[Theme Changes] Attention Theme Makers: Upcoming Game Collections in ES

mediamogul

Or using a letter from game system logos.

Yeah, I had that same idea, but hated not being able to utilize a letter from the NES. Also, as you say and no matter how you arrange them, it ends up looking off and too chaotic like a ransom note which is where I landed temporarily for mine.

mediamogul

@cyperghost

Yes ... all means ROOT-dir so the sign I choose was </>

These are the type of creative solutions I appreciate the most as pitches where I work, as they show a lot of personal thought and break away from overused conventions. However, an argument can be made here to keep with overused conventions for user interface elements, so as not to alienate the user with new concepts of iconography. That said, </> is a striking graphic image indeed.

UDb23

@pjft said in [Theme Changes] Attention Theme Makers: Upcoming Game Collections in ES:

A few thoughts:

The "Last Played" text feels misaligned, because its baseline is the lower part of the "y".

You're right, will be fixed.

The folder icons themselves are "larger" than the other controllers in the theme. It's weird, and I can only assume it's caused because of any blank space around the other controllers.

I will use some standard controller logos taken from original Carbon theme and check the actual "page size" in px that are used and if there is some "transparent border" around the controller graphics. Will the size the "folder" icons accordingly; that should solve the "too big" issue.

I wasn't able to test the Custom Collections one yet just because it isn't implemented yet and I'd rather not butcher the theme even more :D

I've been thinking (and searching the web for inspiration) a lot on how to make the "all game" text logo. Not yet ready with a new proposal but I found some more really interesting free fonts that could be used (also for "last played").
In my opinion for these "text logos" Bold title (and in some case condesed) fonts should be used; not too strange (would not fit with carbon aesthetic) and not too common (wouldn't stand out). Of course if, in addition the selected font would allow inclusion, as suggested, of some small icon, it would be perfect.
Will come with some new proposal soon.

Additional thought: as it's already the standard for music, could we call 'em "playlists" instead of "collections" ? Maybe it's just a crazy idea ;-)

UDb23

btw If interested I can share here the free fonts I found and get your opinion, before creating a logo out of them.

mediamogul

@udb23

not too strange (would not fit with carbon aesthetic) and not too common (wouldn't stand out).

I couldn't agree with this more. However, in it's own way, this balance is almost as difficult to achieve as any single design element. The other logos these have to compete with visually are some of the most creative and well-thought-of designs ever produced. My tendency in these situations is always to get as creative as possible out of the gate and pull back when necessary.

hansolo77

Are there any plans to make a "custom" list for games that support RetroAchievements? It's built into RetroArch, and more games are getting added all the time. The way I'm doing it now is having a subfolder inside each system folder (called "Acheviements"). Then if I decide to play a game with them, I go into that subfolder for the list of games that have them. A more simplified method, using these "non-system specific" collection lists would be awesome. Of course a change would need to be made to the skins/etc. I was just wondering if anybody is working on this?

pjft

@udb23 said in [Theme Changes] Attention Theme Makers: Upcoming Game Collections in ES:

Additional thought: as it's already the standard for music, could we call 'em "playlists" instead of "collections" ? Maybe it's just a crazy idea ;-)

It's an interesting idea. I'm not especially fixated on any particular terminology, and as far as themes go, theme makes can call them what they feel resonates the most with them.

In terms of playlist vs collections, at least my initial thought is that playlist is a good term for music because it's a sequential list of things to be played. In terms of games, I always thought of it as collections (in fact, per @Zigurana 's suggestion, which I was immediately sold on).

When I was younger, I could bring over my friends to see my fighting games collection, my favorite games collection, my Mega Man games collection... That term Is very much associated with games, at least for me. It also aims to bring back the physical aspect, as well as the collectible aspect of videogames.

I wouldn't think of playlists for games myself, I think.

pjft

@hansolo77 not automatically. But you'll be able to create one such collection in the future should you want to.

mediamogul

@pjft

In terms of games, I always thought of it as collections

Collections does seem to fit better for a grouping of games.

hansolo77

@pjft said in [Theme Changes] Attention Theme Makers: Upcoming Game Collections in ES:

@hansolo77 not automatically. But you'll be able to create one such collection in the future should you want to.

Sounds awesome! I'm actually going through my entire rom collection and "favoriting" all of the games I used to have. Kinda fun. I thought a similar method could be done for creating a custom list for achievements. Just go through each system and mark a game as a favorite if cheeves work for it. I was then going to just change the gamelist to say "Achievements" instead of "Favorites". Only problem, I can't figure out where the favorites gamelist is stored. It's not in the /retropie/roms folder, nor is it in the /emulationstation/gamelists folder. I thought maybe you were doing some trickery and adding an extra line for it to the existing gamelist metadata, but it doesn't show up there either. What gives? :)

In the case of achievements, I think having a simple button to "add to achievments" would be ideal, as compared to going in and editing the metadata (inside of ES) and switching a flag to ON.... Maybe L2 or something for adding to a custom list?

hansolo77

I think there's a memory leak somewhere. I experimented with adding the "last played" collection, as well as the "favorites". I then went through and added a dozen or so games to the favorites list. When I went back to the home menu and scrolled over to the FAVORITES menu item, I saw a couple of the backgrounds for other systems had been blanked out. MAME and then PC-Engine. I did a quick system restart (not just ES). It boots up ok, and the menus look correct. Then I go into FAVORITES and the whole system locks up. I power-cycle the Pi 3 and wait. Once back up, I try to go into a different system (Mega Drive for instance) and after scrolling about 3 lines down, the system is completely locked up again.

