Good news everyone!

[RatherAnnoyed]

+ T +, in response to your query about sizing:

 

I tried last night, and realised what it is that was confusing me earlier with this.

 

It wasn't that I wasn't getting the "default" sizes, it was that these default sizes did not use the full vertical of the screen. This of course meant that I was having to go in and resize every game anyway, as I'd prefer the full vertical was used - however, this also obviously meant I was losing the true aspect ratio because I was doing it by eye.

 

To clear things up, here's how I believe it works currently:

Any vert scrollers get given a default screen ratio of 3:4.

Any horizontal scrollers get a default of 4:3.

All games have their own config also, which overwrites the default if you should set the screen size while playing that game.

There is no option to set your own defaults (as far as I can see).

 

This current setup is great. i.e. a default screen size but with the option of overwriting that for preference per game. The only thing I would say is, it would be perfect if this default size could fill the whole screen, OR the user could have access to the two defaults (vert and horizontal) that are hidden away, preferably with a "locked aspect ratio" also.

 

Does that all make sense?

 

Lastly, these new additional roms for the update, which MAME they from?

[+ T +]

The new screen resizing code is done and it works pretty much as you describe. There is a default screen size setting which can now be adjusted in the main video options. You can also adjust the screen size for an individual game using the in-game video options. So this should keep everybody happy.

 

With vertical games the screen values are simply rotated so the default horizontal width will become the default vertical height when rotated (and the same for the other axis). This isn't as problematic as it might sound and is even desireable to those who like to keep their ratios consistent as, if you set your horizontal default to a perfect 4:3 ratio then your vertical default will automatically be perfect 3:4. It just means some playing with the settings until you find a happy medium that fills your screen in both standard and rotated modes.

 

I've got no problem with changing FBL's preset default values if that's what everybody wants. The existing values are geared primarily towards SD users since they allow for overscan, but nes6502 clearly saw it as better to have black borders on an HD setup than to lose parts of the screen on an SD setup and I agree with this. If I was going to set new defaults I would probably be more inclined to set the screen to reflect how an actual arcade board's video output would look (most games in FBL use a vertical resolution of 224 so it would be 448 vertical and an arbitrary stretched horizontal value as would be displayed by a CRT monitor).

 

The ROMs in FBL aren't based on any particular version of MAME, most will be between 0.139 and 0.141. I'd like to update them all in future to match the latest MAME dumps, but that's further down the road. But as I said, full DATs will be included.

[RatherAnnoyed]

Yeah, you're thinking of SD users (with the overscan issue), which is fair enough. I'd leave it as that if I were you. I agree on which is preferable.

 

The only thing I'd add to this (and I'm not sure if you already did this, but anyway), is allow us to easily tell if the screen default we've set is the ratio we want (4:3, 3:4, whatever). Either simply a division of the pixels, or a lock mechanism - doesn't matter how it works, really.

 

Brill, I already have most of 141. Final hassle, I promise, but... any chance of Raiden Fighters series?

[+ T +]

Unfortunately, due to the way FBL handles video, it's extremely difficult to determine how many pixels or what ratio a given screen size is. Anyone who has ever tried to achieve a specific size on Zsnexbox will understand exactly what I mean. In terms of visually filling a screen the system works great but it's simply not intended for use of specific values.

 

As far as I know Raiden Fighters runs on a CPU that isn't emulated under FBA so it would require some serious dev work of the sort that is way beyond my capabilities. I can change existing code and add code from other sources but if you ask me to code anything from scratch then I'm afraid you're asking too much.

Edited August 1, 2011 by + T +

[fumanchu]

Yeah, you're thinking of SD users (with the overscan issue), which is fair enough. I'd leave it as that if I were you. I agree on which is preferable.

 

The only thing I'd add to this (and I'm not sure if you already did this, but anyway), is allow us to easily tell if the screen default we've set is the ratio we want (4:3, 3:4, whatever). Either simply a division of the pixels, or a lock mechanism - doesn't matter how it works, really.

 

Brill, I already have most of 141. Final hassle, I promise, but... any chance of Raiden Fighters series?

i enjoy playing the raiden fighters series,of course if you have a jtag 360 then you can always get raiden fighters aces which includes all 3 raiden fighters games.or you can emulate raiden fighters 2(2000) on mameox128 and coinops.

[RatherAnnoyed]

No worries, just thought I'd ask (about rdft)!

