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shroud

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Everything posted by shroud

  1. shroud
    Good idea! I'll start a thread in that section.
  2. shroud
    Uhm... I tried a few more icons of different sizes and now also the 64x64 worked fine. Not sure what was wrong previously, but I noticed some pattern: when I create the original image with white background, after turning the background from white to transparent the PNG looks correct but the icon derived from it has once again a white background. If I use a colored background, no problem. This is weird, since the program I used to create the transparency has nothing to do with the one I used to translate PNG to ICO. Anyway the good news is that we can probably create icons of any typical size supported by windows, for example 32x32, 48x48 or 64x64. For high-resolution systems, it might be very hard to capture a sprite in just a 32x32 square, so higher sizes might come in handy, although it means bigger files. That said, a high-res icon is not necessary the best-looking one (see the new examples). gobliiins32.ico gobliiins64.ico keen4_32.ico keen4_64.ico defender_of_the_crown32.ico defender_of_the_crown64.ico ik+32.ico ik+64.ico rick_dangerous32.ico rick_dangerous48.ico
  3. shroud
    Great!! This evening I tried to make the first few test icons, I attach the results here. Making icons is quite easy after all. Here's a checklist of how I did them, using a couple of online tools (but there are many others: 1) Run the game in your favourite emulator, pause to catch a good sprite pose, take a screenshot 2) Copy to Paint, crop to 32x32, make background a single colour if necessary, save as PNG 3) Turn background to transparent > http://www190.lunapic.com/editor/ 4) Convert to icon: > http://www.aconvert.com/icon/ Not sure why, but when trying to use an icon of size different than 32x32 (see for example the 64x64 icon for BC's Quest for Tires), the GameEx menu does not display the transparency properly. This is unfortunate because for some games it's difficult to get a sprite so small that it fits in a 32x32 image without getting some distortion. agent_usa.ico bc's_quest_for_tires.ico boulderdash.ico bruce_lee.ico space_taxi.ico spy_vs_spy.ico
  4. shroud
    Thanks to all of you for your kind encouragements! I'll make some test icons to estimate how much time it takes, so that other people can decide if they are interested in picking this up.
  5. shroud
    Well I'd start a movement only if it gets supported first, I don't want to risk doing work for nothing... especially since I'm already promised to covering for missing video snaps
  6. shroud
    Back in the day it was either Dragon's Lair or Shinobi for me. Nowadays I prefer more mellow classics like Burger Time, Flicky, Elevator Action or Pang.
  7. shroud
    Well I don't know what MAME uses icons for... But GameEx doesn't need MAME to show icons in its own menus, or does it? Or are they different from video snaps, logos and covers?
  8. shroud
    Added to the enhancement request thread! I am not endorsing a completionist task, particularly because this is such a small eye-candy, clearly it cannot compare in usefulness with video snaps or other artworks. But it seems to me very easy to implement, and if enabled, then each interested user can make their own icons and share them. Naturally I would start with the icons of the games I have in my collection, but most of them are very famous games so probably other people would be happy to use my icons.
  9. shroud
    FEATURE REQUEST: Enabling game ICONS for non-MAME emulators Currently, there exists a feature for showing up small icons besides a game's name in MAME menus. It would be very nice if the same feature existed for any emulated system, and not just MAME. An entry for defining the path for your icons files would be needed in the emulator setup view in Setup Wizard.
  10. shroud
    My guess is that it should be very easy to add the same feature for all systems, after all it will be exactly the same as for MAME, since it's only a functionality of the menus. As for the icons themselves, I was thinking about creating them myself. But until GameEx supports them, there is no point in embarking in such a task.
  11. shroud
    Is it possible at all in GameEx to enable game ICONS (those that show up besides the game name in menus) for emulated systems other than MAME? For MAME, you just need to define a path for your icons files in Setup Wizard, but can the same be done for other systems? It wouldn't seem to require anything different than from MAME, since this is a feature that depends only on GameEx, and not the actual emulators, right?
  12. shroud
    Somewhere it was mentioned a "-fullscreen" switch. I don't use it however because Higan remembers the last configuration settings, so for me it's not necessary, but it might be handy to make sure it opens always in -fullscreen in GameEx.
  13. shroud
    GameEx.ini I think there isn't much needed to actually configure Higan to work in GameEx. The command line is simply higan-balanced.exe "[ROMPATH]\[ROMFILE]", other settings are defined directly inside the emulator. I have no idea on how popular is higan for emulating NES/SNES, I chose it a long time ago because I've read somewhere that it had high accuracy, good performance, compatibility with almost all games, and didn't require an installation (which for me is important since I wanted to carry my retrogaming collection on a USB stick and make it "plug-and-play" -> actually GameEx is the only part which requires an installation and prevents me to fulfill the original idea). GameEx.ini
  14. shroud
    That was fast! You were right, all that was needed was to just press buttons on the controller to redefine them in Settings -> Configuration -> Input. That was my first thought and I am sure I tried it, but didn't work... perhaps the wireless controller did not "wake up" when starting Higan, but it finally worked when I tried the same thing through GameEx, at which point the controller had already started working for the GameEx menu. Well the important part is that now everything's good Thanks a lot!
