Top requested arcade games for overlays

jozzy1

@udb23 hey buddy. I've been playing the heck out of Robocop lately. Any chance for a nice overlay for that?

markwkidd

I apologize that this is slightly off topic -- and I know that UDb23 already is aware -- but I feel I must mention there is now a RetroArch bounty fundraiser going on to add at least partial support for the native MAME artwork format (specifically bezels/backdrops/overlays). That support will open up a world of possibilities for sharing and creating new artwork (for arcade and console systems) as part of the well-established MAME and MESS artwork scene.

This effort has been vetted by several RetroArch developers as viable and welcome as additions to the software. What is needed now is a coder to take on the project. To that end, donations are welcome. We have seen numerous examples of these bounties leading to bugfixes and new features, particularly when the bounty has input and approval from the lead RA developers.

UDb23

@markwkidd No reason to apologize!
Having full artwork support in retroarch mame would be absolutely great.

To all overlays users: if you can please contribute to that bounty to make it real. If you know a capable coder, please spread the word.

l”m ready to create backdrops for the classics as soon as support will be there.

UDb23

@jozzy1 Robocop”s artwork is available at good resolution. Should be quite easy to create the overlay. Will have a try at it.

jozzy1

@markwkidd cool. I will make a donation when I get paid ☺

UDb23

Atari's Missile Command cannot miss as a Classic.

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Overlay now available in the Repo.

UDb23

Atari Battlezone now available: overlay+launching+ scrape image.

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The original upright cabinet had a Periscope to look at the game. This was later removed.
The overlay was created by vectorizing, cleaning up scan of the original backdrop cardboard and adapting it to the actual game at 1080p. If you use mame2003plus green and red vector colors are generated by the core (otherwise you get only green).

The original upright used a mirror to project the game graphics on top of the cardboard. In that cab special inks and blacklight are used so the colors of the cardboard actually looked greenish+neon like reds. Found some images and videos that show these colors so expect an additional "UV like" release of the overlay.

Later cabaret versions no longer used mirror & blacklight so colors are the ones you see in this overlay but the bezel was slightly different.

The original bezel graphics look like hand drawn and lines&color fills are not always straight and spill off; I tried to keep the original look.

quicksilver

@UDb23 this is awesome! Great work as usual!

Brigane

@UDb23 Awesome work, one question though. My game seems to be in black and white colors but it should be red, green and black right? I'm using 0.78 romset btw.

UDb23

@Brigane To get colored vectors you need to use mame2003plus and enable artwork in the options in RA menu.

quicksilver

@Brigane are you using lr-mame2003plus? Colors are correct for me with that emulator

quicksilver

@UDb23 are you still taking requests? If so I would be very interested in overlays for space fury and star castle.

UDb23

@quicksilver Already got source artwork to work on; will come soon.

quicksilver

@UDb23 Just got to play with your battle zone overlay last night and it is awesome. It took me a little while to figure out how to make vector games look good in lr-mame2003plus as the default settings are awful. Still they dont look quite as good as advmame. Do you know if advmame supports overlays?

UDb23

@quicksilver said in Top requested arcade games for overlays:

Do you know if advmame supports overlays?

It supports Mame overlays but it heavily impacts performance in latest version.
Previous version had issues with artwork positioning/resolution.

For best vector quality in mame2003plus you should enable BILINEAR-FILTERING under video options in RA menu. I think with correct vector settings it looks same as advmame.

quicksilver

@UDb23 thank you that does look better! Now I just need to figure out what settings to tweak so I can see my "shots" better in star castle.

Riverstorm

@quicksilver - To add to what @UDb23 was saying is you can take your vector multiplier up to 4 under Quick Menu -> Options and turn on bi-linear filtering under Setting -> Video. That will get you to as thin as you can take it. If that's to thin try 3 with bi-linear filtering. I find on the TV it's perfect at 4 but 3 is fine on a monitor.

Flicker seems to only make increments of 10 in Plus, whereas, AdvMAME you can do single number increments to get that flicker just perfect.

I like a beam width of 1.0 on a TV but 1.2 on a monitor.

Intensity you have to play around with the higher the intensity the thinner you can go with that line.

Anti-alias I just leave on as it just helps to smooth the line.

Yes the BD's do work in AdvMAME well Omega Race looks good. I would test the games you want to run with AdvMAME as performance seems to vary. I thought vector games did run ok but it's been a while.

UDb23

@quicksilver @Riverstorm
@grant2258 just pushed a new mame2003plus fix to enhance vector resolution. Check here.

UDb23

@Riverstorm Temperatures still crazy at -45C !!?

Riverstorm

@UDb23 - Oh, that's good news for backdrops.

For sure the temps have improved significantly. It was a rough few days and I think they reported around 9 various cold related deaths throughout the Midwest. This week we are going in the -15 to -18C range for highs so not great but it feels much better than what it had been. I like cold weather but that was just to cold. :) After that kind of cold a light jacket feels perfect at 32F/0C.

One of the local weather men did a test with full unopened cans of pop and beer during the extreme cold. The pop cans exploded and knocked the other cans over so he kept sitting them up. I don't think I would have put my face down there. The beer strangely enough did more of a directed squirt once it broke open and not so much of a explosion. He also threw a cup of water that looked like vapor as it hit the air.

Where you were at near Mt. Rushmore, whatever we get here they get it worse when it comes to snow due to the elevation. It takes a foot of snow or so (around 30 cm) before things are affected. Rural areas usually get it worse than urban for snow drifting due to wide open fields. We are mainly agriculture and livestock here.