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    Please do not post a support request without first reading and following the advice in https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3/read-this-first

    Vectrex Overlay Artwork

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    • UDb23U
      UDb23 @mediamogul
      last edited by

      @mediamogul said in Vectrex Overlay Artwork:

      find someone with an original set or high quality reproductions who could simply scan them at a minimum of 300dpi for preservation.

      I you find these scans I'd be happy to contribute in creating the corresponding high res retroarch overlays (vectorizing some of them if that helps getting max quality).

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
      • UDb23U
        UDb23
        last edited by

        Found some artwork scans here.

        mediamogulM 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
        • mediamogulM
          mediamogul Global Moderator @UDb23
          last edited by mediamogul

          @udb23 said in Vectrex Overlay Artwork:

          Found some artwork scans here.

          Now those are pretty good scans. I only wish they hadn't had tried to remove them from the original background, as it wasn't done very cleanly, but they're easily the best I've seen by far. These would definitely be a great jumping off point for either a restoration, vectorization, or both. There are merits to both approaches. A restoration of the originals would look more authentic, but perhaps the ultra sharp quality of vector conversions would better suit the cleaner look you get with emulated Vectrex game play.

          RetroPie v4.5 • RPi3 Model B • 5.1V 2.5A PSU • 16GB SanDisk microSD • 512GB External Drive

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
          • ClassicGMRC
            ClassicGMR
            last edited by

            So between this thread and one on another forum I managed to get all my Vectrex overlays to load and per game. So this is nothing more than a thank you to everyone. :) This forum is great!

            Growing older is mandatory. Growing up is optional!
            Enjoy the ride!

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • ClydeC
              Clyde
              last edited by Clyde

              Sorry for necroing this thread, but since I'm trying to get @mediamogul's overlays to work and this thread is almost the only one about Vectrex overlays in this forum, it may be a good candidate for a collective thread about this topic. If it would be better to start my own thread, please tell me so.

              I'm using the unmodified files from @mediamogul on my stock Retropie 4.4 on a monitor with 4:3 1600x1200 resolution. The overlays do work, but they are not in alignment of the game graphics. Three examples:

              raspi2png-20190210-210424.png
              raspi2png-20190210-210811.png
              raspi2png-20190210-211121.png

              As you can see, the overlay is a little bit too small or the game's graphics are too large. Although I could expand the overlay via an overlay0_rect option in overlays/gamename.cfg, that would cut off much of the overlay's border at the viewport's edge.

              The options custom_viewport_width and custom_viewport_height won't help either, since the overlay is part of the viewport and will change its size collectively with it.

              Any ideas how I can fit the overlay to the game's graphics or vice versa?

              Two things I noticed while trying to solve the problem:

              • Retroarch seems to ignore custom_viewport_width and custom_viewport_height even if video_scale_integer is set to "false". I tried to set them to 940:1200, but RA's XMB menu still showed them to be 846:1080, which is the resolution of the overlay's png.
              • The same goes for aspect_ratio_index = "22" (= custom). The games still start with "core provided" and I have to set it to "custom" manually.

              Any help is appreciated
              Clyde

              UDb23U 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • UDb23U
                UDb23 @Clyde
                last edited by

                @Clyde said in Vectrex Overlay Artwork:

                The same goes for aspect_ratio_index = "22" (= custom). The games still start with "core provided" and I have to set it to "custom" manually.

                Custom index has been changed to 23 some months ago by the RA developers.... impacting all already existing overlays using 22 in the settings.
                Try replacing 22 with 23 and see if it helps with the alignment issue.

                ClydeC 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 3
                • ClydeC
                  Clyde @UDb23
                  last edited by

                  @UDb23 Argh, I read about the change somewhere, but I somehow remembered 22 to be the new value. So I thought that it's already fixed in my config files. 😒 Thanks for the tip!

                  Alas, although "23" does fix my two issues about the custom viewport (the games start now with a custom viewport of 940x1200), it didn't change anything about the misalignment. I admit that I didn't expect it to, because any change I do to the viewport in the XMB menu affects both the game's graphics and the overlay alike.

                  Just for the books, setting video_scale_integer on or off also doesn't change anything about the alignment between the two.