 

Is there some way for us to edit those default values directly, then? Even if it's just a config edit, that would do the job. i.e. you point us towards the file that contains the values you're using for these defaults, and we just work out what we want them set to and edit them straight in? I'm just trying to think of ways to avoid trying to set the screen size purely on just how it looks, is all.

 

I guess I could get a tape measure out, huh? Ha.

 

Thanks for the responses anyway, and looking forward to the new release immensely.

 

Just noticed you jumped in there fu: yeah, I have them running on a laptop anyway. I was all over the PAL release of Raiden Fighters for 360, but it's very much dead now. A shame. Not prepared to go buy a whole new console just for them, though!

[gamez fan]

if you like the the raiden fighters series you might like viper phase 1 crackin game thats a spin off of raiden fighters by the same company

[gamez fan]

Yeah, you're thinking of SD users (with the overscan issue), which is fair enough. I'd leave it as that if I were you. I agree on which is preferable.

 

The only thing I'd add to this (and I'm not sure if you already did this, but anyway), is allow us to easily tell if the screen default we've set is the ratio we want (4:3, 3:4, whatever). Either simply a division of the pixels, or a lock mechanism - doesn't matter how it works, really.

 

Brill, I already have most of 141. Final hassle, I promise, but... any chance of Raiden Fighters series?

i enjoy playing the raiden fighters series,of course if you have a jtag 360 then you can always get raiden fighters aces which includes all 3 raiden fighters games.or you can emulate raiden fighters 2(2000) on mameox128 and coinops.

loads of people have asked for raiden fighters over the years might just be the most request games for mame or fba want to ask you fumanchu whats the reasons for raiden fighters never being emulated on the xbox is it lack of power under the hood or that fact that it would be a major hastle for the developers to make it happen since we can now play raiden fighters 2 (2000) whats the odds of raiden fighters jet (2000) being playable in coinops at some point

[+ T +]

Is there some way for us to edit those default values directly, then? Even if it's just a config edit, that would do the job. i.e. you point us towards the file that contains the values you're using for these defaults, and we just work out what we want them set to and edit them straight in? I'm just trying to think of ways to avoid trying to set the screen size purely on just how it looks, is all.

The short answer is yes, there is a file you can edit and input the values directly.

 

The long answer is; FBL's true default screen size values are hardcoded into the emulator and cannot be changed. What you are doing when you resize the screen in the UI is defining a set of values that act as modifiers. The sum of the base value + the modifier determines the screen size. The modifiers are represented by long decimal values that are relative to the base values and therefore cannot be translated into standard pixel dimensions. So how useful the ability to directly edit them will be I'm not sure, but it does make it easier to share your screen size with other users.

Edited August 1, 2011 by + T +

[RatherAnnoyed]

Ah, right, I get you.

I see, now, how this isn't as straightforward as I first suspected!

[fumanchu]

Yeah, you're thinking of SD users (with the overscan issue), which is fair enough. I'd leave it as that if I were you. I agree on which is preferable.

 

The only thing I'd add to this (and I'm not sure if you already did this, but anyway), is allow us to easily tell if the screen default we've set is the ratio we want (4:3, 3:4, whatever). Either simply a division of the pixels, or a lock mechanism - doesn't matter how it works, really.

 

Brill, I already have most of 141. Final hassle, I promise, but... any chance of Raiden Fighters series?

i enjoy playing the raiden fighters series,of course if you have a jtag 360 then you can always get raiden fighters aces which includes all 3 raiden fighters games.or you can emulate raiden fighters 2(2000) on mameox128 and coinops.

loads of people have asked for raiden fighters over the years might just be the most request games for mame or fba want to ask you fumanchu whats the reasons for raiden fighters never being emulated on the xbox is it lack of power under the hood or that fact that it would be a major hastle for the developers to make it happen since we can now play raiden fighters 2 (2000) whats the odds of raiden fighters jet (2000) being playable in coinops at some point

the main reason is bacause the raiden fighters series were not added until a later version of mame(pc),something like version 0.93 before the first drivers were available.

coinops and mameox 128 are based off mame 0.84,i think also the reason raiden fighters 2(2000) is playable on the xbox is because it is a bootleg of raiden fighters 2 with the playable ships from raiden fighters jet included.

the drivers from raiden fighters,raiden fighters 2 and raiden fighters jet were added to mameox 128 but they give you either a black screen or sometime an out of memory error.

the out of memory error can be resolved by messing around with the settings on the vmm(virtual memory manager).