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 Post subject: DaphneLoader in fullscreen window
PostPosted: Tue Mar 04, 2008 9:25 pm 
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does anyone know if there is a way to change the game list font and screenshot size in daphneloader when running it in a fullscreen window?

I am running it maximized but the gamelist font is too small and so are the screenshots.


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PostPosted: Sun Mar 09, 2008 4:39 pm 
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Sounds like you are trying to run daphne loader on an arcade cabinet. Do NOT do that! :wink: Any decent multi-emulator front-end that supports command line options should support daphne. Setup each game the way you want via the loader and then turn on "display command line" in the advanced options, run the game and write down the command line it gives you. Now use this command line for lauching the game in the fe of your choice, which can be setup with a nice big list and snap graphic.


I'm working on a laserdisc skin for my fe, The Dragon King, but at the rate I'm going this version will never be released.

Image

Anyway, that's just an idea of what is possible. I think that the daphne loader was meant as a simple configuration/lauching tool and isn't really meant to be optimized for viewing.


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PostPosted: Sun Mar 09, 2008 11:20 pm 
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whoa, that is incredible! Keep up the good work HowardC! I'd love to see that skin released!


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PostPosted: Mon Mar 10, 2008 11:05 pm 
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Thanks man... it's been sitting on my harddrive for about 2 years, I've just recently started cleaning it up. The skin isn't the issue though, it's the fe itself. I haven't done a proper release for over 2 years and as of now I'm not in any hurry to release it. This skin uses effects that aren't available on the last public build.


Something I am trying to do related to this though is getting a proper daphne artwork pack together. There are other one's out there, but they aren't as complete as I'd like them. Myabe you guys can help me out.

Here's a list of what I'm looking for:

Esh cabinet image (full sized)
Thayer's Quest Cabinet Image (with sideart would be nice, but I can photoshop it on if necessary)
Us vs Them Cabinet Image (I've already photoshopped a bottom on the existing image, but a proper image would be nice)


SDQ intro video (those nifty preview vids on d-l-p is about the compression level for good viewing, maybe a little better)

Cobra Command Intro video

Interstellar Marquee
Time Gal Marquee (I know it's not in daphne, but still)
Ninja Hayate Marquee

Control Panel Images for pretty much all the new games added in the last release. (Although honestly I haven't looked a lot yet).

There's also some random ALG stuff I'm missing, but I haven't dived into that yet.

I've pretty much exhausted the resources of d-l-p, klov and TAFA so I was hoping maybe some private collectors might have some pics I could use. In terms of the cabinets, the classic klov 3/4 shot looks best.

I wanted to give the pack back to d-l-p once I'm done. One of the things I'm doing that should be helpful is I'm "super blacking" the cabinet images. By that I mean I isolate the cabinet image, adjust it's brightness by 1 pixel (which isn't even noticable) and then paint the whole background solid black and save to a png. On a web page or a regular viewer the images look normal, but in a fe or viewer that supports color-keying the background can be keyed out with a solid black key. It's how I got rid of the background on the cabinet in the screenshot.

I prefer this method with flyers, cabinets and marquees rather than an alpha channel because if you view a image with transparent parts in a viewer that doesn't support alpha blending, you get an ugly white background. This way the images are just more flexible.

So long story short, if anybody wants to pitch in let me know. I can post what I have so far if it'd be helpful.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Mar 11, 2008 3:18 am 
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HowardC wrote:
SDQ intro video (those nifty preview vids on d-l-p is about the compression level for good viewing, maybe a little better)

Cobra Command Intro video


Why are you including attract videos? If a user has that game installed, then s/he has the attract video. Your fe would have to know where the framefile is, so just play the user's own video and be done with it. It'll make the skin a lot smaller.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Mar 11, 2008 8:40 pm 
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Well it might know where the framefile is, but it doesn't know the start/stop points for the attract loop. Also as it's a generic fe and not a daphne specific one, there's no special code in there for daphne and therefore it doesn't know how to read framefiles anyway.

