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    Custom backdrops for old mono games

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Projects and Themes
    artworkmame
    3 Posts 1 Posters 588 Views
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    • J
      JimmyFromTheBay
      last edited by JimmyFromTheBay

      There are a few classic games that suffer in Retroarch from having had painted backdrops in arcades and therefore looking very plain in emulation. Sometimes that's been solved with scans, but for some of the really old and obscure titles the art is completely lost and the games have no atmosphere at all as a result.

      So I was idling around one day and I thought "Why not just pretty these games up a bit with some original backdrops?"

      So in my usual slapdash style I starting mucking about in Paint Shop Pro 7 and came up with a few crude examples. (These are actual screen photographs so don't look the crispest, but in real life the effect is pretty good.)

      SUB HUNTER

      sh1.jpg

      (The side bezels there are from the best pic I could find - not good at all - of the real cabinet.)

      DEPTH CHARGE

      dch1.jpg

      M-79 AMBUSH

      m781.jpg

      DESERT GUN (aka ROAD RUNNER)

      dgu1.jpg

      (The only look I could get at the Desert Gun art was on a terrible low-res YouTube video which showed - appropriately enough - a Road Runnerish rolling desert with roads, so I used a pic from a real RR cartoon to keep to the spirit.)

      desgun.jpg

      It's good fun if you're bored and gives some old games a whole new dimension that makes them much more enjoyable. I'm sure people far more talented than me could come up with some really good stuff.

      Raspberry Pi 3b and 8GB Raspberry Pi 4, both running Retropie 4.7.1 installed from scratch using Raspberry Pi Imager, with wired keyboard, wireless mouse and double arcade joystick attached.

      J 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 3
      • J
        JimmyFromTheBay @JimmyFromTheBay
        last edited by

        (Trying to upload the overlays now but the forum is whining that the files are too big.)

        Raspberry Pi 3b and 8GB Raspberry Pi 4, both running Retropie 4.7.1 installed from scratch using Raspberry Pi Imager, with wired keyboard, wireless mouse and double arcade joystick attached.

        J 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • J
          JimmyFromTheBay @JimmyFromTheBay
          last edited by JimmyFromTheBay

          Okay, here they are:

          https://easyupload.io/gy7no9

          For most of them you'll want to set aspect_ratio_index = "21" and input_overlay_opacity = "0.350000" and input_overlay_scale = 1.060000 or thereabouts in your CFG file.

          Raspberry Pi 3b and 8GB Raspberry Pi 4, both running Retropie 4.7.1 installed from scratch using Raspberry Pi Imager, with wired keyboard, wireless mouse and double arcade joystick attached.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
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