Backdrops in mame2003-plus

UDb23

Hey Guys,
what do you think of this draft BD for Gorf ?
Based on .ai bezel by Zorg (vectorized version of the actual arcade game bezel)
Gorf Bezel draft.png

Trying to use full bezel would make the game area too tiny. Therefore this draft just takes some of the bezel's artwork panels. If you like the layout I can proceed in creating the masks required to make the right side "ranking" lamps work.

UDb23

@Riverstorm said in Backdrops in mame2003-plus:

I had a Valentine's "date" with my wife, as next weekend will be busier for the holiday. It's an overrated holiday anyway but a great excuse to go out and have drinks, a nice dinner and dessert.

Sweet :-) Couldn't agree more.
We're defining a date (not 14th) for a nice dinner too.
Currently abroad for work as it often happens.

If you wanted to learn Spanish would it be fairly easy since I know it's somewhat phonologically and grammatically similar to Italian?

Italian and Spanish people can likely generally understand what the other is saying as many words and verbs are similar. When reading probably you'd understand the main concepts. Writing is a totally different story. Both languages originate from latin (ancient romans where everywhere :-) ) but differenciated a lot over the centuries.

As you said multiple language capability is very useful nowadays so it's important for young people to study those.

I am a huge fan of all music from the 70s and 80s. I'm looking forward to seeing Kiss coming up here in a few weeks on their final tour. I hope they go old school with real incandescent bulbs, pyrotechnics and all the other antics they used to entertain during a concert back in the day. I remember rocking out to them in the 70s.

Never had a chance to see Kiss. I really liked (and still like)Toto; they were on a tour last year in Europe so I could see them live after almost 20 years!! Still a great band.

I agree that the internet was much less influential (and useful) in the 80's but it did exist here. We were using Netscape Navigator, AOL and IE was the underdog back then. We mostly were interested in BBS's and downloading "warez" as it was called back in the day.

warez!! that reminds me a lot of things of that time.
We only could access internet at the Computer centre at the university: I remember very well when netscape came out and we started using it; so nice...and so sloooow. Everybody thought it would kill internet due to the "huge" amount of bandwidth used.
Before we were using just ftp or usenet newsgroups and UUencode/UUdecode was a common way to share binary files there. :-))

The weather has settled down but it is still below average temp wise basically (below freezing) for the next week or so.

Hope it will get better soon.

Clyde

@UDb23 said in Backdrops in mame2003-plus:

@Clyde Also updated the 4:3 bzone ovl: removed Radar text, higher radar "circle", moved right box (score) slightly.

Great, thanks! I like it very much, and I don't miss the "RADAR" sign at all. Here's the outcome on my cab:

Clyde

@UDb23 said in Backdrops in mame2003-plus:

Hey Guys,
what do you think of this draft BD for Gorf ?

Looks great, although its 16:9. 😛 (I'm just biased to 4:3, guilty as charged.)

Is there a way to make the ranks light up properly? And if so, are you planning to implement that?

Riverstorm

@UDb23 - Going on an "off" day works well, it much easier to get into a nice restaurant and better service as it's not as busy. We don't do much of the traditional antics of the holiday, flowers, chocolates, promises you don't intend to keep. :) Especially with kids it's just tough. Nothing goes as planned with kids.

I think we might have grown up in the same era or pretty darn close, so many similarities that line up. Yes Usenet, another good source.

I agree Toto has excellent music. In fact I just picked up Toto IV recently as it's probably their best. Hydra and The Seventh One are also excellent. I prefer the late 70s early 80s of their music.

My music kung-fu from the 70s and 80s is pretty strong and I can talk about almost any band, music or history of but once I hit the 90s not so much. I just lost touch from the 90s onward and I only listen to "Top 40" or whatever is on the radio or TV basically. Different shows featuring some hot new artist is about it. My nieces and nephews play music I have no idea who it is but some of it's pretty good but I prefer old school metal and rock.

We also have a dedicated 80s station here that I listen to most of time. I have an app that I can stream any station globally in my car or home via bluetooth, if they have a "stream" (like a website that streams it can be captured). So if you have any great 80s stations over there you'll have to let me know.

