Vectrex Overlay Artwork

edale

Just found this thread, now using @mediamogul's overlays. I didn't know how much I needed these until I actually had them, now I can no longer live without them.

I own a Vectrex, and it's amazing to emulate it with the overlays (most of my real ones have been destroyed over the years).

@Lizard I'll check out your overlays, they look amazing.

*edit- I tried getting @Lizard's overlays to work by modifying @mediamogul's cfg files. I could get the overlay to display properly, but that stretched out the game window to cover my whole screen as well, so it was distorted. Can't figure out retroarch enough to try configuring them.

Can anyone make a .cfg to go in the rom's folder (not the one in the overlays folder) with settings to make these ones work?

Lizard

I don't think it is all necessary to have the CFG file in the ROM folder as I don't. I simply created a default setting with the values I described above entered into the retroarch settings with a default overlay and then save the core setting. This then applied to all games. After that I just opened each game and changed the overlay name.

One thing I did not mention is that Aspect Ratio must be set to CUSTOM. If you have it set for CONFIG or CORE these values will not be displayed properly. But if you were to modify and add a CFG file to the ROM folder these couple things I would verify :

Be sure that the name of the CFG file matches the file name. e.g. Filename is "Frogger.BIN" then the file is "Frogger.BIN.CFG"
the values I would enter would be as follows :

input_overlay_enable = true

input_overlay_opacity = 0.850000
input_overlay_scale = 1.000000

custom_viewport_width = "480"
custom_viewport_height = "600"

custom_viewport_x = "710"
custom_viewport_y = "110"

aspect_ratio_index = "22"
video_scale_integer = false

As said previous your aspect ratio index is probably off. Usually they are values of either 19, 21 or 22. These are respectively # 19 = Config, 20 = 1:1 PAR, 21 = Core Provided, 22 = Custom Viewport.

On another note here is another set. I modified the other one and made this a little more cleaner. ZIP set is below.

Vectrex Overlay Set 2

EDIT :

OK. So I created the CFG files to be dropped into the vetrex ROM folder for the overlays above. To have these wor properly you will have to do these things :

All of the overlays must be in a folder in your overlay folder called "vectrex".
All these files must be renamed to the file in your vetrex roms folder. I could have named them what mine are but the one in your folder could be renamed. So as an example if your file is "Clean Sweep (World).vec" then your filename will be "Clean Sweep (World).vec.cfg". For games that have no inlay just use the Default template and rename it. You may have to make several copies of this .

That is about it. Find the link to the files below.

CFG Files for ROM Folder

edale

@lizard don 't have time tonight, but will test those out sometime over the weekend. Thanks for making that.

Lizard

@edale sure. I hope they work out for you. I'll continue to improve these sets as I can. I'm slowly adding "unofficial" inserts for VEC games that don't have any or as far as I can see. I'll gladly replace them if there are ones.

markwkidd

@mediamogul I'm having trouble visiting the recalbox forum link with the overlays that you shared and I'm worried they're disappearing from the web.

Do you still have the image files saved somewhere, or know where they can be found? It would be great to add them to the libretro overlay github repository...

Edit: This thread has a sister-thread at the libretro forums: https://forums.libretro.com/t/vectrex-overlays/6238 I wonder what we could do with our forces combined..

mediamogul

@markwkidd said in Vectrex Overlay Artwork:

I'm having trouble visiting the recalbox forum link with the overlays that you shared

Are you speaking specifically about those overlays and not the set from my mega link? If it's the prior, I believe I could dig those up, but they were pretty poor quality. The ones I reworked for RetroArch weren't perfect either, but a huge step up. As a coincidence, I recently added an overlay for the 'Mr. Boston' variant of 'Clean Sweep'. Not being able to find one in the wild, I replicated one to match the quality of the others, based on samples I found on Ebay. I've updated the link above and will post it again here. Feel free to add them to whatever Github repo you feel is appropriate.

All things considered, it would be great if we could find someone with an original set or high quality reproductions who could simply scan them at a minimum of 300dpi for preservation. If they had legitimate experience handling graphics, they could even finalize them, but if not, the scans could be handed off to someone else. The ones I worked with were the best I could find, but have glaring anti-aliasing issues that appear to come from up-scaling. In making the 'Mr. Boston' overlay, I intentionally replicated those issues, so that it would match with the lesser quality of the existing 'Clean Sweep' overlay I used as a base.

Overlays with 'Mr. Boston' added:
https://mega.nz/#!Gk8WSKIS!cGFrmmbL2jcRZHRd92aY-tw_KKACcTqfVQG84ryJtl0

0_1520877154875_6157add3-388e-470e-b68f-9f217e7e0335-image.png

markwkidd

I'm looking for RetroArch-compatible Vectrex overlays that exist other than the 1080 collection that exists here: https://github.com/libretro/overlay-borders/tree/master/1080 GCE Vectrex

Would you be interested in contributing your work to that repo, at least until there are better scans of the originals?

mediamogul

@markwkidd

Would you be interested in contributing your work to that repo, at least until there are better scans of the originals?

Sure. I don't even feel a claim to them, as I just adapted existing scans from vectrexmuseum.com for use in RetroArch. If you happen hear of an effort to improve the quality from the ground up, let me know and perhaps I can help avoid certain graphical issues that seem all too common in these areas.

markwkidd

@mediamogul said in Vectrex Overlay Artwork:

@markwkidd

Would you be interested in contributing your work to that repo, at least until there are better scans of the originals?

