Want to build a new theme for PlayStation

hansolo77

American Folder:
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Japanese Folder:
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European Folder:
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Game Selection:
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Things I still need to do:

Turn off "PLAYSTATION!" launching sound
Create a new RETROPIE Folder Icon
Figure out if I can, and change the bottom icons for O=A, X=B, etc (So people know what button to press for what function)
~~Change the "RIP" image for each folder...~~
Complain about ScreenScraper not having the boxarts for all the games :)
Create a Favorites Folder and Icon
Create a Hacks/Mods Folder and Icon (not sure if I really need this)
Create an Achievements Folder/Icon (if/when the RetroAchievments guys ever get it working!)

BTW!!! I just discovered the latest version of EmulationStation has a video screensaver! It works great!!! Thanks to all involved with that!! :)

mattrixk

@hansolo77 said in Want to build a new theme for PlayStation:

Figure out if I can, and change the bottom icons for O=A, X=B, etc (So people know what button to press for what function)

You could always just turn off/hide all of those buttons and then make the whole thing an image that is part of the background/border image. That way you can make it look however you want it to.

Other than that, I think the only way to change those icons is to dig into the code of ES itself.

TMNTturtlguy

@hansolo77 I think I have given you this info before, but here it is - to turn off the launching sound, go to the psx theme folder, open theme.xml. Delete lines 62-64. Save the file

To change the rip images edit the name of the .png on line 54, you can use any image saved in the art/rip/ folder.

hansolo77

@mattrixk said in Want to build a new theme for PlayStation:

You could always just turn off/hide all of those buttons and then make the whole thing an image that is part of the background/border image. That way you can make it look however you want it to.

I was thinking about doing that while laying in bed last night. :)

@TMNTturtlguy said in Want to build a new theme for PlayStation:

@hansolo77 I think I have given you this info before, but here it is - to turn off the launching sound, go to the psx theme folder, open theme.xml. Delete lines 62-64. Save the file

To change the rip images edit the name of the .png on line 54, you can use any image saved in the art/rip/ folder.

I think you mentioned it in your thread, but when I did a search for it I couldn't find it. I was going to try just removing those lines as you said, but I wasn't sure that would work. I remember you saying something about there being a lot of errors/etc if you do that. I will try it. :)

TMNTturtlguy

@hansolo77 The error message only happen if you delete the audio file from the art folder without editing the theme.xml. Either method works and the error message doesn't do anything negatively to your build, it is just annoying as i like my things clean and tidy and errors bug me even if they are non issues.

HurricaneFan

@hansolo77 Random question about your setup. Are you running an external drive to your pi to store all those psx games? How big is the drive?

hansolo77

@tmntturtlguy said in Want to build a new theme for PlayStation:

@hansolo77 The error message only happen if you delete the audio file from the art folder without editing the theme.xml. Either method works and the error message doesn't do anything negatively to your build, it is just annoying as i like my things clean and tidy and errors bug me even if they are non issues.

I see, thanks! I will work on this more when I have time. Back at work again. Worked 10 days straight without a day off, then had 4 days off in a row to get a lot of this done.. Now I'm working another 8. :(

@hurricanefan said in Want to build a new theme for PlayStation:

@hansolo77 Random question about your setup. Are you running an external drive to your pi to store all those psx games? How big is the drive?

I'm just using a 4tb WD Passport:
Amazon

hansolo77

@TMNTturtlguy - I will try to get a screenshot of the problem I'm having tomorrow, but here's a brief description as I try to call out for help..

When coming back from a game, or resuming back to ES after having it run a session of the video screensaver, I'm seeing a lot of black. Sometimes the backgrounds don't load, other times its the ratings or the RIP image, other times it's the system banner. I thought this was another sympton of the VRAM, so I've dropped it down to 80 and now it's at 60. But I still have the problem.

Do you think this is a problem due to the resolution of the backgrounds? I don't think I changed it to 720 like you had recommended earlier. If it turns out that I did, can you suggest something else for me to try to resolve this? I'm asking you because it's just a modified version of you ComicBook theme, and thought you might know a little bit more about it. :) Let me know!

pjft

@hansolo77 background resolution might be a problem, but a video can help.

Also, when that happens, if you ssh into the pi and run

sudo vcdbg reloc

The first few lines will tell you the video memory state. Dump that log into pastebin and send it over.

TMNTturtlguy

@hansolo77 I would definitely provide the information per @pjft request.

Here are a few thoughts that I have found when i was building the comic book theme:

In this case, which is different from the issues you had with the comic book theme you may actually need to increase your VRAM. When exiting the game or screensaver you are having trouble reloading textures, so you might need more VRAM. Try 110 or 120.
If this is only the case when exiting the screensaver, you might want to reduce the size of your video files. Reducing the file sizes with a program like handbrake could improve not just video playback but might help reduce the amount of resources ES needs to dedicate to playing them.
You might want to check the size of your image files as well. Since this theme loads backgrounds, images, video and marquees, if you have a lot of games and image/video files you might consider trying to reduce file sizes to improve performance.
Regarding the theme backgrounds, I found in all of my testing that running the backgrounds at 1080 led to a lot of issues with loading the backgrounds, crashes, and whit screens. Creating the backgrounds at 720 and then reducing the file size to under 512kb will help tremendously. You will see in my theme that most of the backgrounds are in the 300-400kb size. I know you have stated that you like the fact your images don't use the comic book pixel, but i found that the pixel dither allowed me to use the 720 background and use a program called riot to reduce the file sizes and still look nice on larger screens. All this said, the file size below 512 is more important that 720 or 1080 - however it is very hard to create this background at 1080p and reduce the file size to under 512kb and still have it look nice.

I would assume that the big things to try are VRAM to 110 or 120, Video file size, and changing the backgrounds to 720p under 512kb.

Good luck and let me know if any of these work for you.

hansolo77

Thanks guys! Something to play with at least. I'll figure it out eventually. :)