Backdrops in mame2003-plus
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@Riverstorm Haven't heard of that movie, will check.
Concerning languages I grew up as a kid speaking german and italian; so english is actually 3rd ;-)
I studied it at school for many years of course. When I started learning I was really interested in understanding the lyrics of the (english) songs I loved (no google or internet in the 80's): listening and re-listening and writing down. Sometimes luckily the lyrics were printed on LP's covers. Learned quite a lot on top that way.
As I use english at work on a daily basis it still have chance to find and learn new english expressions. In the forums too as you know :-).Getting back to backdrops: going to work on Gorf this WE using @grant2258's tips to get better res by "extending" the BD boundaries outside of the game area (forcing mame to generate higher res)
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@Riverstorm Did your weather conditions improve ?
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@Riverstorm said in Backdrops in mame2003-plus:
I was just curious did you guys grow up speaking English as well as your native language. I always thought it was true when they say that you really understand a "second" language when you get the subtle jokes.
My English comes mostly from books, comics, movies, and games. My school only laid the groundwork if anything. I sometimes joke that I rather could "demand to surrender the tiny speck of rock you puny earthlings have the presumptuousness to call a planet, lest I hurl it into the sun to die a far more quicker death than it deserves" in English than ask for the next bus station or the price of my breakfast on holiday. 😉
Since the dawn of the internet, I also try to hone my language skills in online discussions like this one.
@UDb23 On topic, I'm looking forward to see the results of your (non-radar) Battlezone and Gorf work. 👍
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@Riverstorm @UDb23 I just stumbled over a funny rap battle about the "correctness" of the various English variants. I posted it in the music thread along with a German cabaret song about how non-native speakers will ruin the language of Shakespeare. 😇
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I just noticed that the Space Invaders backdrop now automatically loads in Mame 2003-Plus. Might I suggest that you remove sicv from the clones which do this? The color version wasn't meant to be played reflected on a backdrop, and the darker colors are almost invisible. Also, there seems to be an aspect ratio issue with the backdrop, but I'm sure it's been mentioned.
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@UDb23 - Hey gentlemen, I just made it home. I had a Valentine's "date" with my wife, as next weekend will be busier for the holiday. It's an overrated holiday anyway but a great excuse to go out and have drinks, a nice dinner and dessert.
Three languages, that's impressive! I've been encouraging our youngest daughter to learn a second language. Spanish is definitely the second most spoken language regionally here but I would be perfectly fine with Italian or German (both taught here as electives in high school) or whatever she enjoys the most even if only an island of 3 speak the language.
If you wanted to learn Spanish would it be fairly easy since I know it's somewhat phonologically and grammatically similar to Italian? I know some Spanish from over the years (enough to be polite and ask where the bathroom is located--a bunch of words and phrases basically) but not enough to have fluid conversation.
I am a huge fan of all music from the 70s and 80s. I'm looking forward to seeing Kiss coming up here in a few weeks on their final tour. I hope they go old school with real incandescent bulbs, pyrotechnics and all the other antics they used to entertain during a concert back in the day. I remember rocking out to them in the 70s.
I agree that the internet was much less influential (and useful) in the 80's but it did exist here. We were using Netscape Navigator, AOL and IE was the underdog back then. We mostly were interested in BBS's and downloading "warez" as it was called back in the day.
The weather has settled down but it is still below average temp wise basically (below freezing) for the next week or so.
Clyde every time I read your English it's so neat I wonder if this guy is an English major. I would have never known it was a second language for you. If you ever heard the saying crossing your t's and dotting your i's, that's how I would describe your English. If not look it up! ;) It's meant as a compliment.
Thanks for sharing the links. I got a good laugh out of them both!
I did wipe out all my cfg files and started over. If you changed anything in the TAB menu you'll need to redo some of you inputs but it doesn't happen to often. I setup 4 players using 4 controllers. I had a weird anomaly happen similar to AdvMAME. I had two controllers timeout and when I reactivated them my #4 controller became #1 but Plus still thought it was #4 when configuring so I had to exit Plus and restart it.
I've been trying to setup Spy Hunter which has a nice lighted overlay but it requires 5 buttons for "weapons" in addition to gas, brake and gear shifting.
I look forward to Gorf and if it will work with Grant's suggestion too. You figure Omega Race was in the same situation, maybe(?) and it looks fantastic with the BD.
@Lyle_JP - It does load automatically due to Space Invaders (invaders.zip) is the parent to all of those clones. I don't know the exact number but SI has quite a few. I think the devs designed it that way for ease of use and no need for interaction. If you want you can disable loading artwork for the specific clones you don't want to use it. Goto Retroarch Quick Menu -> Options from within the game or disable it globally or just delete the zip from the BIOS/artwork folder. The colors are definitely different but the aspect ratio is correct if you're using an HD TV or monitor at 1920x1080, what RA displays isn't the actual game aspect ratio but the game aspect ratio is correct for the game and the BD looked correct.