Also with a skin with a lot of blending effects like this one, streaming a 640x480 mpeg onto a texture can cause slowdowns. It shouldn't if I coded it better, but I haven't so this is just simplier. Of course there's also the ogg/mpeg syncing thing, which again would require daphne specific code.


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PostPosted: Tue Mar 11, 2008 9:58 pm 
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HowardC wrote:
Also with a skin with a lot of blending effects like this one, streaming a 640x480 mpeg onto a texture can cause slowdowns.


Are you using some kind of 3D Acceleration (Direct3D / OpenGL) for this? If you want a reference on how to do this fast, check out the latest Daphne SVN; for Daphne's OpenGL mode, I am streaming the mpeg onto a texture, using a fragment shader to do all the expensive calculations.
I have no idea how to do anything in Direct3D.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Wed Mar 12, 2008 2:01 am 
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HowardC wrote:
Well it might know where the framefile is, but it doesn't know the start/stop points for the attract loop.


We could easily determine this. We know for any given laserdisc exactly what frames contain the attract. The framefile has the laserdisc offset value, so a quick calculation could tell your fe exactly which frame number to seek to.

HowardC wrote:
Also as it's a generic fe and not a daphne specific one, there's no special code in there for daphne and therefore it doesn't know how to read framefiles anyway.


Well, that's another story then. But it sure would be cool if it could. ;) I haven't seen any fe's yet that really handle daphne all that well for an arcade environment. The best I've seen so far was daphnex, which was xbox exclusive and obviously written just for daphne. But, it has lots of UI bugs and is no longer supported. :(

I still wish the daphnex code would be released even if only so we can get the fe from it.


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PostPosted: Wed Mar 12, 2008 4:56 pm 
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Matt Ownby wrote:
HowardC wrote:
Also with a skin with a lot of blending effects like this one, streaming a 640x480 mpeg onto a texture can cause slowdowns.


Are you using some kind of 3D Acceleration (Direct3D / OpenGL) for this? If you want a reference on how to do this fast, check out the latest Daphne SVN; for Daphne's OpenGL mode, I am streaming the mpeg onto a texture, using a fragment shader to do all the expensive calculations.
I have no idea how to do anything in Direct3D.


Unfortunately the reason I have to use such a half-backwards way of coding has to do with the wierd combination of languages I'm using. It runs on vb6 and dx8, which suprisingly works really well, with one exception. The vb6 interface to directshow doesn't have direct access to the rendersurface output Right now I'm simply using a samplegrabber filter, throwing the frame on the hdd as a raw bitmap, and then loading it back. As you can imagine, this can be taxing on a machine.

Now there are certainly other ways to do it, I could write a c++ dll, I could write a custom wrapper, ect, but I haven't looked into it yet. I just learned how to properly (keyword properly) use dx8's CreateTextureFromFileInMemory on a windows DIB, so that might eventually lead to a work around. Shaders are also a good idea, I'm just horribly bad with them. :)


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Wed Mar 12, 2008 5:05 pm 
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chip wrote:

I haven't seen any fe's yet that really handle daphne all that well for an arcade environment. The best I've seen so far was daphnex, which was xbox exclusive and obviously written just for daphne. But, it has lots of UI bugs and is no longer supported. :(



Well what exactly do you mean by handled? Graphically TDK is pretty generic, but the backend is far more flexible. Arcade emulators are setup via clrmamepro files, so things like the manufacturer, year, ect are all included (just not used on this skin). The launching of the emulator or individual games is fairly generic as well. Unlike other fes out there each game can have a totally different and specific command line. I also write a lot of middle-ware stuff (like for zinc) to fill in gaps. I *think* I've even got a daphne plugin for johnny5 (controls.dat viewer) around here somewhere.

I guess what I'm saying is what are you looking for?


