Monitor Bezel

[Ambermoon]

As a preliminary solution for any aspect ratio issues, I updated the original post with two new bezel images. The bezel is now available in 4:3, 16:9 and 16:10.

[Ambermoon]

@Toni

One more thing: Maybe making it user definable isn't such a great idea. It makes things more confusing for most people and pretty complicated to install.

A better solution would be a small meta file (maybe simply in UAEs .cfg format) that is provided by me for every bezel. These files would contain all offset values pre-defined so that they can be read in when a bezel is selected.

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by Ambermoon

@Toni

One more thing: Maybe making it user definable isn't such a great idea. It makes things more confusing for most people and pretty complicated to install.

A better solution would be a small meta file (maybe simply in UAEs .cfg format) that is provided by me for every bezel. These files would contain all offset values pre-defined so that they can be read in when a bezel is selected.

That is probably best solution but only when we know all required parameters..

First I'll do simple automatic display area detection (start from center of image and go left/right/up/down until non-transparent alpha channel data is found)

EDIT: + overscan % value in configuration file

[Ambermoon]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

First I'll do simple automatic display area detection (start from center of image and go left/right/up/down until non-transparent alpha channel data is found)

That sounds even better.

EDIT: regarding the required overscan, that's indeed most likely to be solved better with human determined values.

[Ambermoon]

First I'll do simple automatic display area detection (start from center of image and go left/right/up/down until non-transparent alpha channel data is found)

Small hint: It might be better to make the detection work from the outside until pixels with none opaque alpha are found.

Just in case someone has the strange idea of making bezels with non-transparent 'errors' on the screen (for example a fly sitting on the screen). This would confuse an inside-out detection.

EDIT: This should solve the overscan issue too.

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by killergorilla

The monitor has a curved appearance, the emulation screen doesn't

Serious or not so serious comment but I'll answer: that can be quite easily fixed by replacing simple rectangle object with complex sphere-like object, D3D does the rest automatically. (but perhaps we can leave this for later..)

Originally Posted by Ambermoon

Small hint: It might be better to make the detection work from the outside until pixels with none opaque alpha are found.

Just in case someone has the strange idea of making bezels with non-transparent 'errors' on the screen (for example a fly sitting on the screen). This would confuse an inside-out detection.

EDIT: This should solve the overscan issue too.

How does it solve overscan? Most regular displays have 5% or so overscan, I don't see how alpha data can be used for overscan size..

[Ambermoon]

Maybe we mean something different.

I thought you meant the 'virtual overscan' (man, it's hard to talk about a monitor on a monitor...) that would be neccessary because of the curved appearence of the bezel monitor. With an inside out detection approach - at least the way I would do it - one would detect a bezel screen size a few pixels smaller than it actually is. But then, many ways lead to Rome, and maybe you just do it differently.

If you meant the overscan normal CRT monitor had in reality, I would leave that to the user to decide. I for one adjusted my Amiga monitors overscan differently for serious work (read pathetic first programming attempts), which required to see everything, and games, which I often liked to play at maximum size. So I think this is a setting that depends on situation and/or personal preference, nothing that should be forced on the user. But that's just my opinion.

[Ambermoon]

Deleted.

[Ambermoon]

Serious or not so serious comment but I'll answer: that can be quite easily fixed by replacing simple rectangle object with complex sphere-like object, D3D does the rest automatically. (but perhaps we can leave this for later..)

I don't believe it was meant too serious. But on the other hand...

I would like the idea. If you already are rendering the output to a plane, so that it's really 'just' exchanging the geometry with something else, why not? Although I would like to see the distortion/pinching of the image plane to be configurable. At least for the bezel author.

[killergorilla]

It was semi-serious.

I personally think the whole idea is silly, but hey it's horses for courses

I just thought if you really wanted to do it, you'd need a curved screen to stop it looking "off". Plus, I know Toni is more than capable of it, I just wanted to see whether he'd bother!

I think we'll be seeing it pretty soon

[seuden]

Agreed it is a silly idea but friggin awesome.

[killergorilla]

As I said, horses for courses

I'd rather print off a cardboard cutout of it and bluetack it to the outside of my monitor.

But, I'd rather not do either

[seuden]

Originally Posted by killergorilla

I'd rather print off a cardboard cutout of it and bluetack it to the outside of my monitor.

That would be awesome!!!!!! I'll take pics.

[kkgarbod]

Hi Ambermoon

Do you mind if I create a Artwork for MESS from your 4:3 Bezel?

[LocalH]

Heh, this reminds me of the old monitor bezel feature but much better quality (both visually, and I would assume in code as well, from what I understand the old bezel code was hacked up to hell and back). This is just making use of the quality overlay code that Toni's implemented, so I know it has to be better than the old stuff =P

[Toni Wilen]

http://www.winuae.net/files/b/winuae.zip includes "autoscaling" to display area and aspect ratio correction. It isn't perfect yet.

[Ambermoon]

Originally Posted by kkgarbod

Hi Ambermoon

Do you mind if I create a Artwork for MESS from your 4:3 Bezel?

At this point, yes. Sorry. But not forever.

I will release a final version with an appropriate Creative Commons license in a few days. This might be used for anything that is not against the license once it's done.

Hopefully you can wait that long.

[Ambermoon]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

http://www.winuae.net/files/b/winuae.zip includes "autoscaling" to display area and aspect ratio correction. It isn't perfect yet.

I just did some very quick tests with a few games. Since you say it's not perfect yet, I'm not sure if you need (or want) feedback at this moment, but here it goes anyway:

autoscaling the display area seems to work in general, although the picture appears to be offset by a few pixels in most cases. I couldn't recognize any pattern behind this so far. Some games were offset to the right, others to the left, or up or down or any combination the four directions.

Aspect ratio correction of the bezel works as long as the actual screen has the same height as the bezel. Using for example the above 16:9 bezel (1920x1080) at a screen res of 1600x1200 though leads to very strange results (sorry no better way to describe it). If you want I can provide screenshots, but most likely it makes more sense to try for yourself.

[kkgarbod]

Originally Posted by Ambermoon

At this point, yes. Sorry. But not forever.

I will release a final version with an appropriate Creative Commons license in a few days. This might be used for anything that is not against the license once it's done.

Hopefully you can wait that long.

Thanx For the Info, Will Wait

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by Ambermoon

autoscaling the display area seems to work in general, although the picture appears to be offset by a few pixels in most cases. I couldn't recognize any pattern behind this so far. Some games were offset to the right, others to the left, or up or down or any combination the four directions.

This is known problem, no idea whats wrong..

Aspect ratio correction of the bezel works as long as the actual screen has the same height as the bezel. Using for example the above 16:9 bezel (1920x1080) at a screen res of 1600x1200 though leads to very strange results (sorry no better way to describe it). If you want I can provide screenshots, but most likely it makes more sense to try for yourself.

Aspect ratio correction really only works in windowed mode. In non-matching aspect ratio fullscreen mode it can't be really fixed without modifying the image (either pre-made image or modified after loading). In rendering phase image width and height scaling values must be identical or masks will break.