Using MAME Overlays/Bezels and shaders with RetroArch in RetroPie

Floob

@Higgy This ok?
http://s000.tinyupload.com/index.php?file_id=21688361564337193935

You guys may also find this relevant:
http://smartretro.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=8313&start=10#p9074

Higgy

@Floob - thanks for creating the download, but it seems to be a <10k file that Windows reports as a virus! Android downloads it, but like I said it is less than 10k and the file is broken/not a ZIP.

The bash file for conversion looks good. I am nursing a cold so I can't get my head around it at the moment. :(

Higgy

For the 1440x900 bash file it seems I have to swap out:

(CUSTOM_VIEWPORT_WIDTH * 2/3)
(CUSTOM_VIEWPORT_HEIGHT * 2/3)

with 3/4 & 8333/100 to convert the 1920x1080 to the 1440x900

How do I go about creating (this will be run on my RPI), could I have a simple guide please :

I then had a separate batch to run it for all files in the folder and rename it to the right <romname>.cfg format in a separate folder.

Sorry, I am not so good at this sort of thing normally, let alone with a cold.
I guess I start by using NANO to copy/past the text and save it as say 1440convert.bash

Floob

@Higgy Thats odd - its a 6MB download when I try, maybe there is something about the website it doesnt like. I'm on a mac at the moment.

Higgy

@Floob - I have the files now. It seemed to download ok with Internet Explorer.
I have created a bezel now thanks. It is not as good as the others but better than nothing.

xb

Hi guys, hey Floob it's my understanding that to get these overlays to display properly for my 1680x1050 display, I would need to resize the actual png's.
But do I also need to edit the game specific configuration that go with them?

They actually display ok on my screen, but the game is kind of offcenter to the right side. I'm willing to do the work to get it right for my screen, but I would just like a point in the right direction. I'm just not sure where to start. Thanks for all you do for the community, it's much appreciated.

Higgy

You have to edit each config file. The xxx.zip.cfg

Someone has made a batch file for 720p here:

Http://smartretro.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=8313&start=10#p9074

I am not sure how to run it, but your understanding of Linux may be better.
The bash file reduces the file from 1080p to 720p so the width and height plus x and y start locations are divided by 2/3. I need to use 3/4 and 83.33/100 to goto 900p.

You will need to work out the factor to match your screen res.
I was hoping that the original poster on Smartretro (or someone who knows linux) would run the batch/bash file for all the common resolutions. The resulting files are not large. And it would only take minutes.

I am slowly converting each file one at a time for 1440x900p!

xb

@Higgy

Ok thanks for that. My uderstanding isn't that much better I'm sure, but it's a start!

xb

So I've edited a couple of them. 3 actually. Resized pngs, put the new values for x,y in configuration files for each, and man, it worked amazingly well!
Since I only have the 3 loaded onto the pi, I noticed though that when I choose any other rom to play, if it doesn't have the bezel yet, will take the bezel from the last game I played that had a bezel.

In other words, I have a donkey kong bezel, so I play that, then I goto play asteroids, which I haven't loaded a bezel to the pi for yet, and it comes up with the donkey kong bezel.
So is this sort of an all or nothing thing? Or is there some line I can change in a configuration that tells lr-mame 2003 that these particular roms do not have a bezel yet?
Thanks,
xb

Floob

@xb Its highly likely your system specific retroarch.cfg is saving all the settings. You probably had save on exit enabled at some point in RGUI. This is not a great idea. Set your system specific retroarch.cfg back to normal and youll be fine.

xb

@Floob
Ah you're right. I forgot about that. Thanks!
And thanks for all your tutorials Floob, I've got a lot to learn but watching and reading your videos and posts has sped up the process tremendously for me. Thanks again.

Rion

As @Higgy mention a few post up anyone care to have a look at the script that was posted to convert from 1080o to 720p?

1080p to 720p

pjft

@Rion @Higgy

Sure, what's up?

That script I put together can be saved as a file in the config files folder, and then on the command line you can run

chmod 755 <script filename>

in order to give it permissions to be executed.

You can find its content here:

http://pastebin.com/fnf4HCnS

It was some weeks ago, and I didn't have a lot of time, so it was a very scrappy job here - no points on making it elegant.

I made that to work for a single file, and since I didn't quite know off the top of my head how to retrieve all files in the folder and run that for each (which I'm sure there's a 2-3 line solution for), I just dumped the contents of the folder in a separate batch file, and got it to invoke this one for each of the config files.

