrops."
Anybody tried if this fixes the overlay issues ?

mediamogul

@udb23

I was going to ask if this only affects custom overlays, but I see you've tested the Mr. Do's Arcade files as well. That's really strange, as they display correctly on mine. I play space invaders somewhat frequently and other than the old artwork being super low-res, the aspect and placement are fine.

UDb23

@mediamogul said in lr-mame2003 driver improvement and backport:

being super low-res

The image files used by the overlay are good res, so that's already an issue.
What screen resolution are you using ?
What does advmame show if you check the resolution during invaders gameplay?

mediamogul

@udb23

I've looked at my screen res versus the game's display and they appear to correspond, but I want to check some potential inconsistencies later this evening. I'll get back with you.

caver01

@mediamogul I will throw in the test I recently did with backgrounds for INVADERS and WARLORDS. Both of the old artwork backgrounds are nice, high res, but they seem to only render at game resolution, even if running the game at double, or triple magnification. So, nice clean backgrounds are completely wasted and converted to awful pixelated versions. I suspect overlays will do the same.

This problem goes away, however, when you run vector titles, probably because they can render at native display resolution and the background follows suit. So, asteroids deluxe and Omega Race can have gorgeous background art.

mediamogul

@caver01

I'm actually doing a little testing and research right now. It looks as though all artwork is applied before any resizing is done. Also, in the official documents, the method for resizing raster games is noted to be independent from the method handling vector games. This of course jibes with what you've already noticed. Ideally, to get higher quality artwork, the software would need to first resize the game and then resize the artwork to fit. However, I wonder if that wouldn't affect performance. Outside of this though, my aspect ratio and placement are as they should be. I'm glad I looked into this tonight, as I discovered a few settings that have increased performance enough to run 'Spider-Man: The Video Game' without any audio issues.

caver01

@mediamogul your assumptions align with mine. It also explains why the rgb effects get applied to the background. I have over the years used old versions of mame that do this correctly. High res backgrounds that match display resolution, and scan lines and rgb effects that only apply to the game graphics layer (which looks fantastic done properly). It seems like an order of processing issue.

UDb23

@caver01 @mediamogul Thanks for the additional testing; surely that's the reason for the issue.
Maybe @amadvance can fix this.

Libretro overlay implementation shows that it's possible to get high res overlays without affecting performance.

It would be really nice if libretro could support also backdrops.