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Wed Mar 12, 2008 5:52 pm 
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ideally, just something that works with daphne's arcade controls and has access to all of daphne's setup options, similar to daphneloader, but that looks good on an arcade monitor and can be controlled without a keyboard/mouse.

All the fe's I've played with and investigated (which admittedly is not all of them) are primarily focused on mame, with daphne as an afterthought. Typically in these mame-focused frontends, daphne's options can only be set via command line. Frontends that do have access to all of daphne's options in the gui are typically written for daphne, like daphneloader, dirk, and daphnex's fe but they either aren't written with arcade cabinets in mind (Daphneloader and Dirk) or are buggy and outdated (Daphnex, Dirk). Plus, I've always wanted to see a daphne fe that was aware of daphne's methods, such as framefiles, and therefore could cycle attract modes, death scenes, etc, straight from the game's own m2v/ogg.

I'd even envisioned an fe specifically for cabinet users with LD players. You could do a frame seek to detect which disc was inserted, then cycle the attract mode (or other scenes) while displaying options and choices *specific to the game corresponding to the disc inserted* via a text overlay. Although I doubt this would ever happen, I always pictured the ideal daphne cabinet fe starting out this way for real LD players, and then evolving to use m2v/ogg- just like daphne itself did. You could build on the same fe, but add an eject and insertion of the virtual "laserdiscs". You could even build a "jukebox" that inserts different virtual laserdiscs and plays their different attract modes when no one is playing. Then when a user steps up to the machine, they can play the game the fe is currently cycling on, or change the laserdisc and select the game they want via the "jukebox". But yeah, pipe dream, I know. :)


Last edited by chip on Wed Mar 12, 2008 10:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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PostPosted: Wed Mar 12, 2008 7:57 pm 
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chip wrote:
I haven't seen any fe's yet that really handle daphne all that well for an arcade environment.


Sometimes I get the urge to try to write one, but it comes and goes :)


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PostPosted: Wed Mar 12, 2008 11:44 pm 
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Well I can tell you now, they aren't necessarily mame-centric, it's just the modern term "front-end" in relation to this hobby now pretty much means launcher, not configurer. Fes back in the dos days certainly let you set everything, but there's a reason for that, namely thre were only two or three emulators and they have very simple options to set.

My first fe had built in support for the emulators of the day, and even then (there were only like 3 worth mentioning, daphne, mame and visual pinball) it was a nightmare. Just when you get the configuration functions set for a fe, the author decides to change how stuff is saved or add a new feature and everything is null and void again. Everything now is modular, meaning the fe is pretty stupid as to knowing what it is doing, but gives you a lot of leeway on telling it what to do.

I'd like to do configuring of emus within a fe, but keeping that junk up to date would be a full-time job. I think the only way that would fly for most of us is if all the configurations of the various emus were standardized somewhat to make it easier to parse. Daphne, arguably is easier to parse than others, but still, it'd be a lot of work.

You guys have definately went in the right direction though, having daphne loader essentially "fill" it's possible options via a xml file. So all the data is there, it'd just take a whole lot of time to implement it.

Mame's is pretty much screwed up, with configurations sperning from a few dozen possible files and the xml template being in various states of broken depending upon the build.

Then of course there are the crazy odd-balls like zinc viva no-no ect that seem to completely change their configuration file with every single version and/or don't have anything but a simple binary file which is frikkin hard to edit.

Your gonna kill me for suggesting it, but it might make more sense to implement, at least configuration settings, within daphne itself. Daphne could go into config mode with a keypress and essentially "turn off" the emulator but keep in tact the video underlay and graphical overlay to do the sort of thing you were talking about and then reset emulation once you exit. You could use the very same xml files the loader uses to fill a settings menu in daphne. Since it'd be in daphne, there wouldn't be any risk of it getting out of date. Just a thought.

As for the attract modes and stuff.. I think it's doable. It'd require some info on your part, but it's doable.


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