[New Theme] Showcase (Now Released)

[Cybermen]

I think the theme is really great, if the gamecovers are even bigger, then it is perfect. Maybe a few console buttons should be adjusted in the main menu, amiga is not quite readable by the black lettering. But thanks for that.

[dmmarti]

I've now got 15 "collection" theme subfolders included in the Showcase theme.

Getting ready for @pjft and the upcoming ES Collections feature!

Here's my latest......

The initial 15 new theme subfolders are:

batman
castlevania
donkeykong
finalfantasy
frogger
mario
megaman
mortalkombat
pacman
pokemon
sonic
spaceinvaders
starwars
tmnt
zelda

[dmmarti]

Playing with the latest binary for custom collections......awesome!

Thank you @pjft for your hard work!

[pjft]

@dmmarti Thanks for the video - looks great!

You can actually create the frogger collection from the "Create from Theme" option as well, rather than having to type out the name :) That's useful for those extra theme folders, and is hopefully a good shortcut.

I think you were writing the collection name by hand for the video just to show that it's possible to name them whatever you want, but mentioning it just in case you didn't know that :)

[dmmarti]

@pjft Ah...you're right ... I skipped right over that.....hahaha. I was just too excited I guess.

Yea, that'd be much quicker! Thanks again for everything.....

[pjft]

@dmmarti Not a bother. The text input was meant for collections you want to create at random, and not be limited by the theme. I myself have created a "Backlog" collection, and I'll probably create a "Currently Playing" one as well, just for the sake of it. But others can use it for Achievements, or whatever.

The theme shortcut, though, is likely the easiest one to use, and hopefully the nicest one. :)

What Pi are you on, out of curiosity? Pi 3?

[dmmarti]

@pjft Correct, Pi 3.

I'm using a 16 GB SD card with a 1TB HDD drive. I needed the full PSX collection ya know..hahah.

This is my "test rig" per se.....so I've thrown almost every full romset I have on there to be able to see all of the different theme backgrounds, etc. Makes it easier for me to design that way.

[pjft]

@dmmarti Sounds good. I was just curious.

Thanks!

[TMNTturtlguy]

@pjft @dmmarti Great video and awesome feature

@pjft once again amazing and my deepest apologies for not having the time to help test all of these cool improvements you are making. i am hope that this weekend when i am home i have time to install and play with this!

Quick question, does this create a new gamelist for each collection you create? One thing I have done to my current arcade machine build is modify the marquee for each game in my collection (using @meleu script to create custom systems). I have edited the gamelist within the custom system to use the system logo instead of game logo for each game, so when scrolling through the custom system the marquee shows what system it is from. So in my figthers system I have 3 versions of street fighter II turbo and when i scroll the marquee lets me quickly know what version it is. Just wondering if that will be possible in your build? Cant wait to get this installed.

Also - don't you have a big move coming up? Like moving countries? Hope all is well with your and your family.

[pjft]

@tmntturtlguy Not a bother - we all have our lives to take care of first and foremost :)

This does not create a gamelist in the proper sense, as it'd be a pain to maintain. Asides from the Favorites one, this will create just a file with the ROM paths, for each collection. It will not be separately themable, as they point to the same game, as known by ES. At least not for now.

In the future, I can imagine someone who's more knowledgeable than I am on the theming front to implement a "Game System" theme element, so that that can be used to differentiate them in those systems, but for the time being that is unfortunately not an option. Or I imagine I will have to take that on myself, but in the future - not in the short term.

The current solution is that, for those 3 SF2 Turbo instances, the names will be appended with the system. It's a very barebones approach, but it is what's available for the time being without changing the theming. It's an acceptable compromise, though I don't expect it to be the long term solution.

I had tried to make a video demonstrating this a few days ago, but at the end I ran into a known bug which is that the metadata doesn't show for the first element in the subfolders, so I didn't upload it :D

Either way, if you disregard the "My Collections" bit, which is no longer as barebones and devoid of metadata, this is what to expect:

@dmmarti 's video is a much nicer demo though :)

As for my move, yes, it'll take place end of August/very early September - which means that any big developments from my end need to be completed before that takes place, as my time will be significantly reduced after that, between starting a new job, setting up the place, and getting used to the new logistics. Oh, and of course, finally building my cabinet :D

But I'll certainly still be around, though not likely doing these large developments for a bit - more like small tweaks and fixes.

Hope all is well with you and your family as well, thank you for asking!

