c64 C64 Dreams (massive curated C64 collection)

[JereBear]

@Zombeaver I use Upscayl for most my image upscaling nowadays. You can find some extra models for Upscayl here if you wanted to see if you can get better results. https://github.com/upscayl/custom-models/blob/main/README.md

AI upscaling is not going to get you perfect results however. It's not there yet. I almost always spend quite a bit of time in Photoshop after the fact fixing shitty lines or messed up text.

 

If you have time to put towards it you may get best results tweaking the process a bit more with something like chaiNNer. might be a better option but will have a steeper learning curve. https://github.com/chaiNNer-org/chaiNNer

Edited April 29, 2024 by JereBear

[seaview59]

2 hours ago, Zombeaver said:

I have Photoshop. I'd like to avoid another monthly subscription just for this so imgupscaler is probably out (and as a side note I seriously hate this pricing structure that a lot of these sites have of pay per number of images processed, that entire model would be unusable for my needs). I've heard of topaz, and looking into it a bit it looks like you can pay once and then use local software, which is much more appealing to me. I'm a little concerned about the fact that it says includes 12 months of updates though - does the software outright stop working after 12 months if you don't pay again or does it just not receive updates anymore (this is implied but I want to be sure)?

I'd be leery of the former but if it's the latter that could work. 

Definitely! I'll send some examples in a couple hours. Thanks for the offer!

topaz continues to work after 12 months, you just don't get updates to the software. It's a dumb plan. but the software is good, been using it for a few years now without updates, honestly never noticed what the updates did.

[Zombeaver]

2 hours ago, JereBear said:

AI upscaling is not going to get you perfect results however. It's not there yet. I almost always spend quite a bit of time in Photoshop after the fact fixing shitty lines or messed up text

Yeah that's fine and to be expected. I'm used to that kind of thing already. There have been some cases where something was so bad that I just completely recreated it from scratch using closely approximated fonts/colors, etc.

2 hours ago, JereBear said:

You can find some extra models for Upscayl here if you wanted to see if you can get better results. https://github.com/upscayl/custom-models/blob/main/README.md

Really good tip here! Doing some quick testing 4xHFA2k and 4xNomos8kSC seem to be yielding the best results so far. 4xHFA2k has been consistently a bit better between the two though, with less weirdness in font interpolation.

41 minutes ago, seaview59 said:

topaz continues to work after 12 months, you just don't get updates to the software. It's a dumb plan. but the software is good, been using it for a few years now without updates, honestly never noticed what the updates did.

That's good to know! I'm not totally opposed to dropping a one time amount of $100 on something like this if I need to. In no dimension would I ever pay $10-$30 a month until the end of time for a finite number of images per month though. That's an insane pricing structure.

I appreciate the tips here from everybody! This definitely points me in the right direction. I'm liking Upscayl quite a bit so far. It's really easy to use, has a nice UI, is fast, yields pretty good results so far, and is free.

Some examples of some lower quality material:

4xHFA2k:

The second one here seems to be the most problematic, with a fair number of oddities in the text. A few things here and there in the Lunar Leeper one too, but overall not too bad. I probably would use the first and third one here as replacements.

[launchretrogirl2562]

my attempt at lunar leeper. (still tweaking though)

 

Edited April 29, 2024 by launchretrogirl2562

[seaview59]

2 hours ago, Zombeaver said:

Yeah that's fine and to be expected. I'm used to that kind of thing already. There have been some cases where something was so bad that I just completely recreated it from scratch using closely approximated fonts/colors, etc.

Really good tip here! Doing some quick testing 4xHFA2k and 4xNomos8kSC seem to be yielding the best results so far. 4xHFA2k has been consistently a bit better between the two though, with less weirdness in font interpolation.

That's good to know! I'm not totally opposed to dropping a one time amount of $100 on something like this if I need to. In no dimension would I ever pay $10-$30 a month until the end of time for a finite number of images per month though. That's an insane pricing structure.

I appreciate the tips here from everybody! This definitely points me in the right direction. I'm liking Upscayl quite a bit so far. It's really easy to use, has a nice UI, is fast, yields pretty good results so far, and is free.

Some examples of some lower quality material:

4xHFA2k:

The second one here seems to be the most problematic, with a fair number of oddities in the text. A few things here and there in the Lunar Leeper one too, but overall not too bad. I probably would use the first and third one here as replacements.

Here's that second page upscaled with topaz for comparison. To me it's slightly more readable although a bit more blurry.