I'll go to dang near any concert that is "old school" that comes here but just in the past few years I've seen Dokken, Def Leppard, Poison, Tesla, Motley Crue, Heart, Joan Jett, Eagles, Alice Cooper & Metallica. I know it's a conglomeration of eclectic music for sure but a few were free.

Bob Seger was here last weekend. Coming soon is Lita Ford, Fleetwood Mac and of course Kiss in a few weeks. We've had pretty decent concerts this past few years.

Standouts from those shows above were Metallica can still bring it. I saw them in '87 and '89 and again in 2018. Alice Cooper also brought it for being 71 years old. Motley Crue had a pretty incredible stage show for the final tour. They had a "drum track" that went straight up the wall and across the ceiling. It was neat to see Tommy Lee drum upside down for a set. The whole drum set. Cymbals, chair, etc. the whole shebang up-side-down while he played. Obviously a special modified set. Bret Michaels was in incredible shape for being older, whereas most frontmen in many bands from that era look pretty rough now. Joan Jett also looked great for her age and took good care of herself. I think the best for me was the Eagles just had incredible harmonies. I was able to see them about 6 months before Glenn Fry passed.

A few of my favorite metal bands come out of Germany too. Those German's know how to rock eh @Clyde? ;) I've always been a huge Scorpions and Accept fan. Also Helloween is good too. I have 100's of CDs from about any and every band from the late 70s and all of the 80s and decent collection of guitar picks and some autographs from all the concerts through the years.

The Gorf overlay looks great. I think the compromises of moving the colored blocks to the left are fine and cutting out a few things to keep more game play area is preferred to me but I like your philosophy of keep the original art integrity where possible. I like it.

@Clyde Have you tried Mr. Do's Gorf backdrop? The ranks do fully light up and work. It gets distorted on HD but I wonder if it's better in 4:3. I looked in the zip and the art is actually pretty clean so it must be something to do with the aspect ratio.

UDb23

@Clyde said in Backdrops in mame2003-plus:

I'm just biased to 4:3, guilty as charged

Art for Gorf is actually a bezel with lamps so I'm not sure you have enough sidebar space for the "ranking lamps". What is the game area for Gorf on 1600x1200?

UDb23

@Riverstorm You're mentioning and seeing so many great artists! I like many of them too, starting from Eagles. It's a big advantage to live in the US; many opportunities to see 'em.
About Toto I'd suggest you listen ISOLATION if you have a chance, quite different from their usual Albums, much more powerful rock than their usual style.

Riverstorm

@UDb23 said in Backdrops in mame2003-plus:

About Toto I'd suggest you listen ISOLATION if you have a chance, quite different from their usual Albums, much more powerful rock than their usual style.

I will definitely grab a copy of Isolation. We have a great second hand music store here that I like to frequent. They are really good with carrying older music or hard to find stuff. I try to find the early pressings as the dynamic range is usually better and the albums aren't victims of the "loudness wars". Some of the music I didn't care for back then have become favorites years later. I just grabbed some of Foreigner's "middle years" stuff that I am enjoying.

My wife and I splurged quite a bit for 2nd row seats to the Eagles, it was an incredible concert. They sound so good live. The 1st row was just way to expensive. We semi-splurged for Kiss and are in the 16th row. Most of what I like from Kiss is '79 and older starting from Dynasty.

Clyde

@UDb23 said in Backdrops in mame2003-plus:

Art for Gorf is actually a bezel with lamps so I'm not sure you have enough sidebar space for the "ranking lamps". What is the game area for Gorf on 1600x1200?

My question was mainly meant for your 16:9 version, since I also suspect it would be a little cramped on the sides in 4:3. There, it may be better to just use the bezel. Bezels are one main reason I chose a monitor with such a high native resolution like 1600x1200 anyway.

But nonetheless, here's a screenshot that shows the game area on 1600x1200 with an aspect ratio of "core provided" and without any shaders applied.

Clyde

@Riverstorm said in Backdrops in mame2003-plus:

My wife and I splurged quite a bit for 2nd row seats to the Eagles, it was an incredible concert.

