Mr. RetroLust Posted July 27, 2018 Share Posted July 27, 2018 Mr. RetroLust's Marquee Screen Filler Magic View File Mr. RetroLust's Marquee Screen Filler Magic Introduction: This is for those that like to fill the surrounding empty (black) space of their Marquee screens while maintaining the original Marquee's aspect ratio, what these replacement .xaml files do is duplicate the marquee with a blur effect on the background while the original marquee has a drop shadow, a technique often seen on TV when dealing with Vertical Video Syndrome material (a terrible disease btw, but that's another topic) Installation: Go to the theme folder of your choice: Launchbox\Themes\*name of the theme*\Views note: If you use the default Big Box theme first copy and paste the default theme folder and name it anything you like, it's important to do this as the default theme will always overwrite any changes you make in that folder. Backup the following files! In case you want to revert back to these Marquee files: GameMarqueeView.xaml and PlatformMarqueeView.xaml Extract the .xaml files in the zipfile to this folder, start BigBox and see the magic unfold Have fun. (Screenshots taken from a 21:9 marquee monitor) Check out the follow up on this here: Submitter Mr. RetroLust Submitted 07/27/2018 Category Big Box Custom Themes 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Retro808 Posted July 27, 2018 Share Posted July 27, 2018 Thanks for this. Really nice little touch to images for a marquee monitor. I have been waiting for something new for marquees to come along. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. RetroLust Posted July 27, 2018 Author Share Posted July 27, 2018 57 minutes ago, Retro808 said: Thanks for this. Really nice little touch to images for a marquee monitor. I have been waiting for something new for marquees to come along. Very glad you like it bro! Enjoy! There is a little thing to note however, if you have multiple marquees for one game you might have a different background than the foreground marquee. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nyukki Posted September 17, 2018 Share Posted September 17, 2018 hey dude, really like this feature. recently added a marquee monitor and the black space has been bugging me, so thanks a lot! however, i'm getting a fair bit of slow down when i add these xaml files. when i flip through games/platforms it stutters briefly before showing the video/artwork on my main screen and the marquee with effect on the second monitor. i'm running big box on an system with i7 6700k cpu but only internal graphics, no additional video card. there is no slow down if i switch on the marquee monitor without the blur effect. do you think adding a graphics card (nothing crazy, something like a gtx1050) would help alleviate the stuttering when adding the marquee blur effect? been thinking about getting one anyway, but not sure how powerful of a card i need. Thanks! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. RetroLust Posted September 17, 2018 Author Share Posted September 17, 2018 32 minutes ago, Nyukki said: hey dude, really like this feature. recently added a marquee monitor and the black space has been bugging me, so thanks a lot! however, i'm getting a fair bit of slow down when i add these xaml files. when i flip through games/platforms it stutters briefly before showing the video/artwork on my main screen and the marquee with effect on the second monitor. i'm running big box on an system with i7 6700k cpu but only internal graphics, no additional video card. there is no slow down if i switch on the marquee monitor without the blur effect. do you think adding a graphics card (nothing crazy, something like a gtx1050) would help alleviate the stuttering when adding the marquee blur effect? been thinking about getting one anyway, but not sure how powerful of a card i need. Thanks! Thanks, glad you like it man Yes a good Gpu will speed up everything BigBox related greatly with the marquee effects included, a minimal of 8gb ram is also recommended for smooth navigation but I think you already meet that requirement. I'm surprised it works without a GPU to be honest, must be quite a powerful system already. Let me know how it worked out for you as I have a gtx-1050 myself, it works great but sometimes when it loads a marquee for the first time it can be noticed it loads a millisecond slower as it needs to do twice the work to create the total image. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nyukki Posted September 17, 2018 Share Posted September 17, 2018 Thanks man, appreciate the quick feedback! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zetec-s-joe Posted September 18, 2018 Share Posted September 18, 2018 This looks really cool Always dreamed of this for a bezel for actually games like when you see 4:3 videos on 16:9 when they blend the vdeo the same way, maybe one day it will be possible. Best way to fill empty space 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kondorito Posted September 18, 2018 Share Posted September 18, 2018 4 minutes ago, zetec-s-joe said: This looks really cool Always dreamed of this for a bezel for actually games like when you see 4:3 videos on 16:9 when they blend the vdeo the same way, maybe one day it will be possible. Best way to fill empty space Joe! You mean an overlay that shows the gameplay screen blurred on the black sides? That already exists in RA! Its a shader https://forums.libretro.com/t/filling-pillarbox-space-with-scaled-blurred-game-output/11932 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. RetroLust Posted September 18, 2018 Author Share Posted September 18, 2018 (edited) 21 minutes ago, Kondorito said: Joe! You mean an overlay that shows the gameplay screen blurred on the black sides? That already exists in RA! Its a shader https://forums.libretro.com/t/filling-pillarbox-space-with-scaled-blurred-game-output/11932 Sweet! Do you happen to know if a plugin exists that simulates a blurred replicated border around a game screen? This