GameEx vs. MAME bezels

[celly]

What I'm trying to do is have GameEx display the preinstalled bezels for games I don't have bezels for. I have about 18 actual bezels for MAME games that I got from Mr. Do's site. Is there a setting that supplements the GameEx bezel for horizontal games when there isn't one for that game in the artwork folder? Sorry to ask a silly question, when I searched I found a lot of questions about bezels just not the one I had.

[smd111]

i have been wondering about this fore a wile

[fRequEnCy]

There is not a setting for this. When the setting is used in GameEx to use the bezel then it creates it on the fly and then erases it after. If you can somehow figure out how to create the bezel files for the roms your wanting then it is very possible. I don't know of such a tool but then again have never needed such a tool to do this. Only other solution would be to put in a feature request to do this.

[celly]

Looks like I'll drop a feature request. Thanks.

[smd111]

i found a way to do this but it is for all games with artwork

1. disable bezels in gameex

2. create mame.ini with this command mame.exe -createconfig

3. make sure that line 67 in mame.ini is use_bezels 1 not use_bezels 0

4. download artwork pacts from here (no need to decompress) and place in artwork folder located in mame emu base folder

that's it your ready but it does make the game size smaller then normal

[Draco1962]

I still think that this will require a feature request (if even possible) so that you can use the GameEx bezels for those games without one supress the GameEx bezels option for those with a bezel.

[Adultery]

Should just be a simple boolean statement or code block, but I dunno... in other words should be able to code a plugin that does this.

[GoTheBunnies]

I still think that this will require a feature request (if even possible) so that you can use the GameEx bezels for those games without one supress the GameEx bezels option for those with a bezel.

It would an excellent enahncement - some of the Mame bezels look fantastic - it's a shame to be wasting them.

[starbuck]

On a side note, would be cool if when GameEx display the ingame video it would have the bezel around it. Would look great and you then would instantly know if you have a bezel or not. Not sure if this is something that requires Emumovies to do, or if it can be done thru GameEx. Have often thought about requesting some open media slots for Mame and in one of them have it display the bezel.

Also noted that the monitor display has room on either side of the bezel. In that space you could display the GameEx bezel around the existing bezel and game. It's wasted space. Even thought it would look nice to have panels filling in the empty space with digital LED's ot digital neon tubes or flashing lights. During Christmas if could even be filled in with a snow effect or digital christmas lights. Certaining would add a neat display on my cabinet and be another way that GameEx could stand out from the other frontends out there.

[bkenobi]

EmuMovies provides different versions of the videos. As I recall, the choices include low/high res with/without bezels as well as a choice of aspect ratios. These can be downloaded in at least 2 different codec formats as well! All you need to do is grab the right video set and you'll be good to go!

As for a GameEx bezel being displayed around the game bezel...that's a LOT more complicated. You almost would be better off manually creating those few custom bezels. I'm sure something could be coded up, but the logic might get complex.

[starbuck]

Good idea, Bkenobi. Have checked emumovies and can't find ingame videos in any format showing the games being played with bezels. Also checked the Emumovies download service and none of them have bezels. I'll do some checking with Circo and see if he can point me in the right direction. Would it be hard to write a plug-in that provides a backround that would show up behind the ingame video with bezel. Obviously the background would be a video that would provide the neon or flashing lights effect.

[Adultery]

I would think you would almost need a .lay file that goes over the video instead.

But what do I know? *shrugs*

[fRequEnCy]

I would think you would almost need a .lay file that goes over the video instead.

But what do I know? *shrugs*

Not in case of a video. There are videos that include them already. I remember there being a Standard version and Artwork version of a video. The Artwork versions are the one's with the bezels included. I don't remember the location of these videos but they do exist since I do have them on my system.

[starbuck]

Ok, found some ingame snaps with bezel and have incorporated them into my Mame setup. Haven't found any videos with snaps yet. If you can remember where you got them FrequenCy let me know.

Also did some testing and if you put a flash looped movie in the run before, it shows up behind the bezel and the game being played. Should work the same with all emulators and perhaps menus. There are lot of Flash looped background videos available on the net. Wanting one with neon or perhaps flashing lights on either side of the screen. Have never made a flash, so perhaps its time to learn.

If this works the way I believe it should, this should open up a whole lot of screen and menu options for GameEx.