[Zombeaver]

3 hours ago, launchretrogirl2562 said:

my attempt at lunar leeper. (still tweaking though)

 

This looks similar to the results from Nomos8kSC in Upscayl and demonstrates some of the same font weirdness. This is particularly evident in section 4 of that page.

Nomos8kSC for comparison:

I almost wonder if it wouldn't be beneficial to run some of these through multiple models in sequence with each at smaller integer scales.

[Zombeaver]

1 hour ago, seaview59 said:

Here's that second page upscaled with topaz for comparison. To me it's slightly more readable although a bit more blurry.

Thank you for the comparison, that's good to see as an example. I don't think either one looks particularly great honestly. Both of them look what I would describe as "weird" on quick glance. It would be pretty obvious to me that it had gone through some kind of digital tampering in both cases. The other two less so.

I wish there was a model that was specifically trained for text, but to my knowledge there isn't one.

[Zombeaver]

I've had decent success with the upscaling efforts so far. You can find some examples below. You can click the drop-down to select different images to compare.

https://imgsli.com/MjYxMzcx/0/1

[stigzler]

Those results are really good. What a time to be alive where things can be rejuvenated like that. Wonder if I could put myself through AI? 

[totoro]

I've followed the merging instructions, but for some reason boxart is not showing up.

The 3D-model seems to grab it somewhere in the details. What am I missing?

[totoro]

On 7/6/2024 at 9:35 PM, totoro said:

I've followed the merging instructions, but for some reason boxart is not showing up.

The 3D-model seems to grab it somewhere in the details. What am I missing?

Solved it by myself. If anyone else encounters this: mark all and hit F5 (update graphics).

[launchretrogirl2562]

hi Zombeaver,

can you provide an update on your progress on c64dreams?

i did check discord but couldnt find a current status.

do you plan to use the latest version of retroarch?

anyway, thanks again for your work on this wonderful project!

[totoro]

Hi, I´ve noticed the games mixed up with the eXoDOS-installation folder.

I got only one Launchbox built and merged my own stuff, eXoDOS and C64 Dreams.

How can this be fixed?

[Cloudster]

Can someone please point me to the instructions on how to add the C64 Dream project into an existing launchbox setup?

[launchretrogirl2562]

2 hours ago, Cloudster said:

Can someone please point me to the instructions on how to add the C64 Dream project into an existing launchbox setup?

 

[Cloudster]

I don't seem to have this file "Files and Data to Import.txt".

[launchretrogirl2562]

16 hours ago, Cloudster said:

I don't seem to have this file "Files and Data to Import.txt".

there u go,...now u have!

Files to Import.txt Parents XML Insert.txt Platforms XML Insert.txt

[launchretrogirl2562]

1 hour ago, Cloudster said:

I followed the instructions to import C64 Dreams into my existing LB setup. However, on the left side it shows duplicate entries for Demoscene, Diskmags, Games, Magaznes, and SID. Also, when pressing start+select (Button 7+8) on my xbox controller, the game quits. I would also like to change to another bezel such as Megabezel, TheNamec, Duimon, etc. How can I do this? I also notice that C64 Dream uses it's a seperate/self-contained version of retroarch. Which version is it and is it possible for me to update it to the latest version?

It uses version 1.11.0 of Retroarch.
Updating it to the latest version is I think not advisable cause it may (or will most definitely) break the working of C64dreams.
If I remember correctly, Zombeaver told us he is working on a next release which will include an updated version of Retroarch.

What kind of bezels it loads can be configured in Retroarch itself. I suggest you look for information on how to do that on the libreto forum
https://forums.libretro.com/t/duimon-hsm-mega-bezel-graphics-and-presets-feedback-and-updates/28146

Before you change anything, it's best to make a backup of the retroarch folder so you can always revert back when u break someting.

[Cloudster]

Does anyone have this weird problem with the middle mouse scroll wheel after quitting out of C64 Dreams? The mouse behaves differently. Whenever I use the scrollwheel it will zoom in/zoom my browser window, windows explorer menu, etc. I don't know the cause of this, but the only way for me to fix it is to log out and log back into my account.

[Cloudster]

I have a 65" 4K TV in my living room which is in another part of the house and I use it as my media/gaming/entertainment space. I stream the games from my office PC using steamlink to the Apple TV 4K in my living room. I would like to know what's a good Big Box/Launchbox theme to use for C64 Dreams so that I can easily read everything and navigate easily and access all of its contents with ease? I'm currently using 'Colorful' for Big Box, and it looks very nice, but looks terrible with C64 Dreams.