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@Riverstorm said in Backdrops in mame2003-plus:
Clyde every time I read your English it's so neat I wonder if this guy is an English major. I would have never known it was a second language for you. If you ever heard the saying crossing your t's and dotting your i's, that's how I would describe your English. If not look it up! ;) It's meant as a compliment.
I did and now I'm feeling very flattered, thank you. 😊 I'll have to admit though that I do look up single words in an online dictionary while typing if they don't come to my mind, or if a word known to me doesn't fit my intention precisely enough, so I'll try to find a more fitting synonym. (I'll do that even in German from time to time, so …)
Because I like languages very much, I want to use them in the most respectful and refined way possible. 🤓
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@Clyde - The extra effort shows for sure. I do something similar where I have a notepad and pen on the end table in the living room. When I watch a movie or show and they say a word I don't know I write it down to lookup later. I also like Kindle's with built the dictionaries. With a double tap you can look up the definition of the word right in the middle of a sentence in a second. I like enjoy reading every night and try to learn new words here and there as I come across them.
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@Clyde @Riverstorm
Little time to dedicate to retropie stuff this WE, sorry.I still was able to almost finalize UV Battlezone overlay.
Current status:
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@Clyde Also updated the 4:3 bzone ovl: removed Radar text, higher radar "circle", moved right box (score) slightly.
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@UDb23 - Thanks for the new overlay. We had one of those weekends a few weeks ago where nothing seemed to go right. I spent the whole day replacing the water filtering housing in our fridge and then the dish washer starting causing issues. It was a long weekend.
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Hey Guys,
what do you think of this draft BD for Gorf ?
Based on .ai bezel by Zorg (vectorized version of the actual arcade game bezel)
Trying to use full bezel would make the game area too tiny. Therefore this draft just takes some of the bezel's artwork panels. If you like the layout I can proceed in creating the masks required to make the right side "ranking" lamps work.
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@Riverstorm said in Backdrops in mame2003-plus:
I had a Valentine's "date" with my wife, as next weekend will be busier for the holiday. It's an overrated holiday anyway but a great excuse to go out and have drinks, a nice dinner and dessert.
Sweet :-) Couldn't agree more.
We're defining a date (not 14th) for a nice dinner too.
Currently abroad for work as it often happens.If you wanted to learn Spanish would it be fairly easy since I know it's somewhat phonologically and grammatically similar to Italian?
Italian and Spanish people can likely generally understand what the other is saying as many words and verbs are similar. When reading probably you'd understand the main concepts. Writing is a totally different story. Both languages originate from latin (ancient romans where everywhere :-) ) but differenciated a lot over the centuries.
As you said multiple language capability is very useful nowadays so it's important for young people to study those.
I am a huge fan of all music from the 70s and 80s. I'm looking forward to seeing Kiss coming up here in a few weeks on their final tour. I hope they go old school with real incandescent bulbs, pyrotechnics and all the other antics they used to entertain during a concert back in the day. I remember rocking out to them in the 70s.
Never had a chance to see Kiss. I really liked (and still like)Toto; they were on a tour last year in Europe so I could see them live after almost 20 years!! Still a great band.
I agree that the internet was much less influential (and useful) in the 80's but it did exist here. We were using Netscape Navigator, AOL and IE was the underdog back then. We mostly were interested in BBS's and downloading "warez" as it was called back in the day.
warez!! that reminds me a lot of things of that time.
We only could access internet at the Computer centre at the university: I remember very well when netscape came out and we started using it; so nice...and so sloooow. Everybody thought it would kill internet due to the "huge" amount of bandwidth used.
Before we were using just ftp or usenet newsgroups and UUencode/UUdecode was a common way to share binary files there. :-))The weather has settled down but it is still below average temp wise basically (below freezing) for the next week or so.
Hope it will get better soon.
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@UDb23 said in Backdrops in mame2003-plus:
@Clyde Also updated the 4:3 bzone ovl: removed Radar text, higher radar "circle", moved right box (score) slightly.
Great, thanks! I like it very much, and I don't miss the "RADAR" sign at all. Here's the outcome on my cab:
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@UDb23 said in Backdrops in mame2003-plus:
Hey Guys,
what do you think of this draft BD for Gorf ?Looks great, although its 16:9. 😛 (I'm just biased to 4:3, guilty as charged.)
Is there a way to make the ranks light up properly? And if so, are you planning to implement that?
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@UDb23 - Going on an "off" day works well, it much easier to get into a nice restaurant and better service as it's not as busy. We don't do much of the traditional antics of the holiday, flowers, chocolates, promises you don't intend to keep. :) Especially with kids it's just tough. Nothing goes as planned with kids.