Here's the content of that main file:

http://pastebin.com/hk7gn9Mu

As you can tell, I named my first script (the earlier one) "batch.sh".

Once again, you'll need to save the content of the main file on the config-file folder, and then run

chmod 755 <filename>

on it as well.

A couple of things, which I believe I mentioned earlier:

a) it doesn't handle the invaders.cfg files correctly, because it has some commented lines that relate to the settings we're trying to change. Do remove those two or so commented lines on the invaders files before running the batch file - they'll start with # custom_viewport_width or something to that effect. As there were only three, it was easier for me to fix them, though fixing the processing should also be fairly easy, given time.
b) It will output the files to the same folder, but append ".new" to their end. In my case, I just moved those files to a separate folder and bulk renamed them, removing the .new extension. I'm sure you can tweak the script's FILENAME_OUT variable to output to wherever you want. For instance, you may create a new folder beforehand in the same directory you're running it from, say "output" and then set FILENAME_OUT = "output/$1" and it should work, alleviating the need for renaming the files afterwards.
c) It currently is set to adjust the proportions to 2/3, which is 1080 to 720. If you want a different proportion, just replace the 2/3 in the script by the new proportion, for both height and width.

Hope these help.

Let me know if you have any problems running it - I ended up not using it as weirdly enough it seems I am currently running on a 1080p screen, so I can't promise it works, but theoretically it should.

Best.

Higgy

@pjft
Thanks for replying.
The problem is I am such a Linux noob :)

I have spent sooo many hours manually working my way through the configs, so I created a new folder 'test' (/home/pi/test).

I copied the *.zip.cfg files to it. I created batch.sh and bulk_process.sh and gave them the correct file permissions.

then within /home/pi/test/ I type ./bulk_process.sh and get -

-bash: ./batch.sh: /bin/bash^M: bad interpreter: No such file or directory

Also a couple of questions assuming I get it to work. I have added some more games, so what command do I type to create a 'bulk_process.sh' with the ROMS I have?
And because my res is a little odd, I need to carry out another maths function, so does this:

NEWLINE='custom_viewport_width = "'$((CUSTOM_VIEWPORT_WIDTH * 2/3))'"';

become:

NEWLINE='custom_viewport_width = "'$(((CUSTOM_VIEWPORT_WIDTH * 5/6)-80))'"';

To go from 1920 to 1440 I first have to divide by 5/6 to get 1600 which is at the correct aspect ratio, I then need to subtract 80 pixels to centrailise the image as I have 1440 not 1600 (80*2 = difference 1600-1440).

Sorry for being such a dope ;)

pjft

@Higgy

No need to apologize whatsoever, I'm not in any way an expert Linux user either. :)

On my phone at the moment, so will reply in more detail tomorrow when I'm at a laptop, but wanted to point you in the right direction in regards to the error you're facing.

I googled it and found this which may help:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2920416/configure-bin-shm-bad-interpreter

As for the resolution maths, I'm not sure what the best way is. If the aspect ratio of the screen is the same as the 1080p one, then I'd suggest just dividing by the right number, otherwise you'll need to do a different subtraction on the other axis, I suspect.

What's the exact resolution?

Hope these help for the moment. Let me know how it goes. I'll answer the remainder tomorrow but at least this should help you move forward for the time being.

For the file names, I simply did a folder listing, piping it to a new file. So, if I recall correctly,

ls > main.sh

Or something to that effect. Then with my text editor just replaced all newline character in the main.sh file with the bash file we needed to run for each and newline again.

Very scrappy, I know. Sorry. :)

Let me know if this helps. Best.

Rion

Thank you for joining the discussion @pjft!

I'm in no way a linux expert when it comes to bin/bash scripting. But a good friend of mine by the name of Rickard whom have not joined here yet (read have not gotten his thumb out of his xxx yet) helpt me out with your script @pjft.

It's a little bit altered from line 3-4.

from

FILENAME_OUT="$1.new"
rm $FILENAME_OUT

to

FILENAME_OUT="output/$1"

Basically it outputs the altered file in the "output" directory. You need to create the folder "output"

Then he helped me make a batchrunner.sh script with the function of scanning all *zip.cfg files in the same folder.

#!/bin/bash
for i in `ls *.zip.cfg`
do
    echo "Editing $i ..."
    ./1080p_to_720p.sh"$i"
done

The files @pjft mentions that reports back errors are the following.

invaddlx.zip.cfg
invaders.zip.cfg
invadpt2.zip.cfg

Before running the script just comment out the "#" before custom_viewport_width & custom_viewport_height and the back again in the new file in the output folder.

