Messages

601

Themes / Re: Arcadeflow theme v 6.1 [Release] Updated 24 December 2019

« on: December 23, 2019, 11:59:39 AM »

Arcadeflow 6.1 is out! Mostly bug fixes and a larger number of vector manufacturer logos!

Enjoy, report bugs and happy holidays!

602

Scripting / Re: Help! Faded Blur Gradient Effect

« on: December 21, 2019, 12:27:57 AM »

The effect you want is very similar to what I did on the thumbnails in my Arcadeflow theme (and actually the mockup you are linking was the main inspiration for Arcadeflow ). I don't suggest you look into my code because it's a mess

What you need to do is use GLSL shaders. You can use gauss blur shaders to generate the blurred background, then you can overlay your snapshot on top and apply to that another GLSL shader that will tweak transparency so that it fades along the Y axis. Doing this require some trick with nested surfaces because GLSL gaussian bulr is a two-pass filter.

I'd love to have the time to prepare a simple mock up but I'm not sure I'll be able to do it.

603

Themes / Re: Arcadeflow theme v 6.0 [Release] Updated 2 December 2019

« on: December 20, 2019, 02:44:58 AM »

I made the mistake of defining Arcadeflow 6.0 as the layout type for the Displays menu and realized that this did not set it to the auto-generated list, but rather the default Arcadeflow layout used by the systems themselves.

Yes that's the intended behavior in Attract Mode when using a layout as "displays" layout.

I eventually figured out that the fix was to edit attract.cfg and set menu_layout to undefined (no text after 'menu_layout'). Noting this here in case anyone else runs into the same issue.

You can obtain the same result in the menu where you set ARcadeflow as displays menu, just set the value to "Default" and it will use the list as displays menu

604

Themes / Re: Arcadeflow theme v 6.0 [Release] Updated 2 December 2019

« on: December 20, 2019, 02:34:16 AM »

Any plans on supporting arbitrary aspect ratios? Many box covers like Wii U and PSP look ugly right now.

Not at the moment: arbitrary aspects would be cool but it would be a complete rewrite of the theme, so it's not something I'll do so quickly. PSP box art will be severely cut in 3:4, but WiiU shouldn't look so bad... can you share a screenshot just to check that there's not something else going on?

605

Themes / Re: Arcadeflow theme v 6.0 [Release] Updated 2 December 2019

« on: December 20, 2019, 02:32:45 AM »

I use Skyscraper with the screenscraper module, which returns multiple comma-delimited categories for many games.  The result is that these games don't display any category image.  It would be neat if the theme could parse these and cycle through the relevant category images for these games.  Alternatively, and probably much easier to implement, you could have it omit everything after the first comma thereby only using the image for the first category listed.

I'm attaching you an updated file to put into Arcadeflow 6.0 folder. I have to warn you that substituting this file will mess with manufacturer logos because it's a work in progress of Arcadeflow 6.1, so use it just for test to see if it solves your issues with categories. What it does is that it extract only the first category from the comma separated list.

606

Themes / Re: Arcadeflow theme v 6.0 [Release] Updated 2 December 2019

« on: December 15, 2019, 10:27:38 PM »

In layout.nut, Ln 63 and 64, you have misspelled 'Displays' as 'Displyas'.

Oh thank you for spotting that! Gonna fix it for 6.1

Also, all instances of

Code: [Select]

options = " ",
can be removed with no perceived ill effects.  It still doesn't fix the fact that the dividers have selectable options, but so far, I don't know how to fix that.

I don't know if there's a way to fix that too, dividers in the option panel are a hack that I used to make the list more readable, it's not something officially supported.

607

General / Re: Missing logo in the wheel

« on: December 11, 2019, 03:02:51 AM »

Someone can tell me how help for the missing games logo used in the Attract Mode wheel?

Most Attract Mode layouts get "wheel" artwork from your emulator assets. If you don't see wheels at all check that the folder set up in AM settings is pointing to the correct location. If you are missing some logos, then it's probably artwork missing from your collection. Try downloading snap packs or you can add logos yourself to your emulator assets.

