Bezels & Artwork

[S Thomas]

OK, so I used spent part of the day downloading art from MrDo and I have an impressive collection of bezels and artwork which is great. Already have full set of emumovies and all the marques and cabinets as well.

A few things, I noticed when choosing "use bezels for vertical games" in GameEx setup the help tag says to put the artwork in a GAMEEX subfolder not in the artwork folder of MAME as I did? Why is this and what difference will it make?

Well mine works fine in the mame/artwork folder but the layout files that come with the artwork often resizes the playable area often to a size that is less than ideal. Now the image looks grwat but Rampage for example is maybe 40% of the normal size. I am running a bigscreen (60") and some games spread to fit the whole screen but anything with the artwork stays in a smaller screen format and at a much reduced size.

So, if I remove the layout files will GameEx know how to handle the artwork?

If I put the files in the GameEx subfolder will it handle thing differently?

I tried running Advance MAME, knowing that it deals with big screen better, I lost all ability to use the bezel artwork at all. despite the bezels ON being chosen in config. I did like how well it cleaned up the resolution on the larger screen but configuration was tedious since I could not get it to run except as command line and configuring the controls was tedious for my x-arcade. So I abandoned it. I'm back to MAME32 and it works except for the resize issue.

I have turned "use bezels" on/off and it seems to make no difference in this particular example. Currently I have "Use Bezels in Vertical Games" turned OFF and all the artwork shows as described. What does "Use Bezels" actually do then?

In a perfect world, I'd love for the games to fill a certain footprint and the artwork to be outside that area, so games are ALWAYS a certain size. Is there a way to do this with my current config?

I may end up manually pulling the artwork out that makes those specific games less playable. Too bad because some of the artwork is really nice and adds a lot to the ambiance of the play. Some games are fine. The Pacman series do OK despite large art, but Rampage and metalSlug, Golden Tee are overrun by the artwork.

Is this a take it or leave it deal. You use the bezels for certain games and not for others?

A cool option would be a hotkey that would allow you to TOGGLE OFF/ON the artwork in the game!!!

That way if a game loads and it's not really playable, you hit a key combo, and it reverts to the correct size, then LATER you can pull the files out, rather than exiting out of GAMEEX, killing the file and then reloading the game again.

Any suggestions would be great.

Thanks

Shawn

[Brian Hoffman]

  S Thomas said:

OK, so I used spent part of the day downloading art from MrDo and I have an impressive collection of bezels and artwork which is great. Already have full set of emumovies and all the marques and cabinets as well.

A few things, I noticed when choosing "use bezels for vertical games" in GameEx setup the help tag says to put the artwork in a GAMEEX subfolder not in the artwork folder of MAME as I did? Why is this and what difference will it make?

Well mine works fine in the mame/artwork folder but the layout files that come with the artwork often resizes the playable area often to a size that is less than ideal. Now the image looks grwat but Rampage for example is maybe 40% of the normal size. I am running a bigscreen (60") and some games spread to fit the whole screen but anything with the artwork stays in a smaller screen format and at a much reduced size.

So, if I remove the layout files will GameEx know how to handle the artwork?

If I put the files in the GameEx subfolder will it handle thing differently?

I tried running Advance MAME, knowing that it deals with big screen better, I lost all ability to use the bezel artwork at all. despite the bezels ON being chosen in config. I did like how well it cleaned up the resolution on the larger screen but configuration was tedious since I could not get it to run except as command line and configuring the controls was tedious for my x-arcade. So I abandoned it. I'm back to MAME32 and it works except for the resize issue.

I have turned "use bezels" on/off and it seems to make no difference in this particular example. Currently I have "Use Bezels in Vertical Games" turned OFF and all the artwork shows as described. What does "Use Bezels" actually do then?

In a perfect world, I'd love for the games to fill a certain footprint and the artwork to be outside that area, so games are ALWAYS a certain size. Is there a way to do this with my current config?

I may end up manually pulling the artwork out that makes those specific games less playable. Too bad because some of the artwork is really nice and adds a lot to the ambiance of the play. Some games are fine. The Pacman series do OK despite large art, but Rampage and metalSlug, Golden Tee are overrun by the artwork.

Is this a take it or leave it deal. You use the bezels for certain games and not for others?

A cool option would be a hotkey that would allow you to TOGGLE OFF/ON the artwork in the game!!!

That way if a game loads and it's not really playable, you hit a key combo, and it reverts to the correct size, then LATER you can pull the files out, rather than exiting out of GAMEEX, killing the file and then reloading the game again.

Any suggestions would be great.

Thanks

Shawn

MAME will let you do this from the config... (TAB) video options...

[S Thomas]

Do what? I asked a few questions?

you mean toggle bezels? If so, is it a toggle and remember the settings like controls for THIS GAME so that game will always show or not show it?

Or does it toggle bezels off for ALL games?

If this is not what you were referring then please clarify.

Thanks

[Brian Hoffman]

  S Thomas said:

Do what? I asked a few questions?

you mean toggle bezels? If so, is it a toggle and remember the settings like controls for THIS GAME so that game will always show or not show it?

Or does it toggle bezels off for ALL games?

If this is not what you were referring then please clarify.

Thanks

It will toggle the Bezel for the game currently playing... not all bezels. It might not even be perminate.

Hope that helps

As far as your other questions they are all related.. Like will it toggle for all games.. Because you like some... Again my suggestion is a per game one.

Also you may want to post your log so we can see your command options.

And of course you can always romove the ones you dont want.

[Stu1983]

Not sure if it's what you want but I set mine to Crop Artwork, that way the game is full screen but any space at the side of vertical games for example is filled with the bezel

The downside is you don't get any artwork at the top or bottom of vertical games or at the top, bottom and sides of horizontal games in a horizontal monitor setup

Stu

[S Thomas]

OK,

the combination of tabbing out of the bezel and cropping to fit screen is the best compromise I have seen

thanks everyone for the help.

I'll likely run Crop for most things but I can always switch to full on those works well

awesome guys