Nintendo Playchoice-10 Overlays Interest Check

UDb23

@meleu said in Nintendo Playchoice-10 Overlays Interest Check:

how can I put the game screen on the left without hardcoding the viewport width/height?

Below is a complete example of sizing and positioning the viewport.
It's the cfg file I made for Atari's Seaquest.

video_scale_integer = false
aspect_ratio_index = 22

use custom screen format ratio

input_overlay = /opt/retropie/emulators/retroarch/overlays/arcade-bezels/seaquest_a26.cfg
input_overlay_enable = true

enable overlay and link the cfg file pointing to the actual image

video_fullscreen_x = 1920
video_fullscreen_y = 1080

define actual (real) resolution of the display/monitor used

custom_viewport_width = 1440
custom_viewport_height = 1080

Custom viewport means the portion of the real display you want to be used as "game area"
Here we define the wanted size.

custom_viewport_x = 240
custom_viewport_y = 0

defines the position of the top left corner of the game area (custom viewport).
Coordinate system considers as origin the top left of your display ( 0,0 ).
So in this example it means position the custom viewport 240 to the right of origin.

UDb23

For these Playchoice overlays you need to create a 1920x1080 image with transparent background (alpha channel) and have the "channel select menu" overlay graphics (not sure if it is called that way.. I mean the green boxes you created) on the right side.

If w is the width in pixels of the "menu" then custom viewport width = 1920-w
Height should be calculated according to the desired screen ratio (or just kept @1080 but that would cause a distortion of the game area).
With the correct ratio for the custom viewport dimension, I'd suggest to position it in the middle vertically.

edmaul69

@UDb23 these are 1920x1080 with everything on the left side transparent. I have everything working for 1080. Is there a way to make the game display to the left without the custom viewport? Because i need it to be moved over to the left is why i have to use custom viewport. Otherwise i am going to have to have to leave a bunch of hashtagged custom viewports and people will have to choose their resolution manually. That or label it as 1080 only.

edmaul69

i updated the first post with a link to download the 1920x1080 only overlays. I hope people can enjoy them.

edmaul69

deleted

edmaul69

@mediamogul unfortunately because i have to shift the game screen to the left, i probably will have to make an overlay config for every wide screen resolution there might be.

edmaul69

@meleu i signed up to github, but i have no clue where to go to upload my overlays.

mediamogul

@edmaul69

@mediamogul unfortunately because i have to shift the game screen to the left, i probably will have to make an overlay config for every wide screen resolution there might be.

Ouch! I can see how that's less than ideal.

UDb23

@edmaul69 said in Nintendo Playchoice-10 Overlays Interest Check:

Is there a way to make the game display to the left without the custom viewport?

Unfortunately I'm not aware of a way to define "relative" or parametric coordinates for the viewport. There's a scale option (multiplier for the original game resolution) but, afaik, that would center position the game area and still not parametric.

edmaul69

@mediamogul i have like 75 configs for nes. Plus 52 x3-5 for mame folders. Then having to edit that many per screen resolution. Lots of work. I somehow missed a couple nes configs with the email i sent you. Download on post 1 have them if you want them. Can you tell me what mame/arcade folders use mame. I know mame-libretro and mame4all. I dont know what the other folders are called as i had to create my own for mame2010

UDb23

@edmaul69 There actually is a way to position the overlay with relative coordinates: check here.
Still I could not find any relative positiong for the viewport... so it's still a no go.

edmaul69

@UDb23 yeah the overlay is already 1920x1080 so no need to position that. :) im just fearing the hundreds of configs i will have to edit if i decide to do other resolutions.

Andymadness

I hate to be a bother and bump this post but I really need to know something. For over 7 years now I've been trying to find a way to emulate the playchoice 10 menu with multiple games (currently mame allows only one playchoice game at a time to be ran) and after searching and searching trying to find alternative emus and what not I nearly had given up until I saw this post. I see that in the above screenshots there are menus with multiple games in them. Is this from the actual emulator or part of the design of the overlay (I.e. am I looking at screenshot of a mame setup that actually has working playchoice menus or am I looking at a fabricated image that imitates a working menu)? If these menus are indeed emulated is there anyone that can tell me how they did it or at least point me in a direction that will hopefully lead to the answer? I would be most appreciative to anyone who can help. Thanks in advance! :)

edmaul69

@andymadness no it is not emulating the menus. I created overlays to look like the menus so you had all the instructions to go with the game.

Andymadness

@edmaul69 Aww :( well my search continues. Thank you for responding. Also very awesome job on the overlays. :)

edmaul69

@andymadness thanks.

edmaul69

@andymadness i already have the background graphics done, as it was part of another theme i was working on, i just finished the theme i was working on, so i am going to be creating a playchoice 10 theme. I have the font and everything. I need someone to edit the font for the - to be 4 dots instead, but i numbered and added the dashes and everything to make my playchoice-10 rom list look like the playchoice-10.

GreenHawk84

@edmaul69 Thanks for clarifying shaders sitting underneath overlays! Now I just need to figure out how to do overlays and shaders together. For overlays I have gamename.cfg.zip files in my ROMs folders and gamename.cfg with gamename.png files in retroarch>overlays folder.

edmaul69

@greenhawk84 for shaders it would be something like this:

input_overlay = /opt/retropie/emulators/retroarch/overlays/edmaul69/duckhunt.cfg
input_overlay_enable = true
input_overlay_opacity = 1.000000
input_overlay_scale = "1.000000"

now if you need to move the position of the game screen or resize it you need to add it like this. note the numbers are just examples:

video_fullscreen_x = 1920
video_fullscreen_y = 1080
custom_viewport_width = 640
custom_viewport_height = 408
custom_viewport_x = 642
custom_viewport_y = 312
aspect_ratio_index = 22

marioxb

This is great! I actually have an empty PlayChoice 10 dual monitor cab that I want to look and feel like a real dual cab, with the instructions/ menus permanently on the top monitor. I'm also using a PC instead of a Pi. This is is sort of possible with PC MAME, but of course only one game at a time. I'd also rather use an NES emu instead of MAME because some PC10 games don't play properly in MAME. Any chance this can be modified to work on a PC instead of Pi and also always be displayed on top of the game play screen?