Bezels / Overlay in other emulators than mame possible?

[Rochabian]

For Gameboy or portable device emulation, i want to add a bezel of the emulated machine around the game screen because i want to emulate resolution in 1:1 and i have black border all around the screen ( see example attached).

I use mainly MEDNAFEN for GB,GBC or GBA emulation and i don't have found such option for this emulator

I know that Rocket launcher is able to add bezel in overlay of the emulator.

Can i do the same thing in Gameex or with Mednafen itself ?

Thanks

[stigzler]

Retroarch does it:

 

[Rochabian]

Nice ! I have to try  and integrate it in my Gameex setup. I hope it can produce 1:1 emulation but as it seems that it uses the core of mednafen it should handle it.

Thanks stigzler !

[Adultery]

 

I've been using this for a while. I actually switched to this emulator solely for the overlays. I knocked up a few that look similar to these and tweaked each core's viewable areas to for my monitor, it adds a nice touch. It's good enough for me, not that you need my endorsement. I even applied a filter for Game Boy that shows the games in the old monochrome style.

 

 

 

 

[Rochabian]

Yes ,i've tested it this afternoon and i have done  a custom overlay for GB. I have a good result with screen resolution 256x240 and integer scale x1, pixels are perfect

But scrolling doen't seems smooth (it wasn't with Mednafen too), i have to play with settings to get smooth scrolling and everything will be fine!

[shroud]

I would be very interested in this too, albeit for systems other than portables devices.

 

Most of my emulated systems use 4:3 aspect ratio, and when I run GameEx on a 16:9 screen, I get the empty area on both sides. It would be very nice if GameEx itself could support bezels, instead of relying on the individual emulators to do so.

[Tom Speirs]

Because most emulators use DirectX its not really possible for GameEx itself to add the overlays as far as I aware.

[shroud]

I thought I heard RocketLauncher can provide that, but maybe that's not true...

[Draco1962]

I believe that it can. At least per the RocketLauncher wiki.

[stigzler]

Interesting, this...Not clear from that page which Emu's it works with. it says "In the bottom of this page, you can find the list of compatible emulators so far." but not clear at bottom of the page. It says Mame and Mess, which would make sense, as this has built-in functionality to overlay bezels?

I'd be interested to see if it works with other emus. Most stand alone emus draw the screen themselves and don't accept external additions to their display through DX? Only exception I can think of would be retro-arch as this interfaces with the emu dlls directly, thus can apply 'post'processing' before the final emulator display. 

Of course, I'm likely talking out of my arse, as this stuff is very techie and ,likely way beyond me!

 

[shroud]

40 minutes ago, stigzler said:

Interesting, this...Not clear from that page which Emu's it works with. it says "In the bottom of this page, you can find the list of compatible emulators so far." but not clear at bottom of the page. It says Mame and Mess, which would make sense, as this has built-in functionality to overlay bezels?

I'd be interested to see if it works with other emus.

 

Other emulators seem to be mentioned in these threads about bezels, but not all of them because they work

 

http://www.rlauncher.com/forum/archive/index.php/f-57.html

 

So what does RocketLauncher do that GameEx can't? It interacts directly with the emulators, while GameEx merely starts them?

[RedDog]

You are correct.

GameEx is a launcher. When you launch a game within GameEx, GameEx will take a batch file called runitgame.bat and update it with all the settings and parameters you configured in the Setup Wizard. It then executes that batch file to start the emulator. GameEx then sits in the background waiting for the emulator to close down before moving back to the forefront.

I am not familair with Rocketlauncher, but I asusme that Rocketlauncher acts as a shell with the emulators running 'inside'. While this means it is able to do some additional fancy things like custom bezels for any emulator, this type structure usually requires more system resources.

What it really comes down to is a difference in how each dev team decided to implement their projects. Both ways have their benefits and drawbacks.

[Draco1962]

22 minutes ago, shroud said:

So what does RocketLauncher do that GameEx can't? It interacts directly with the emulators, while GameEx merely starts them?

In essence, yes. Based upon the description for RocketLauncher. RL can be used as both an emulator or emulator hub and front end, or used with your choice of front end.

[DazzleHP]

On 30/05/2017 at 8:19 PM, RedDog said:

You are correct.

GameEx is a launcher. When you launch a game within GameEx, GameEx will take a batch file called runitgame.bat and update it with all the settings and parameters you configured in the Setup Wizard. It then executes that batch file to start the emulator. GameEx then sits in the background waiting for the emulator to close down before moving back to the forefront.

I am not familair with Rocketlauncher, but I asusme that Rocketlauncher acts as a shell with the emulators running 'inside'. While this means it is able to do some additional fancy things like custom bezels for any emulator, this type structure usually requires more system resources.

What it really comes down to is a difference in how each dev team decided to implement their projects. Both ways have their benefits and drawbacks.

Nailed it! GameEx is a launcher, always has been. It does what it does with nothing more than commands and great DB/media links. It never alters any (third party/emulator) code in any way. Some of these other softwares are questionable, not to mention specialised. Yet GameEx always could, and will always run ANYTHING that utilizes the commandline.

 

(that is pretty much any decent software out there by the way)

Edited June 2, 2017 by DazzleHP
emphasized in brackets