[New ES Theme] VectorPie (16:9)

Zachariel

Hey everyone,

I've been working on my first ES Theme for months now and I figured I'd share. Originally I just set out to make a theme for myself; Something that was simple and clean looking, had all the elements I wanted, and supported all the consoles and categories that I had. I also didn't want it to be based on any specific console, or game, or anything else that wasn't specifically game related. The intention was for the theme to be somewhat undefined, but able to take on a scheme for each console and category, so that they all have their own flavor.

Alright, before my artists statement turns into a diatribe, I'll move on. This theme is designed for 16:9 aspect ratio, and is optimal at 1920x1080. It's designed to work in Basic View, Detailed View, and Video View.

Unfortunately, due to the current state of RetroPie's ES, it seems that with this theme you can only have about five or six systems/categories at once before Emulation Station wets itself, goes home, and refuses to play with you anymore. Or in other words, I believe that the limit is five or six systems/categories at 250MB VRAM; beyond that comes the "getError"s, resulting in white pages/images. As far as I can tell, it's still this way with all of the graphic heavy themes, E.g. Magazine Madness.

I'm not 100% sure of the current naming scheme for all of the systems and categories either, and in my zeal to cover as many consoles (and the most popular categories) as possible, I may have included some things that aren't even supported by RetroPie at the moment (or maybe don't have an emulator at all!).

Just to let everyone know, I won't be doing any more work on this project, but I will leave it up. Thanks to everyone that showed interest! I think I'll move on to fiddling with a new theme; hopefully one that will work!

The current version can be downloaded here.

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markyh444

Very nice. It seems quite awhile since there were some new themes on here.

mattrixk

@zachariel That's really cool. Wish I could see the images closer though, photobucket's being a dick. Any chance of some full-size screenshots?

@markyh444: Agreed. I don't post much anymore, but I still check back every now and again to see if any new themes have been put up. It seems like for a time there was a new theme every week, but it's slowed down substantially (It's probably been over a year since I last made one).

Zachariel

@mattrixk Thank you! Sure thing. I only have a few sample pages at the moment. I'll try LensDump because photobucket is garbage. I've alse replaced the little add sample version in my first post with a better and large version.

Clyde

Veeery nice design and colour scheme. Any chances of a 4:3 version sometime?

Zachariel

@clyde Thank you. Yes, I suppose if enough people were interested I'd try to put together a 4:3 version.

mattrixk

Thank you @zachariel, that's awesome!

I really like the way the coloured lines come down to connect to each of the boxes. The only nitpick I have is the grey stars. They are a bit difficult to see on some of the colours. Is there any reason you made them grey instead of white to match the rest of the content?

Zachariel

@mattrixk Nope, it was something I think I planned on working on, then overlooked, because I need to have two versions, black and white, for when the boxes are too close to white. I'll fix that soon. There's bound to be more color problems that I've overlooked with the text across all of the systems.

SgtJimmyRustles

I like the look man. I'll throw it up on my Discord as one of the "Themes Jimmy Likes!"

Zachariel

@sgtjimmyrustles Thanks, glad to hear it!

Zachariel

@mattrixk Alright, the stars should be white now. They're a touch too close together now, but it doesn't really bother me. lol

Clyde

One suggestion: Your README.txt has no instructions about the installation. Although most seasoned Retropie users should know how to install themes manually, a short description for newcomers would be nice.

Clyde

I installed your theme and it looks even better in action. 😊 I especially like the modest zoom effect on the system name.

Buut … I may have found a bug or at least an inconsistency: Even with other Transition Styles than "Fade", a fade still occurs when switching between systems. So for example, if set to "Slide" it would slide and fade at the same time. Addtionally, it becomes erractic (i.e. fades only any other time) when I switch systems very quickly back and forth.

I'd rather don't have a fade in the other transition styles. Would that be possible?

Zachariel

@clyde Hmm, that's a good point. I might just direct beginners to the RetroPie theme installation instruction page.

About the transitions. I haven't seen what you're talking about myself. My intention was for it to be viewed with "Instant", as I think that suits it best and I definitely don't like the fading either. I don't think the fade you're seeing is a product of anything that I did, it's more likely due to ES not preloading all the elements, or perhaps just the way ES handles multiple elements needing to be loaded per system page. It's possible it could be corrected, maybe by changing the load order, but I'm not sure. As I said, this is my first ES theme, so I'd be happy if any other seasoned themers could give me some advice on this. Just as another reference, what systems/categories are you currently displaying on it?

Clyde

@zachariel It's strange that you don't experience this effect. With "Instant", it is even more erratic than with "Slide" on my machine. That said, I'm testing it on my new Mini PC on a fresh installation of Kubuntu Linux 18.04 right now. Later today, I can test it on my Pi with Retropie 4.4 and see if the effect also occurs there. But what I can already say is that it doesn't occur with the only other theme currently installed on the Mini PC, namely Carbon.

Alas, I don't know anything about theme creation. I just use them. 😌

mitu

@clyde said in [New ES Theme] VectorPie (16:9):

Buut … I may have found a bug or at least an inconsistency: Even with other Transition Styles than "Fade", a fade still occurs when switching between systems. So for example, if set to "Slide" it would slide and fade at the same time. Addtionally, it becomes erractic (i.e. fades only any other time) when I switch systems very quickly back and forth.

It's because of the VRAM settings. Try upping the limit as @Zachariel said in the 1st post and restart ES.

@Zachariel nice theme - thank you for creating and sharing it !
The large VRAM requirements would make run erratically on a PI, maybe it can be improved. I've noticed one of the assets (VectorPie-master\_ass\images\basicbg.ong) is unusually large for its contents (7mb+ for a basically a background color). If I re-save it (using Paint.Net), it goes to about 170Kb.
I've run it on Windows, with a VRAM limit set to 120, and it seems to work fine (after I shrunk that large image), but didn't have a change to test it also on a PI.

Clyde

@mitu Thanks for the hint, it really was my VRAM setting in ES. Rasing it from 100 to 160 MB on my Pi fixed the unwanted fade, but even with 260 MB (presumably capped at 256 by the gpu_mem_1024 setting in my /boot/config.txt) I got the white screen bug that's mentioned in your link, beginning with the 5th or 6th system displayed. I will test a higher setting on my Mini PC with 8 GB RAM when I get back to it. I don't know how much VRAM its system currently assigns.

So, the theme could definately use a good trimming in terms of memory usage. I didn't know the importance of VRAM, simply because I only used more frugal themes up until now.

edit: Aaand … I just read in this post that the white screen effect may occur with setting VRAM too high rather than too low. Is this correct?

@Zachariel The good news is that the theme fits to my 1600x1200 4:3 monitor quite nicely already. It shouldn't require that much of an effort to modify it for 4:3 screens.

mitu

@clyde said in [New ES Theme] VectorPie (16:9):

edit: Aaand … I just read in this post that the white screen effect may occur with setting VRAM too high rather than too low. Is this correct?

Seems so. If you get close to fill in the amount of VRAM in the system, the GPU will start to mis-behave and the display will not be stable. Your link gave me an idea on how to debug the texture allocations and see what how they're allocated :).

ClassicGMR

I have to say this one is pretty! Will watch this extra close.

Clyde

@mitu said in [New ES Theme] VectorPie (16:9):

Your link gave me an idea on how to debug the texture allocations and see what how they're allocated :).

Sweet power of synergy. :)