[Cybermen]

@dmmarti perhaps you are still for the custom collections a Nintendo Classic Mini - NES & SNES design? ;-)

[DragonSparks]

I hope it is okay to post this here. I did a quick search. I was not able to find what I need and am still a little confused. I'm trying to get the Odyssey 2 section to show up correctly. (there are a few others I need to get around to fixing as well)

I am able to access the card directly (running a Mint PC) I went into the emulationstation folder and made a back up of es_systems.cfg and es_systems.cfg.motionblue

I then went into the config and changed <theme>videopac2</theme> to <theme>odyssesy2</theme> I then put the card back into the Pi and nothing changed. Then I went back in and double checked it. I then changed where it says vidpac 2 in the wheel when booted to Odyssey 2 and when I rebooted it was still all black but said Odyssey 2 in the wheel when I viewed a working system to get the background back.

I also did this for es_systems.cfg.motionblue just to be on the safe side and still nothing.

I am a little new to modifying things like this so I have a feeling I am missing something simple. I hope it is okay I ask in this thread
Thanks

[dmmarti]

@dragonsparks said in [New Theme] Showcase (Now Released):

ing a Mint P

There are a couple of different ways to accomplish what you are wanting. Basically, it sounds like you are wanting to apply the "odyssey2" theme to your Odyssey 2 games.

I'm guessing you have your roms in the following folder: /roms/videopac2

---

/etc/emulationstation/es_systems.cfg

Look for the XML system for <name>videopac2</name> .. and you are correct, just change it's theme to be <theme>odyssey2</theme>.

There is an XML system for just /roms/videopac ... but that is probably setup as the original videopac theme...so make sure to change the right one (depending on where your roms are at).

After making those changes and restarting Emulation Station, you should be good to go.

[simonster]

@dmmarti said in [New Theme] Showcase (Now Released):

This is version 1.0 .... I'm hoping I didn't have any lingering bugs ... but if you find any, please let me know.

Really loving this theme, but when exiting a game, sometimes I get a weird graphical glitch:

The rating stars initially show a white box for about half a second and then it changes to the correct star image, then if I don't input anything after a few seconds it glitches the system select menu over the top (a seemingly random system, regardless of which system I am in), it seems to fade in and then glitch the correct menu back over it. I have a video of it happening:

In this video, I select Arcade, Select Off Road (already selected as I'd just been in it, but it doesn't matter). Once the game had loaded, I hotkey+start to exit and left the controller.

It occurred to me on a number of separate occasions on exiting games on different systems last night, from what I can remember it definitely happened on exiting After Burner (Arcade), Ironman Stewart's Super Off Road (Arcade), Sega 4 in 1 (Game Gear), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (NES) and Uniracers (SNES).

It doesn't occur in other themes to my knowledge, and I don't know if it is related, but all my emulators in use are LibRetro. I did create a new 4.2 sd card from the official image and updated it and just install your theme and a few games to test and it still occurred. Let me know if I can provide any other information.

Si

[pjft]

@simonster memory related. Reduce VRAM to 80, restart EmulationStation, and try again. Play with that value, don't go higher than 120, and generally lower is better. If you get white boxes, lowering may help. Not too low either.

[simonster]

@pjft I will check but I'm fairly certain the first time I got it, my vram was set to 80. A fresh install seems to have set it to 100. I only have 6 systems and around 20 games on this new image.

[pjft]

@simonster got it.

Well, there's a fundamental problem with ES and its texture management. For some reason, after exiting and returning to ES, textures are initialized as a white texture before being reloaded. What you observe is just the texture trying to be rendered before it's been fully loaded.

Changing the video RAM threshold can sometimes force it to load less textures and so it'll hopefully load the ones you need beforehand.

Still, the only thing that the theme may be responsible for is the resolution of the textures. Other than that, it's unfortunately an ES quirk.

I'll try to look into that in the future, as it's something that has bothered me as well.

Best of luck.

[DragonSparks]

@dmmarti
Just wanted to say thanks again. For some reason the first time I edited my config it did not work. I started over and did the same thing again and this time it worked. Got Odyssey 2 and Apple II fixed and everything looks great. Using it with Pixel loading images and couldn't be happier.

I wanted to mention I generated loading images for showcase and it gives the blue ones that go with your other theme so I switched back to pixel. Was just curious if they would get an update at some point to better match showcase? No rush though pretty happy as is over here.

[dmmarti]

Getting ready for custom collections!

I've added some new arcade based collections today.

atari
capcom
dataeast
irem
konami
midway
namco
nintendo
sega
snk
taito
williams

Here's some sample screenshots.

[Slimy]

I've been lurking until now. Are we allowed to suggest custom collections? If so:

pinball - Pinball games belong in the same category regardless of system IMO.
classic arcade - arcade games that came out before 1984? I find it strange having Pacman and Asteroids in the same category as Metal Slug and Darkstalkers.
Or instead of classic arcade, there could be arcade70s, arcade80s, arcade90s, etc.

Edit: Also romhacks, how could I forget.