608

Themes / Re: Ambience HD theme v0.8 beta [Released]

« on: December 11, 2019, 02:32:46 AM »

It has been fixed recently in the commit below:
https://github.com/mickelson/attract/commit/a45bff88e413e81ee8c38ff3e48fd3c7b0c74aae

Wow I missed this commit, I remember having issues with "EndNavigation", I never used it in my layout for that reason probably

609

Themes / Re: Arcadeflow theme v 6.0 [Release] Updated 2 December 2019

« on: December 11, 2019, 12:19:41 AM »

Can you hint on what else should I comment to remove sorting altogether? I don't need sorting, the romlists are sorted anyway and sorting without articles A/The is not worth such a slowdown. I can write my own sorting script with articles for romlists in case of urgency.

It's not so easy: the sorting implementation means that the fe.list is "duplicated" and all calls that refer to the fe.list, like getting artwork, getting fe.game_info etc refer to this list instead of the usual fe.list. The easiest way to get rid of sorting is to use the version of Arcadeflow that didn't have that implemented, which is 5.4 if I'm not mistaken.

By the way, you can also try this layout for arcadeflow 6.0 which should reduce even more the loading delay.

610

Themes / Re: Arcadeflow theme v 6.0 [Release] Updated 2 December 2019

« on: December 09, 2019, 02:00:46 PM »

This version took 20 seconds to load.
I have also tried to comment out two z_listsort() calls in code and it was reduced down to 15 secons, so if it's sorting it's not sorting alone which causes slowdowns.

Well the function you commented does the actual sorting, but there's another function that prepares the whole list, getting all the data from multiple fe.game_info calls. From the logs this  step takes around 13 seconds in your setup. I've prepared a new layout where this function is reduced to the minimum, instead of loading all the data it loads only what is needed for other sorting.
I'm sorry sorting seems not well suited for such large lists, and on your system the performance hit is pretty severe. But right now sorting is so deep and pervasive in Arcadeflow that I can't honestly remove it altogether

611

Themes / Re: Arcadeflow theme v 6.0 [Release] Updated 2 December 2019

« on: December 08, 2019, 01:23:17 PM »

Should I use it in 6.0 version?

yes it replaces the previous layout.nut

612

Themes / Re: Arcadeflow theme v 6.0 [Release] Updated 2 December 2019

« on: December 08, 2019, 01:08:52 AM »

I have tried 5.4 and it took only 4 seconds to load the same romlist.

Because 5.4 didn't use sorting... Please if you have time try this layout.nut file, it should reduce the startup time by about half. If you can post the log output it would be helpful

613

Themes / Re: Arcadeflow theme v 6.0 [Release] Updated 2 December 2019

« on: December 07, 2019, 11:06:38 AM »

I have added large romlist as an attachment to this post. Let me know if you need anything else.

Thank you, with Arcadeflow 6.0 I have a 18 second "boot" delay, which is a bit too much admittedly. It seems that Arcadeflow up to 5.4 was much faster, I'll check what changed meanwhile. You can try an older version of Arcadeflow to see if it's better.

The culprit seems to bee the sorting algorithm, that's the main change between 5.4 and 5.5...

614

Themes / Re: Arcadeflow theme v 6.0 [Release] Updated 2 December 2019

« on: December 07, 2019, 02:36:34 AM »

Unfortunately large romlist loading is still slow. It took 30 seconds to load romlist with 60000 games. When I use "Basic" theme instead of Arcade Flow it only takes couple of seconds.

I'm going to investigate this issue next week, sadly I don't have such a large romlist. Can you share your romlist text file (it's in the romlist folder inside Attract Mode folder) to my personal email?

615

Themes / Re: Ambience HD theme v0.7 beta [Released]

« on: December 02, 2019, 12:39:27 PM »

As you probably know it's difficult to debug shaders in AM as the log doesn't tell which shader throws an error, especially annoying when you have many.

I know, I know, I always try to build a simpler layout for that but that's not always possible, and yes it's a pain

If I prepared an AM test build that would show the shader file's name would you be able to test Ambience and share the log from your Mac?

I could, I don't know if I'll be able to do it this week though, but if you want I'll try to find some time