Seats at rock concerts seem to be one big difference between the USA and Germany (Europe?). Here, most if not all concerts except for "sitting" genres like classic and jazz don't have seats. Although this has its disadvantages for small people or who can't stand for such a long time, it allows for a much better "rocking" atmosphere and dancing in the crowd. What do you think about that? (and @UDb23 as a fellow European)

UDb23

@Clyde said in Backdrops in mame2003-plus:

1600x1200 with an aspect ratio of "core provided" and without any shaders applied.

It looks there's enough space.
Can you let me know the game res in the RA menu (settings, video)?

Clyde

@UDb23 Sorry for the late answer, I fell asleep right after dinner yesterday.

I don't see any game resolution in the XMB menu under Settings > Video. But mame2003-plus' XML file says that Gorf has a <video_screen> of 204x320 with an aspect ratio of 3:4.

UDb23

@Clyde said in Backdrops in mame2003-plus:
No screen res under video settings is quite strange. The RA menu (not xmb) on the Pi shows it. Anyway, being 3:4, I suppose it's 900x1200.

I fell asleep right after dinner yesterday.

happens; you're not the only one :-)

Clyde

@UDb23 I switched to RGUI and there's still no game res showing. Where should it be? These screenshots are made while running Gorf:

Riverstorm

@Clyde - That's interesting. It should be where it shows Fullscreen Width and Fullscreen Height.

Clyde

@Riverstorm The description of Fullscreen Width says that it will use the desktop resolution if set to 0. Without a desktop (i.e. using the normal Retropie image), I guess this applies to the framebuffer resolution.

I didn't change that setting as far as I remember. So it is interesting why it's different for you and @UDb23. Are you using the normal Retropie image on a Pi?

Riverstorm

@Clyde - I apologize I didn't have my advance options turned on. I am using RetroPie 4.4.4 on a Pi 3B+ and a fairly recent m3plus commit and RA 1.7.5. Here's a screenshot of RA inside Gorf to compare. This is on a 1920 x 1200 monitor.

Can you explain a little more on what you mean by framebuffer resolution? Isn't "render resolution" done at a lower res and then the final frame is upscaled to what you see under the video options?

I wonder if that new resolution Grant setup for you is why yours is different. You're game aspect ratio looks correct on screen even though the core provided numbers are 4:3 vs 3:4. They aren't what I would expect to see, like @UDb23 pointed out I would calculate core provided to be 900x1200.

The area I am referring to is the Custom Aspect Ratio settings under Aspect Ratio. Basically you're seeing your display resolution and not the game resolution we typically find with these settings. I don't know how you would get your "game resolution" because the numbers don't reflect it. That's interesting.

snapshot 01.png

snapshot 02.png

Riverstorm

@Clyde - Looking at your screenshots you're actually rendering at a true 1600x1200 it seems but I'm not sure. Which would be slightly more resource intensive than the typical Core Provided 900x1200. I don't know if you would gain much in raster games vs. vector there's a definite advantage.

UDb23

@Clyde As @Riverstorm already said, it is quite strange that your game area, looking at the gorf game screenshot, uses part of the screen but RA reports full 1600x1200 as custom viewport.
Maybe some special global retroarch setting ?

Clyde

@Riverstorm Since the official Retropie image doesn't have a desktop, I suspect that the "desktop resolution" RA will use if you set Fullscreen Width and Height to zero may be the framebuffer resolution on the official Retropie sd card image instead, since it doesn't have a desktop environment installed. You can (re)set the framebuffer via the fbset command, see https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Video-Issues/#reset-the-frame-buffer-after-changing-the-video-mode for an example.

The game area of Gorf is 3:4 and the screen resolution of my monitor is 4:3. I don't quite understand why this seems to be confusing to you, care to elaborate, please?

I also think that RA/mame2003-plus always has to render the whole screen resolution, because I doubt that most monitors would display a mere 900x1200 picture correctly. Please tell me if you see an error in my reasoning.

@Riverstorm @UDb23 According to the descriptions in the XMB interface mode (which is one of the reasons I prefer it to the RGUI mode), the custom viewport settings are only used if Aspect Ratio is set to "Custom", which it isn't in my case. I may have set the values to 1600x1200 for testing purposes some time in the past, but they shouldn't affect the picture at all with Aspect Ratio set to "Core provided".