Here is the altered script
1080p_to_720p.sh

Here is
batchrunner.sh

How to make

Paste in contend of 1080p_to_720p.sh

nano 1080p_to_720p.sh

Paste in contend of batchrunner.sh

nano batchrunner.sh

How to run from terminal

mkdir output
sudo chmod a+x 1080p_to_720p.sh
sudo chmod a+x batchrunner.sh
./batchrunner.sh

Now we just need the mathematical formula to convert from all of the common resolutions.

I'm wondering of you could convert from a lower resolution to 1080p or something else.
I was thinking about this because both @Zigurana & @Higgy both have converted @Floob 's Todo list from rp-video-manager (52 files)

Ps. From 1080p to 720p i did not resize the Arcade Bezels *.png

Edit:

The Default path to the shaders in floobs cfg files are

"/opt/retropie/emulators/retroarch/shader/arcade-bezel-shader/crt-pi-vertical.glslp"
&
"/opt/retropie/emulators/retroarch/shader/crt-pi.glslp"

So if you are batch converting and want to use the default path instead of floobs and a more realisitic look using the "curvature" shader change these lines.

Vertical

From

"/opt/retropie/emulators/retroarch/shader/arcade-bezel-shader/crt-pi-vertical.glslp"

To

/opt/retropie/emulators/retroarch/shader/crt-pi-curvature-vertical.glslp"

Horizontal

From

"/opt/retropie/emulators/retroarch/shader/arcade-bezel-shader/crt-pi.glslp"

To

/opt/retropie/emulators/retroarch/shader/crt-pi-curvature.glslp"

Same goes for the overlays

From

/opt/retropie/emulators/retroarch/overlays/arcade-bezel-overlays/

To

/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/mame-libretro/overlays/

pjft

@Rion said in Using MAME Overlays/Bezels and shaders with RetroArch in RetroPie:

I'm wondering of you could convert from a lower resolution to 1080p or something else.
I was thinking about this because both @Zigurana & @Higgy both have converted @Floob 's Todo list from rp-video-manager (52 files)
Ps. From 1080p to 720p i did not resize the Arcade Bezels *.png

Thanks for the detailed reply and for making sense of what I had stated. The for loop to iterate and generate the main file is an elegant solution - considering the scrappy script I had provided, with its current limitations and constraints :)

As for your questions:

Converting from lower resolution to 1080p: this should conceptually be feasible, the main thing to look out for is potential rounding errors, because of potential non-standard resolutions. That being said, it will probably only be a couple of pixels off, at most, so it wouldn't be the end of the world. The image, though, should be of high resolution otherwise it may become blurry, distorted or pixelated (in case you're thinking of using other images).
Resizing the images is probably not necessary. I didn't try it, as I mentioned, but I'm assuming they will scale to the right resolution. You could perhaps gain something in memory or performance by not using images larger than your screen resolution as overlays, but should have minimal impact, if any.

Thanks.

Higgy

@Rion @pjft

I have also created .cfg for games not on @Floob 's list.

We need a little CMD script program like Floob's initial program so you select which screen res you want to convert to.

Hopefully this explains what I am trying to do. I am trying to keep the game window size as large as possible and just remove non-essential graphics.
alt text

TV screens - 16:9, only really 1920x1080 & 1280x720 - simple scaling

PC Monitors - 16:10 1440x900 & 1280x800 - need to account for cropping to avoid reducing game area and having black bars on overlay.

pjft

@Higgy

I see. You maths do seem to make sense, then, got it. The way you had originally suggested to change the script, then, seems to be the right one.

As for putting together a more robust script, with user inputs and such, that is something I am not able to do at the moment, but I'm more than happy if anyone wants to take my script and run with it or incorporate it into Floob's scripts or something. To be honest, what I did was so scrappy and not particularly complex, so feel free to use it in any way that benefits the community. I wanted to share it as it was as I hoped it'd help others, so I'm happy it did to some extent.

Rion

@Higgy There where quite a lot of arcade-bezel-retroarch-configs from @Floob that did not contain

custom_viewport_width
custom_viewport_height
custom_viewport_x
custom_viewport_y

Would you mind posting the ones you are finishes with so i can see if i can convert them to 1080p & 720p?

Here is also a DPI Calculator / PPI Calculator i found if that helps..