I think we might have grown up in the same era or pretty darn close, so many similarities that line up. Yes Usenet, another good source.
I agree Toto has excellent music. In fact I just picked up Toto IV recently as it's probably their best. Hydra and The Seventh One are also excellent. I prefer the late 70s early 80s of their music.
My music kung-fu from the 70s and 80s is pretty strong and I can talk about almost any band, music or history of but once I hit the 90s not so much. I just lost touch from the 90s onward and I only listen to "Top 40" or whatever is on the radio or TV basically. Different shows featuring some hot new artist is about it. My nieces and nephews play music I have no idea who it is but some of it's pretty good but I prefer old school metal and rock.
We also have a dedicated 80s station here that I listen to most of time. I have an app that I can stream any station globally in my car or home via bluetooth, if they have a "stream" (like a website that streams it can be captured). So if you have any great 80s stations over there you'll have to let me know.
I'll go to dang near any concert that is "old school" that comes here but just in the past few years I've seen Dokken, Def Leppard, Poison, Tesla, Motley Crue, Heart, Joan Jett, Eagles, Alice Cooper & Metallica. I know it's a conglomeration of eclectic music for sure but a few were free.
Bob Seger was here last weekend. Coming soon is Lita Ford, Fleetwood Mac and of course Kiss in a few weeks. We've had pretty decent concerts this past few years.
Standouts from those shows above were Metallica can still bring it. I saw them in '87 and '89 and again in 2018. Alice Cooper also brought it for being 71 years old. Motley Crue had a pretty incredible stage show for the final tour. They had a "drum track" that went straight up the wall and across the ceiling. It was neat to see Tommy Lee drum upside down for a set. The whole drum set. Cymbals, chair, etc. the whole shebang up-side-down while he played. Obviously a special modified set. Bret Michaels was in incredible shape for being older, whereas most frontmen in many bands from that era look pretty rough now. Joan Jett also looked great for her age and took good care of herself. I think the best for me was the Eagles just had incredible harmonies. I was able to see them about 6 months before Glenn Fry passed.
A few of my favorite metal bands come out of Germany too. Those German's know how to rock eh @Clyde? ;) I've always been a huge Scorpions and Accept fan. Also Helloween is good too. I have 100's of CDs from about any and every band from the late 70s and all of the 80s and decent collection of guitar picks and some autographs from all the concerts through the years.
The Gorf overlay looks great. I think the compromises of moving the colored blocks to the left are fine and cutting out a few things to keep more game play area is preferred to me but I like your philosophy of keep the original art integrity where possible. I like it.
@Clyde Have you tried Mr. Do's Gorf backdrop? The ranks do fully light up and work. It gets distorted on HD but I wonder if it's better in 4:3. I looked in the zip and the art is actually pretty clean so it must be something to do with the aspect ratio.
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@Clyde said in Backdrops in mame2003-plus:
I'm just biased to 4:3, guilty as charged
Art for Gorf is actually a bezel with lamps so I'm not sure you have enough sidebar space for the "ranking lamps". What is the game area for Gorf on 1600x1200?
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@Riverstorm You're mentioning and seeing so many great artists! I like many of them too, starting from Eagles. It's a big advantage to live in the US; many opportunities to see 'em.
About Toto I'd suggest you listen ISOLATION if you have a chance, quite different from their usual Albums, much more powerful rock than their usual style. -
@UDb23 said in Backdrops in mame2003-plus:
About Toto I'd suggest you listen ISOLATION if you have a chance, quite different from their usual Albums, much more powerful rock than their usual style.
I will definitely grab a copy of Isolation. We have a great second hand music store here that I like to frequent. They are really good with carrying older music or hard to find stuff. I try to find the early pressings as the dynamic range is usually better and the albums aren't victims of the "loudness wars". Some of the music I didn't care for back then have become favorites years later. I just grabbed some of Foreigner's "middle years" stuff that I am enjoying.
My wife and I splurged quite a bit for 2nd row seats to the Eagles, it was an incredible concert. They sound so good live. The 1st row was just way to expensive. We semi-splurged for Kiss and are in the 16th row. Most of what I like from Kiss is '79 and older starting from Dynasty.
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@UDb23 said in Backdrops in mame2003-plus:
Art for Gorf is actually a bezel with lamps so I'm not sure you have enough sidebar space for the "ranking lamps". What is the game area for Gorf on 1600x1200?
My question was mainly meant for your 16:9 version, since I also suspect it would be a little cramped on the sides in 4:3. There, it may be better to just use the bezel. Bezels are one main reason I chose a monitor with such a high native resolution like 1600x1200 anyway.
But nonetheless, here's a screenshot that shows the game area on 1600x1200 with an aspect ratio of "core provided" and without any shaders applied.
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