could simulate light reflection on monitor bezels. I made a bezel setup some time ago which I want to expand for all consoles with different tv's and in 4K in the future. It would be great if the light reflection which I simulated in the example (blue light on the monitor borders) could be dynamically generated, this would require the bezel beneath the game screen as a backdrop though, if we could get such a plugin all my wishes for realism would be fullfilled ps I'm sending you the neogeo package soon bro, working on it! Edited September 18, 2018 by Mr. RetroLust Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kondorito Posted September 18, 2018 Share Posted September 18, 2018 12 minutes ago, Mr. RetroLust said: Sweet! Do you happen to know if a plugin exists that simulates a blurred replicated border around a game screen? This could simulate light reflection on monitor bezels. I made a bezel setup some time ago which I want to expand for all consoles with different tv's and in 4K in the future. It would be great if the light reflection which I simulated in the example (blue light on the monitor borders) could be dynamically generated, this would require the bezel beneath the game screen as a backdrop though, if we could get such a plugin all my wishes for realism would be fullfilled ps I'm sending you the neogeo package soon bro, working on it! I am not aware of a shader like that, it does look nice though You might want to open a topic about it in RA, as it could already exist,or might be fairly easy to do idk. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alnyden Posted September 22, 2018 Share Posted September 22, 2018 I love it -- thanks for making this! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kerm Posted August 22, 2020 Share Posted August 22, 2020 Old post, I know... Quick question maybe someone can answer... I have changed out the xaml file and bigbox instantly re-writes the file on load. I tried to make the file read only and I received an error msg. Any idea? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
y2guru Posted August 22, 2020 Share Posted August 22, 2020 56 minutes ago, Kerm said: Old post, I know... Quick question maybe someone can answer... I have changed out the xaml file and bigbox instantly re-writes the file on load. I tried to make the file read only and I received an error msg. Any idea? why do you want bigbox to NOT update the file? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Retro808 Posted August 22, 2020 Share Posted August 22, 2020 1 hour ago, Kerm said: Old post, I know... Quick question maybe someone can answer... I have changed out the xaml file and bigbox instantly re-writes the file on load. I tried to make the file read only and I received an error msg. Any idea? What theme did you change it out on? If you changed it on the Default theme BigBox will always overwrite any changes in Default themes. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kerm Posted August 27, 2020 Share Posted August 27, 2020 On 8/21/2020 at 10:52 PM, Retro808 said: What theme did you change it out on? If you changed it on the Default theme BigBox will always overwrite any changes in Default themes. Good call! Sorry for the delay - you hit the nail on the head. Guess I didn't know. I've been a user for years - guess it's true that you learn something new everyday. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. RetroLust Posted August 27, 2020 Author Share Posted August 27, 2020 (edited) 1 hour ago, Kerm said: Good call! Sorry for the delay - you hit the nail on the head. Guess I didn't know. I've been a user for years - guess it's true that you learn something new everyday. Well I should update the installation instructions after this as I can see it could be confusing with the default theme. Edit: Done Edited August 27, 2020 by Mr. RetroLust Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kerm Posted August 27, 2020 Share Posted August 27, 2020 40 minutes ago, Mr. RetroLust said: Well I should update the installation instructions after this as I can see it could be confusing with the default theme. Edit: Done Always a good thing when my ignorance helps others! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. RetroLust Posted August 27, 2020 Author Share Posted August 27, 2020 (edited) 38 minutes ago, Kerm said: Always a good thing when my ignorance helps others! Lol but just to be sure: if you do wish to keep use the default theme just copy/paste the default theme's folder and rename it to something you like, swap the marquee trick xaml files and then select it in Big Box as your theme and you should be good to go ? Edited August 27, 2020 by Mr. RetroLust Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kerm Posted August 27, 2020 Share Posted August 27, 2020 14 minutes ago, Mr. RetroLust said: Lol but just to be sure: if you do wish to keep use the default theme just copy/paste the default theme's folder and rename it to something you like, swap the marquee trick xaml files and then select it in Big Box as your theme and you should be good to go ? Exactly what I did... I'm quite creative "Not Default" was what I renamed the new folder... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sascha-FFM Posted May 18, 2021 Share Posted May 18, 2021 This is exactly what I was looking for on my new 1920x360 display. Unfortunately it does not look as I hoped. The marquee is displaying too low and a bit to big (therefore cut off). Monitor reports as 1920x1080 towards windows, but only the top third is actually shown. What I did so far is to add VerticalALignment="Top" at Image source and I modified DesignHeight and DesignWidth to reflect 1920x360, but this doesnt appear to do what I was hoping for. Any ideas how I could achieve that I get a picture which vertically fills the screen and is blurred at the right and left (as the monitor is normally too wide to care about blurring top and bottom)? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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