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • rkosterR
                    rkoster
                    last edited by

                    I located quite a few more Vectrex overlays than were in the old .zip file, so I have created a github repo here with all of the ones I have: https://github.com/raphkoster/vectrex-overlays

                    Note that these do not have .cfg files, they are just the overlays themselves. They've mostly been adapted to have PNG transparency so you don't need to set opacity lower than 1 for most of them.

                    Github/helper scripts * Creativision/Arcadia/Astrocade guide * Amiga guide * Atari 8bit guide

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • DNunoD
                      DNuno
                      last edited by DNuno

                      ...and back to this topic!

                      Well, I still cannot display overlays in Vectrex Emulation on Retropie.
                      Note sure if it's because I'm (obviously) doing something wrong, or it's because this topic is a little bit too old and things (emulator) changed over the years?

                      Anyway, here's my configuration :

                      VecX 1.2 b78b3d1 on my RetroPie

                      Let's do the Job for one game : Scramble

                      I've downloaded the overlay file & configuration file from the link provided by @Lizard and put those files into this directory

                      pi@retropie:/opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch/overlay/vectrex $ ls -altri
                      totale 692
                      15976 drwxr-xr-x 19 pi pi   4096 ott 14 11:54 ..
                        978 -rw-r--r--  1 pi pi 692255 ott 14 11:54 Scramble.png
                       5106 -rw-r--r--  1 pi pi     95 ott 14 12:19 Scramble.cfg
                      88150 drwxr-xr-x  2 pi pi   4096 ott 14 12:20 .
                      

                      Here's the content of the Scramble.cfg file :

                      pi@retropie:/opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch/overlay/vectrex $ more Scramble.cfg
                      overlays = 1
                      
                      overlay0_overlay = Scramble.png
                      
                      overlay0_full_screen = true
                      
                      overlay0_descs = 0
                      

                      OK, so what I'm doing next is starting the emulator, then going into its menu, and select :

                      MAIN MENU -> Configuration -> Load Configuration and select the Scramble.cfg file previously uploaded :

                      alt text

                      But selecting this file push me out of the emulator :-(

                      What Am I doing wrong or what I missed?

                      Thanks in advance for your help.

                      davejD 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • F
                        Folly
                        last edited by

                        @DNuno

                        I think you are missing a second config file near your rom.

                        If you rom is called Scramble.zip , make a config called Scramble.zip.cfg and place this into this cfg.

                        input_overlay = /opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch/overlay/vectrex/Scramble.cfg
                        input_overlay_enable = true
                        input_overlay_opacity = 0.375000
                        input_overlay_scale = 1.000000
                        
                        #custom_viewport_width = "600"
                        #custom_viewport_height = "800"
                        
                        #custom_viewport_width = "846"
                        #custom_viewport_height = "1080"
                        #custom_viewport_x = "0"
                        #custom_viewport_y = "0"
                        
                        #aspect_ratio_index = "22"
                        
                        #video_scale_integer = true
                        

                        Hope this works for you.

                        DNunoD 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • davejD
                          davej @DNuno
                          last edited by

                          @DNuno said in Vectrex Overlay Artwork:

                          ...and back to this topic!

                          Well, I still cannot display overlays in Vectrex Emulation on Retropie.
                          Note sure if it's because I'm (obviously) doing something wrong, or it's because this topic is a little bit too old and things (emulator) changed over the years?

                          That version of the emulator you're using is very old. Even before my GPU rendering changes, the emulator was changed to allow scaling/shifting the game screen via game options. One advantage of this new method is it defines values relative to a logical screen, so if you change the screen resolution you are using it automatically adjusts to suit and you don't need to go and edit all your game files.

                          You should definitely update to the latest version.

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • DNunoD
                            DNuno @Folly
                            last edited by

                            @Folly My rom name is called : "Scramble.bin"

                            I have a file in that same (rom) directory called Scramble.cfg

                            Should I have to rename it "Scramble.bin.cfg" ? following your reply? I tried but it doesn't help anyway :-(

                            Anyway, here's the content of that file :

                            pi@retropie:~/RetroPie/roms/vectrex $ ls -altri
                            totale 704
                             2347 drwxr-xr-x 39 pi pi   4096 ott 12 19:38 ..
                             4922 -rw-r--r--  1 pi pi   4096 ott 14 11:03 Scramble.bin
                            69171 -rw-r--r--  1 pi pi    327 ott 14 13:28 Scramble.cfg
                            88151 drwxr-xr-x  2 pi pi   4096 ott 14 14:45 overlay
                            