Sure. I don't even feel a claim to them, as I just adapted existing scans from vectrexmuseum.com for use in RetroArch. If you happen hear of an effort to improve the quality from the ground up, let me know and perhaps I can help avoid certain graphical issues that seem all too common in these areas.

Since classic Vectrex games are public domain, every once in a while I make some tiny steps towards a comprehensive RetroArch Vectrex content download pack.

A few months ago RobLoach and I updated the Vectrex ROMs that you can download through the RetroArch GUI. (Now they're No-Intro verified.) Next maybe a robust set of overlays. One day in the future -- manuals?

Just a side project.

Edit: although this is the kind of thing that would continue to gain steam if a few more people were putting their heads together. My guess is that Rob is mostly interested in this because I think Rob's interested in making homebrew and public domain games available through RA.

I'm personally interested in seeing whether it's viable to consolidate all the essential content and metadata for a freely distributed collection into an automated download via RetroArch. I think Vectrex is very cool, but I'm not especially informed about it or a fan.

ChuckyP

Thanks for the link and the work you put into the artwork for this. Always something new to add to my build, and this looks amazing.

UDb23

@mediamogul said in Vectrex Overlay Artwork:

improve the quality from the ground up, let me know and perhaps I can help avoid certain graphical issues that seem all too common in these areas.

That would be so cool ! I'd love to be able to play vectrex games with the same high res vectors as Advancemame provides !
Similarly to the bounty that @markwkidd created for lr-mame2003 vector rendering quality, maybe we should create a Bounty also for vectrex.

mediamogul

@markwkidd said in Vectrex Overlay Artwork:

Since classic Vectrex games are public domain, every once in a while I make some tiny steps towards a comprehensive RetroArch Vectrex content download pack.
I'm personally interested in seeing whether it's viable to consolidate all the essential content and metadata for a freely distributed collection into an automated download

I think it's a great idea to have these files collected together and easily available through RetroArch. I especially think it's great for Vectrex, as the artwork adds so much to the overall experience.

@UDb23

I'd love to be able to play vectrex games with the same high res vectors as Advancemame provides !

I agree. While it still doesn't scale dynamically, have you tried the new(ish) hi-res settings in the lr-vecx core options? The games look so much better now than they did early on.

UDb23

@mediamogul said in Vectrex Overlay Artwork:

tried the new(ish) hi-res settings in the lr-vecx core options?

Wasn't aware of that improvement, thanks ! Will try next WE.
How does it look @1080p ?

UDb23

@mediamogul said in Vectrex Overlay Artwork:

find someone with an original set or high quality reproductions who could simply scan them at a minimum of 300dpi for preservation.

I you find these scans I'd be happy to contribute in creating the corresponding high res retroarch overlays (vectorizing some of them if that helps getting max quality).

UDb23

Found some artwork scans here.

mediamogul

@udb23 said in Vectrex Overlay Artwork:

Found some artwork scans here.

Now those are pretty good scans. I only wish they hadn't had tried to remove them from the original background, as it wasn't done very cleanly, but they're easily the best I've seen by far. These would definitely be a great jumping off point for either a restoration, vectorization, or both. There are merits to both approaches. A restoration of the originals would look more authentic, but perhaps the ultra sharp quality of vector conversions would better suit the cleaner look you get with emulated Vectrex game play.

ClassicGMR

So between this thread and one on another forum I managed to get all my Vectrex overlays to load and per game. So this is nothing more than a thank you to everyone. :) This forum is great!

Clyde

Sorry for necroing this thread, but since I'm trying to get @mediamogul's overlays to work and this thread is almost the only one about Vectrex overlays in this forum, it may be a good candidate for a collective thread about this topic. If it would be better to start my own thread, please tell me so.

I'm using the unmodified files from @mediamogul on my stock Retropie 4.4 on a monitor with 4:3 1600x1200 resolution. The overlays do work, but they are not in alignment of the game graphics. Three examples:

As you can see, the overlay is a little bit too small or the game's graphics are too large. Although I could expand the overlay via an overlay0_rect option in overlays/gamename.cfg, that would cut off much of the overlay's border at the viewport's edge.

The options custom_viewport_width and custom_viewport_height won't help either, since the overlay is part of the viewport and will change its size collectively with it.

Any ideas how I can fit the overlay to the game's graphics or vice versa?

Two things I noticed while trying to solve the problem:

Retroarch seems to ignore custom_viewport_width and custom_viewport_height even if video_scale_integer is set to "false". I tried to set them to 940:1200, but RA's XMB menu still showed them to be 846:1080, which is the resolution of the overlay's png.
The same goes for aspect_ratio_index = "22" (= custom). The games still start with "core provided" and I have to set it to "custom" manually.

Any help is appreciated
Clyde

UDb23

@Clyde said in Vectrex Overlay Artwork:

The same goes for aspect_ratio_index = "22" (= custom). The games still start with "core provided" and I have to set it to "custom" manually.

Custom index has been changed to 23 some months ago by the RA developers.... impacting all already existing overlays using 22 in the settings.
Try replacing 22 with 23 and see if it helps with the alignment issue.

Clyde

@UDb23 Argh, I read about the change somewhere, but I somehow remembered 22 to be the new value. So I thought that it's already fixed in my config files. 😒 Thanks for the tip!

Alas, although "23" does fix my two issues about the custom viewport (the games start now with a custom viewport of 940x1200), it didn't change anything about the misalignment. I admit that I didn't expect it to, because any change I do to the viewport in the XMB menu affects both the game's graphics and the overlay alike.

Just for the books, setting video_scale_integer on or off also doesn't change anything about the alignment between the two.