  15. shroud
    Hello, I have always been using Higan (version 92) for emulating NES and SNES behind the GameEx front-end, no problem with launching the games as long as I don't use a version of Higan newer than 93, because to my understanding since version 94 Higan doesn't work from the command line anymore. However I have problems configuring Higan to use my wireless gamepad/controllers (or any other joystick). The controller is not recognized automatically. I know that key mappings are defined in Settings -> Configuration -> Input, but I couldn't find how controllers keys should be defined (it doesn't work like MAME, where you can just press the keys on the controller and they will be automatically detected). Or is there any command line option to automatically detect a controller? If you have any experience using Higan in GameEx, I would appreciate any suggestion, before I consider switching to a different NES/SNES emulator entirely.
  16. shroud
    Heh I am glad I've been useful, even if accidentally So what kind of bezels have you decided to use from now on?
  17. shroud
    Thank you Kustom Kid! I didn't even know that there was such a thing as an "authentic bezel", do you mean that these were actually used in original arcade cabinets? That's very cool, although since I am running GameEx on a PC, in my case I will choose playability (i.e. maximized game screen) over authenticity. Another thing I just discovered yesterday, is that MAME offers a "standard" mode 4:3 (3:4 for vertical games) vs a "pixel aspect" mode 8:7 (7:8 for vertical games). So now I wonder which one was actually the original aspect ratio used in arcade cabinets? Some games (e.g. "Scrambled Eggs") look remarkably better with "pixel aspect", but I always thought that arcade cabinets had 4:3/3:4 screens. I don't think there are bezels around using this 8:7 ratio.
  18. shroud
    It doesn't seem to be inevitable to me... If I had a 16x9 screen and used the EmuMovies bezels, the loss of screen size would be zero, because those bezels only add to the left and the right. I don't see why the same couldn't be done in 4x3, but for some reason the only 4x3 bezels I have found so far add also to the top and the bottom.
  19. shroud
    What was actually blocking me was basically having wrong bezel files... I had them in a format for RocketLauncher (which I don't use), but now I have them in the correct PNG+LAY format. Now my only issue left, is to actually find 4x3 bezels, because they always seem to be 16x9, or those few which I could find in 4x3 aspect ratio they actually go all around the game screen area, thus shrinking it to much smaller. I'd like them to be filling only the left and right sides, without making the game screen smaller.
  20. shroud
    Thanks a lot! So it really was easy after all...
  21. shroud
    Would it be possible to have some expert step up and explain how to setup bezels from scratch in GameEx? There are lots of threads in the forums, but they are all about specific issues and I can't wrap my head around them... I don't understand why bezels have to be so much more complicated to make them work, compared to all other features in GameEx! Assume I merely downloaded some bezel zip files for a few specific games, and I just want them to be displayed around the game screen while playing: - how do I check that the bezel files are in the correct format? - in which folder do I need to save those files? - how do I setup MAME to use those bezels? - how do I setup GameEx to use those bezels? I think I understood some do's and don'ts, but I'd better have a simple but complete step-by-step instruction from zero. Thanks a lot!
  22. shroud
    We have two controllers, a traditional PC joystick + a typical console gamepad with two analog sticks. The first is USB-wired and the second is USB-wireless, and are recognized automatically by GameEx, they work fine, but I need some hints on the following two issues (mostly related to MAME): 1) The PC joystick automatically works as player 1's control, and the wireless gamepad as player 2's. Is there a way to switch them? Since the gamepad is better, we would like it to be the player 1's default so that it's also the default for 1-player games in general (or games where the 2 players alternate but the original cabinet had 1 joystick only). I could not find a way to order the joysticks in the Setup Wizard. 2) Some MAME games require two simultaneous joysticks for a single player. Of these at least I know "Karate Champ", "Crazy Climber" and "Joyful Road". How can I set up the gamepad so that the two sticks are mapped to joystick 1 and joystick 2? Should this be done inside MAME?
  23. shroud
    Is it possible to change the order of items in the main GameEx menu, or is this part of the "Custom Menus" functionality for premium users only? For example in my case, I am putting all my emulators in the main menu, as well as MAME and "Most played" and "Last played", and the default order I get is the following: [Arcade] MAME Most Played Last Played [Arcade] Daphne [Console] ColecoVision [Console] IntelliVision .... (all other emulators here) So this default looks quite goofy because of the "Most Played" and "Last Played" lists appearing in the middle, because MAME is treated separately from other emulators. Is it possible to adjust this with the freeware version of GameEx?
  24. shroud
    I have seen the black-screen-return-to-GameEx case often with other emulators as well. Sometimes it's simply a wrong path, so make sure you've checked that. But first of all, you should always make sure the emulator works and launches games as a standalone, not via GameEx. If you have a problem with configuration or kickstarts then games will fail to launch already when starting WinUAE from its exe file. Then if you want to know, my current line command for WinUAE in GameEx is simply "winuae.exe [configuration path] -0 [gamefiles path]". However I have also added a WaitBeforeKeys=3000 and SendKeys="[ENTER]" in the Advanced Emulator Setup section.
  25. shroud
    Yes this sounds like a good reason clearly, skipping loading times and avoiding multiple disks. But somehow I got the message that Amiga games just wouldn't run without WinUAE Loader, but now I see it was a misunderstanding I am sure one day I will also switch to WHDLoad for those reasons, so far I just didn't want to face all the additional installation tasks.
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