                            ...that includes this :

                            pi@retropie:~/RetroPie/roms/vectrex $ more Scramble.cfg
                            input_overlay = /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/vectrex/overlay/Scramble.cfg
                            input_overlay_enable = true
                            input_overlay_opacity = 0.375000
                            input_overlay_scale = 1.000000
                            
                            custom_viewport_width = "846"
                            custom_viewport_height = "1080"
                            custom_viewport_x = "0"
                            custom_viewport_y = "0"
                            
                            aspect_ratio_index = "22"
                            
                            video_scale_integer = true
                            

                            ... and inside the file

                            /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/vectrex/overlays/Scramble.cfg

                            I have this :

                            pi@retropie:~/RetroPie/roms/vectrex $ more /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/vectrex/overlay/Scramble.cfg
                            overlays = 1
                            
                            overlay0_overlay = Scramble.png
                            
                            overlay0_full_screen = false 
                            
                            overlay0_descs = 0
                            

                            But overlay still not display :-( should I check other settings in the main emulator configuration file (/opt/retropie/configs/vectrex/retroarch.cfg) ?
                            I tried in there to find a verbose mode to see what happened, but didn't find this option? I do not believe this line is relevant for it -> cheevos_verbose_enable = "false" ?

                            Any idea to debug this ?

                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • F
                              Folly
                              last edited by Folly

                              @DNuno

                              It only works if i use "Scramble.bin.cfg".

                              This is what I have :

                              pi@raspberrypi:~/Desktop/roms/vectrex $ ls Scramble.*
                              Scramble.bin  Scramble.bin.cfg
                              pi@raspberrypi:~/Desktop/roms/vectrex $ more Scramble.bin.cfg
                              input_overlay = /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/vectrex/overlays/scramble.cfg
                              input_overlay_enable = true
                              input_overlay_opacity = 0.375000
                              input_overlay_scale = 1.000000
                              
                              custom_viewport_width = "846"
                              custom_viewport_height = "1080"
                              custom_viewport_x = "0"
                              custom_viewport_y = "0"
                              
                              aspect_ratio_index = "22"
                              
                              video_scale_integer = true
                              pi@raspberrypi:~/Desktop/roms/vectrex $ cd overlays/
                              pi@raspberrypi:~/Desktop/roms/vectrex/overlays $ ls scramble.*
                              
                              scramble.cfg  scramble.png
                              
                              pi@raspberrypi:~/Desktop/roms/vectrex/overlays $ more scramble.cfg
                              
                              overlays = 1
                              
                              overlay0_overlay = scramble.png
                              
                              overlay0_full_screen = false
                              
                              overlay0_descs = 0
                              

                              /dev/shm/runcommand.log should give you "Executing :" :

                              /opt/retropie/emulators/retroarch/bin/retroarch -L /opt/retropie/libretrocores/lr-vecx/vecx_libretro.so --config /opt/retropie/configs/vectrex/retroarch.cfg "/home/pi/Desktop/roms/vectrex/Scramble.bin" --verbose --appendconfig /dev/shm/retroarch.cfg'|'"/home/pi/Desktop/roms/vectrex/Scramble.bin.cfg"
                              

                              You can paste this command in your terminal. Though the output does not show how the overlay is loaded.

                              If it still does not work :
                              Sometimes there are unseen characters in the beginning of text files. Try to make new configs. Type the first letter and copy paste the rest.

                              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • DNunoD
                                DNuno
                                last edited by

                                It still doesn't work :-(
                                Can you provide me your full Vectrex configuration file? (mine is /opt/retropie/configs/vectrex/retroarch.cfg)
                                Because I've done too many modification during my attempts... maybe something is wrong in there since? I would like to compare few parameters.
                                Thx in advance for your help.

                                F 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                • F
                                  Folly @DNuno
                                  last edited by

                                  @DNuno

                                  It's a standard one.

                                  # Settings made here will only override settings in the global retroarch.cfg if placed above the #include line
                                  
                                  input_remapping_directory = "/opt/retropie/configs/vectrex/"
                                  
                                  #include "/opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch.cfg"
                                  

                                  Do you have a good ovelay picture, can you check with a viewer ?

                                  Perhaps you should update Retroarch and reinstall the vectrex core.

                                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
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