Hot Take 🔥 Bezels VS No Bezels 🖼️

[AstroBob]

Hey Folks,

With widescreen displays being the norm, there’s often unused space when playing older retro games. Some don’t mind the black bars, while others want to fill every pixel of their display. That’s where bezels come in! Bezels can add flair to your retro games, filling the empty space and giving it a modern touch. So, the question is:

Do you prefer playing retro games with or without Bezels?  

Personally, I prefer to play without bezels, as I want to enjoy the original aspect ratio without distraction. However, I make exceptions for:

 🎮 Arcade games, where bezels replicate the original cabinet art.

 ☑️ Bezels displaying useful game-related info, like mission checklists in Darkstalkers Resurrection on XBLA/PSN.

 

So which side are you on? Do you ever make exceptions? What are some of your favourite bezel implementations?

We know that bezels extend beyond static borders, incorporating elements like filters and dynamic buttons. One of my favourite examples is for old Game & Watch games, that incorporate the original device art, buttons, and even down to the dynamic switches. But what are some of your setups and recommendations? Let us know!

 

 

Don’t forget, that during the game import process in LaunchBox, you can utilize the Bezel Project to download high-quality bezels for your games. You can learn more about it below:

[Lordmonkus]

No bezels for me.
I have had this discussion in discord more than a few times over the years and for me I find them distracting. There have been times when using bezels and this is more of an issue when playing shooters when I think I see a bullet or ship coming from the edge of the screen so I react and try to dodge where I think it's going and end up moving into a worse spot.

[Jakatsu]

I accidentally voted for without bezels, but in fact I do make an exception with handheld systems (sometimes including shaders) and arcade games (occasionally, not always). Besides those systems, I don't use them at all.

[christhed]

I just tried bezels for the first time last week and i'm not going back. The Bezel Project + Mega Bezel's reflection shaders looks so damn good.

[Newlander]

With Bezels - really the only reason i'm using rocket launcher still, will launchbox make any way to add bezels to additional emulators?

[Hanz]

It depends. Yes for some arcade games but no for console or handhelds.

[eMonster420]

Bezels for 1st through 5th gen consoles (4:3 aspect ratios) with CRT shaders, and no bezels for 6th gen and up, with upscale to 1440p when possible.

[Kefka2b]

Mega bezels reflection shaders with Duimon's bezels mainly using a night TV bezel for all 4:3 consoles zoomed in a bit to get more screen real estate(really like the fact that it is not distracting thanks to its simplicity which my main issue with bezels in general alongside making the game screen area too small but just wouldn't tolerate plain black bars anymore either) and using game specific settings removing shaders/bezels for 3d games that work well with wide-screen cheats/hacks (upscaling them to 4k with mbz shaders makes them crash) or only using same night tv bezels without shaders for 3d games that don't have working wide-screen hacks/cheats (same reason upscaling with shaders crashes my games). I spent hours making game specific settings for my large collection of games. I still need to setup bezels for arcade games as they are realistic and looks cool, probably will use MBZ with Orionangel's bezels.

Edited August 9, 2024 by Kefka2b

[ed20910]

Depends. Arcade, i do enjoy the original bezels. Consoles, i have just a plain bezel to fill the screen.  i dont need huge colorful bezels for consoles. I can do without, but it is nice to fill the empty screen

[damageinc86]

On 8/9/2024 at 5:03 AM, Newlander said:

With Bezels - really the only reason i'm using rocket launcher still, will launchbox make any way to add bezels to additional emulators?

Same here.  I've tried the bezel project, and Rocket Launcher still handles bezels better for my setup.  I love having the system bezel for console games.  A bezel that looks like the console (NES/SNES/Genesis/Dreamcast, etc.)

[Headrush69]

On 8/9/2024 at 3:58 PM, Kefka2b said:

Mega bezels reflection shaders with Duimon's bezels

Use these for the majority of consoles with a few modifications to use my HQ system bezel image and an adjustment to the color to blend it better,

10 hours ago, ed20910 said:

Depends. Arcade, i do enjoy the original bezels. Consoles, i have just a plain bezel to fill the screen.  i dont need huge colorful bezels for consoles. I can do without, but it is nice to fill the empty screen

Same. Original game bezels for arcade titles and system bezels for console.

6 hours ago, damageinc86 said:

I love having the system bezel for console games.  A bezel that looks like the console (NES/SNES/Genesis/Dreamcast, etc.)

Same.

I don't have an isue with them being distracting so I'm a yes with some simple rules:

• I don't want reduced playfield area. All bezels I use keep the playfield close to the maximum size.
• Arcade titles that have dynamic bezels are a must even if it means a bit smaller screen. (For example, lights on Lunar Lander, Gorf, etc)
• Console bezels are per system and not per game. 

Console bezels along with my my marquee show people watching what console the game is from and I always think it's nice to have the bezel showing the original controller button arrangements. I always forgot which buttons are X, or O, etc for Sony controllers when I'm using XBOX 360 controllers. 😀

 

[C-Beats]

On 8/9/2024 at 8:03 AM, Newlander said:

With Bezels - really the only reason i'm using rocket launcher still, will launchbox make any way to add bezels to additional emulators?

@JoeViking245 built a plugin that essentially does the same thing RL does in creating an always on top window that appears overtop the emulator. Can get it here: 

 

[SiriusVI]

I cannot imagine playing games like Donkey Kong Country or Super Mario World without shaders and Bezels. Also for handhelds, shaders and bezels are basically mandatory. I prefer the Duimon shaders which come with integrated bezels that look great.

https://forums.libretro.com/t/duimon-hsm-mega-bezel-graphics-and-presets-feedback-and-updates/28146

[C-Beats]

On 8/14/2024 at 5:21 PM, SiriusVI said:

I prefer the Duimon shaders which come with integrated bezels that look great.

Duimon makes the bezels, the shader is made by HyperspaceMadness (HSM). But yeah, their work is pretty remarkable. It is SUPER taxing on a system though (compared to most), but what's the point of having a graphics card if you're not going to use it...

[Kefka2b]

10 minutes ago, C-Beats said:

Duimon makes the bezels, the shader is made by HyperspaceMadness (HSM). But yeah, their work is pretty remarkable. It is SUPER taxing on a system though (compared to most), but what's the point of having a graphics card if you're not going to use it...

Those shaders have been a revelation to me, never liked other CRT shaders or even understood the point of having them, but 2D console games just look so much better than when using raw pixels on an OLED tv, and curves and reflections are so immersive. Indeed need a decent GPU, my rtx3070 ti runs at 200 watts when using these shaders 😂.

Edited August 16, 2024 by Kefka2b

[SiriusVI]

On 8/16/2024 at 1:52 PM, C-Beats said:

Duimon makes the bezels, the shader is made by HyperspaceMadness (HSM). But yeah, their work is pretty remarkable. It is SUPER taxing on a system though (compared to most), but what's the point of having a graphics card if you're not going to use it...

Also, I love consistency and the fact that there is a shader for basically every console and handheld out there as well as quite a few computer systems makes this just the perfect solution for me. The only issue I have is that some of his presets don't use integer scaling which can cause strange moire effects in 3D games that are super distracting, especially on a 1080p TV (I hear it's better on a 4K TV). But for these cases I just turn off the scanlines or use fake scanlines which don't cause moire.