kmoney

@Jason Carr Very interesting as I have not had any issues with any of those cores. I wonder if you are using one of there nightly cores that have glitches as sometimes there nightly builds do have issues. I know a while ago I did have some issues with one of there nightly builds with audio pops and crackling. Actually I use the Nestopia and the BSNES Accuracy cores with shaders applied. I also have vsync turned on and Hard GPU sync on along with hard gpu sync frames set at 0. So all of those settings are pretty much maxed out and I have not had any issues with audio and video. The only issue I ran into one time is because BSNES Accuracy is so gpu and cpu intensive, I was gettings slowdowns with audio glitches and I had to go into my Nvidia settings and set a profile up for retroarch and set the power managemnt mode from adaptive to prefer maximum performance and that fixed that issue. I hope you get your retroarch issues resolved soon.

Very interesting...even though I do not really have any issues with the nestopia retroarch core I am intrigued to try this out. I did not even know this emulator existed. Thanks for pointing it out!

Sure no problem @Jason Carr. I just put it in the downloads section.

Tweaked CRT Geom Shader for Retroarch View File This is a tweaked crt geom shader for retroarch that has the curvature taken out and some lines of code commented out for better results instead of the default settings that comes packaged with retroarch. Remember to backup your crt-geom.cg folder and replace with this which is located at your RetroArch\shaders\shaders_cg\crt\shaders\crt-geom.cg Submitter kmoney Submitted 08/27/16 Category Third-party Apps and Plugins  

@Jason Carr I just got a chance to test out the newest beta with the added in new options with attract mode and I got to say this is by far the best attract mode with any frontend I have tried especially with the added options so the user can set it up to there custom liking. A new bug I have found is while attract mode works great with the game wheels view and the coverflow w/ videos view with the boxes up top, I have found an issue with the coverflow with videos and boxes at the bottom view. The reason being is those first 2 views I mention cycle back around to the first game when you land on the last game of the list. But the coverflow view with the boxes on the bottom does not cycle back around to the first game on the list when you get to the last game. A lot of times when I was testing today once it got to the last game in that coverflow view it would just stay there on that same last game on the list and just keep playing the same video over and over without attract mode kicking in. I think what is confusing it is that view does not cycle back to the beginning once you get on the last game.

One bug I have noticed with my setup while using attract mode is that even when you have attract mode turned off in the options menu, is that attact mode will continue to run even with it turned off.

I just deleted my old SNES video with the black bars and re uploaded the new one without the black bars. @Riffman81 I am not sure what the community thinks on this aspect as it would be a huge undertaking to get all the game videos recorded in HD but it does sound awesome. I would definitely like to get the platform videos get the HD treatmaent at least and I will be doing some more when I get some spare time. Personally hard drive space has nevered bothered me as it is not that expensive these days.

I think with all my future platform videos I am going to create them without the bezels and I will redo the Sega Genesis one without the bezel also. I have found a solution to removing the black bars also. Basically what I do is record them at 1920 x 1080P at there correct 4:3 ratio in retroarch with the shaders applied and then once I am done splicing all the videos together and happy with that I run the file through Hankbrake which is an awesome free open source tool and very easy to use. What I do in Handbrake is crop the black bars off and then it recodes the video so basically what you end up with is a 1440 x 1080P video because it has the black bars removed. It now has a perfect 4:3 ratio and no loss of quality at all from what I can tell. Another nice thing about this by removing the black bars is it cuts the file size down almost in half and also if someone wants to use these videos with the smaller video boxes in BB they are in a 4:3 ratio and the video box is sized correctly without the black bars or a bezel on both sides. If you are like me sometimes I like to change views to sometimes fullscreen videos and sometimes other views that has the smaller video boxes and it will be nice to be able to use the same videos in all views and the aspect be correct. I think that it is the best option especially since @Jason Carr said he can add bezels in a theming engine later. The only issue right now is when using the fullscreen video view within BB, it is force stretching the video to fill the whole screen since I removed the black bars but he said he can come up with a solution for that.

Simply awesome,that what the attract mode feature is!! That was a surprise that I was not expecting so soon. I agree with you Jason as I like to see the scrolling through the games animation also rather that it just jumping to another game without seeing it scrolling. I think the only added option I would like to see is to be in a paticlular platform like MAME and just let it stay inside that platform only randomize scrolling through the MAME games without backing out into another platform. Reason being is on my arcade cabinet I would let it stay on all day using attract mode and I would only want to see MAME games on my arcade cabinet and plus there is so many games in that platform. Awesome job again...happy man here!

@Jason Carr I have figured out how to remove the black bars from the videos and they work correctly in the smaller video box views and do not show the black bars. My question is which property do I need to change in xaml with a custom theme so it does not stretch the video in BB using the fullscreen video view so I can get it to center in the screen correctly without it being stretched? I have tried to change a few thing in xaml but I feel like I am changing the wrong code because it is still stretching the video.

@Riffman81 That sounds awesome, I would be totally cool with that as the more options the better!

@spektor56 I am currently trying to figure out how to record them without the black bars and still be in 1080P and maintain ratio and the quality. I know you can crop out the black bars with handbrake but I have not experimented yet to see if it lowers the quality. If you know of a way that you can apply scanlines within VLC, and if it is some kind of plugin or such, you should let @Jason Carr know so maybe he can implement into the VLC engine in BigBox.