I'm using the Comic Book theme, and never had this problem until I enabled the collections folders. Also, my "Favorites" collection only has 22 games in it.

UDb23

@mediamogul let's stick to collections then.

TMNTturtlguy

@hansolo77 you might need to adjust your vram up or down. I had similar issues with the newest update with favorites and last played. I noticed when exiting games I would have the ratings display as white boxes for a few seconds. I also got the "white screens" which are glget errors. By changing my vram to 120 this fixed the problem. @pjft said he uses a setting of 80 and his works. I decided to go back to the previous version of ES without the new favorites/last played and everything runs perfectly as you also suggested. No issues running 22 systems with the ComicBook theme and standard vram of 100. I am hoping some of these issues get ironed out in the next few updates. I have 2 arcade machines running nice and smooth right now, unfortunately without favorites, but I am ok with that because everything is nice and stable (except the image and marquee resize bug).

hansolo77

I'm patient. I have a working system, so anything NEW is just a bonus. I'm just posting support/testing results. :) What exactly does adjusting the VRAM do? When I was getting the video screenshots update to work, I remember putting it all the way up and was told to put it back. So I'm just curious what that setting actually changes.

TMNTturtlguy

@hansolo77 I am not 100%in this terminology but I believe it is "virtual memory". Adjusting the VRAM adjusts how much memory is dedicated to ES, but how it works is kind of a mystery, one persons vram setting may not work the same on someone else's setup. When adjusting VRAM you want to make small adjustments, 10 or 20 at a time. I would never go under 70 or over 130, but anything in between is probably ok.

hansolo77

See, that's just backwards thinking to me. Virtual Memory to me sounds like a page file. A designated file or something on your storage device that is set aside to be used as extra RAM. So if you have 1gb of RAM, but set aside 1gb of "virtual memory" on your SD card, you're essentially giving yourself 2gb of RAM. If you have an 8gb SD card, but are only using 4gb of it, giving ES use of 3gb's of it should make your system a very happy camper. That's why I thought increasing the VRAM setting to it's max available would be the best thing I could do. But then you say only go about +/-30, as if doing more would make it unstable. I just don't understand what it is then. And I'm not dissing you're explanation.. I'm just trying to explain how I perceived it. In all honesty, we're probably both wrong. :) It's gonna take somebody who understands it to explain it lol.

jdrassa

@hansolo77 @TMNTturtlguy I believe VRAM refers to Video RAM. What the setting controls is how much VRAM is used to store image textures. The reason it is a setting is that the best value will vary based on your GPU split. If you are dedicating more memory to the GPU, then you can increase the VRAM more. What likely was happening, is that if you set VRAM too high, ES will try to keep more textures in memory then it has space to store. This will result in the white boxes that you were seeing.

TMNTturtlguy

@jdrassa thanks for the explanation. With the new updates to favotrites and last played I actually had to increase from 100 to 120 to get rid of the white boxes. Running ES prior to the update I run perfectly at 100.

hansolo77

Ahh makes a little more sense then. :) So if it's based on the memory split, somebody should come up with an easy equation and figure out what setting you should use. Post that up in the docs.. saying If Memory Split = X, Set VRAM to Y. Make a little table or something.

This ties into another setting I never could figure out how to do either. The Memory Split setting has 3 options, like 128, 256, and 1028. And you're supposed to change the setting for the one you have. Now, being that it's a Raspberry Pi, and a lot of people have that device, why include those unnecessary settings? If you're only supposed to change one, why have the other 2 even in the config file? It only over complicates things. As an aside, I don't even think I've changed that setting on my system. Gonna have to go back and check.

pjft

Thanks all for the explanations here. @jdrassa and @TMNTturtlguy were spot on on the VRAM explanation.

That being said, I'm certainly keen on learning more about the lock up and what else.

Can you please open a new topic and add me to it, so not too derail this one? My first recommendation for the blank screens would certainly be to reduce VRAM to 80, as effectively there are now three more systems in use, but this would not have any bearing to any sort of lock up behavior. In the new topic let me know more details, namely library size, how many games in favorites, or relevant systems, etc. Also if you can SSH into the Pi and run 'top' when it locks up, I'd like to see if either memory or cpu usage are in any way high.

Also, favorites are a metadata element in the existing gamelists.

Thanks!