The reason the black bars are there is because these games are originally a 4:3 ratio and not supposed to be stretched out to widescreen. Also I have never heard of VLC doing scanlines on the "fly" and these are not just simple scanlines added to the game as these are shaders from retroarch being used.

Thanks for the compliments! Yes some of the systems are going to have longer videos than others only because they are so many great games for one certain platform I just cannot leave out some of the games. Even for the SNES I left out so many good games and I try to have at least 6 to 7 seconds of a clip from each game it is hard sometimes.Also sometimes I also just like to watch videos and not even play the games. Thats one of the reasons I am looking forward to @Jason Carr implementing attract mode so I can just watch the platform wheel spin and stop on a platform and just watch videos.

We understand @Antropus ,real life should always take priority and we will all be here when you return to start back working on the importer. It is a wonderful tool to use and all your efforts are greatly appreciated for creating it!

Super Nintendo 1080P Platform Video w/Scanlines View File This is a SNES platform video that was recorded at 1080P 60fps with scanlines and is viewed best when using fullscreen background videos in BigBox. Submitter kmoney Submitted 08/24/16 Category Game Media  

Here is a 1080P platform video of the Super Nintendo with scanlines and recorded @60fps without bezels.Remember to watch at 1080P to view the best. I am also putting this in the downloads section.

Just an update,I have made some more platform 1080P videos without the bezels. I am currently trying to make a new custom theme that will push the 1080P video over to the right some to cover up the black bar on the right since it does not have a bezel and also give more room for the clear logos on the left. I have not been sucessfful in doing that in the theme. @Jason Carr Is there a way to shift a 1080P fullscreen video over as I have not been able to do it in Visual Studio and if so what settings would I need to change in Visual Studio with xaml?

Awesome that you are adding more clear logos to the Games DB for the Windows games as they are lacking alot. I have been adding a lot of logos as well lately to the Windows section, most of them are for not as well known but great games.

@lordmonkus Thanks for the feedback as I agree the videos would look better shifted to the right. @Riffman81 Great ideas there, that sounds great that @circo is working on some 1080P videos @Jason Carr I think that is a great idea for the wheels platform view do something similar that @CriticalCid did with the hyperspin themes for the full size videos eliminating the need for a bezel at all for the 4:3 systems. I think he did that with a custom theme if I remember correctly? The shader I am using with the videos is the crt geom shader in retroarch. Its a simple shader that looks very good how it comes,it just needs a few adjustments to remove the curved screen.I had tried to use crt royale kurozumi at first but it had weird effects in it after I recorded it for some reason and it looks best when retroarch is in integer scale anyway which would not look good with these videos.

Thanks @Jason Carr, I think I will wait to make more of these videos until I can find another universal bezel because I like the bezels to be unified and some of the platform videos I want to create does not have a bezel that match the platform. It would be great if we had at least one great looking universal bezel and would go with any platform and not be obtrusive and take anything away from the video itself. I liked this bezel because it is very simple and subtle and does not distract from the video gameplay but as you can see its for the Sega Genesis platform only. I could also make them without any bezel at all but you would have black empty space on both sides of the screen.

I have not been using the full screen video option within BigBox because I am very anal on certain things and do not feel the typical videos you get from emumovies are good enough for fullscreen on a 1080P or above. Don't get me wrong they are great for smaller sized video boxes as that what they are intended for. So I have decided I will start a project for 1080P platform videos with scanline shaders,and proper size ratio with bezels applied that I recorded myself from my own game footage. Also the games I chose for the footage may not be to everbody's taste but its the games I enjoyed and played the most from my childhood. This bezel I applied to the first video for the Sega Genesis, I did not create and will get permission from creator before I put this in the downloads section. I am not sure if maybe in the future I might make the videos without the bezels if @Jason Carr can maybe create where a bezel can be applied within BigBox and it would also be awesome to have an option to make the wheels fade also. I have set the Background Fade to 0% within BigBox to see the video more clearly. You need to view the youtube video in fullscreen 1080P to get the best quality. This is also my first time doing something like this with video editing and etc. so it might not be the greatest.

That is exactly what happened, that is really weird how I never pointed it to a specific file and it chose a random webm video when I imported the steam platform and played that same video every time. @Jason Carr I had to manually type in Videos\Steam in the edit platform in LB under video path and save. I then enter back into BB and scroll to the Steam platform to watch a video and then close out of BB and check my options in LB again under video path and it has saved whatever was the last steam random video was when I closed out of BB such as Videos\Steam\Brothers - A Tale of Two Sons.webm back into my video path. Is that how it is supposed to work, is to save the last video that was playing when you close out of BB under video path in the platform edit options?

@Jason Carr I have noticed another possible bug. I have platform videos for all my platforms except the Steam platform and they all play great. I also have the randomize video option checked in BB since I do not have a platform video for the Steam platform,but I noticed the last 25 times or so I have started BB and scrolled to the Steam platform it always plays the same video every time even though I have over 55 videos in my Videos Steam folder and I have no video in my Videos Platform folder for Steam.

@Jason Carr Sorry I did not get that error the first time around but I was able to reproduce it and it is as follows: System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object. at (VlcPlayer , IntPtr , IntPtr ) at Meta.Vlc.Wpf.VlcPlayer.VideoDisplayCallback(IntPtr opaque, IntPtr picture)