Monitor Bezel

[Ambermoon]

This isn't exactly a problem (more the opposite), but I couldn't find a general WinUAE forum.

I played a little bit with the new overlay (bezel-) support. Since I don't have an Amiga monitor anymore and I couldn't find any decent photos on the web for further processing, I decided to build a 3D-version and render one myself.

I took some liberties, namely somewhat smaller borders around the screen and an uncommon aspect ratio, which I think is well suited for playing most games (which come in many aspect ratios) more or less 'fullscreen'.

To the bezel I added an unobtrusive screen reflection and some onscreen shadow to give the output a some more depth. The latter one might be a bit unrealistic, but it looks nice.

Used in conjunction with filtering and a scanline/aperture mask one can achieve a pretty nice, very analogue looking output on even the latest LCD screens.

Here's how it works:

1. Download the latest WinUAE beta
2. Download the filterhaders.zip from thw WinUAE website
3. Download the bezel form here: http://img251.imageshack.us/img251/5...er1920x120.png
4. Copy the files from filtershaders.zip to either WinUAEs data directory (on Win7 that would be C:/Users/Public/Documents/Amiga Files/WinUAE/)
5. Important: rename the 'overlays' folder to 'masks'
6. create a new overlays folder
7. copy the bezel image to the new 'overlays' folder
8. Open/Start WinUAE in fullscreen mode, use D3D! (Miscellaneous Page)
9. go the the filters page. If you've done everything correctly you should be able to select the bezel image as an overlay now.
10. Scale the image until it fits the bezel.
11. Additionally play around with various filters and/or scanline masks until you find something you like.

If I find the time, I might work on this little project some more, so if you have any special wishes, please post them here. Although I make no promises to do anything more than this at all.

UPDATE 06.08.10

The bezel is available in three four flavors now. For 16:10 (same as before), 16:9, 4:3 and 5:4 resolutions:

4:3
16:9
16:10
5:4

The 5:4 version isn't quite optimal since below the screen it's pretty obvious that the monitor model isn't complete. But, hey, it's for free.

Additional updates will most likely follow (a 1084 with its original 4:3 AR for example).

Screenshots of the thing in action:







Have fun!

[Tyball]

Great idea! Thank you!

This has got me thinking of putting the real world 1084 bezel on my LCD

[JohnnyBeGood]

Very nice.
Thumps up!

[killergorilla]

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

[Toni Wilen]

Pointless but nice

[Ambermoon]

Originally Posted by killergorilla

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

You should talk to Toni about that. If he would rewrite the renderer to render the emulation output to a texture which is applied to an distortable (read curved) plane, the emulation screen would look correctly distorted too.

I'm pretty sure, he will love the idea

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

Pointless but nice

Depends on one's point of view, I'd say.

I use WinUAE mainly for nostalgic reasons, to play some old games every once in a while. And in this regard this is quite the opposite of pointless. It's exactly what WinUAE was missing all those years.

btw.: if you want, please feel free to add the bezel as an additional download to the WinUAE website.

[gimbal]

not to piss on Toni's epic work, but this DOES give WinUAE that "finishing touch" kind of deal IMO. Now that I see this, I know what I was missing.

Good job!

[FreakyDan]

Yeah!! I love it.... Nostalgia all the way...

[seuden]

Brilliant!!

[FreakyDan]

Another cool feature would be to have the onscreen leds intergrated on the bezel..
Something for Toni to work on.

[Fabie]

thanks it worked but
that's was made for a 16:9 monitor
in a 4:3 monitor and 1920x1200 resolution the image of the monitor 1084 looks thin
please can you made a bezel for 1024x768 or 1152x864 or 1600x1200 or 1920x1440
or can you explain how can be made it....
I rezised your image but not worked

[Fabie]

also ...the shadow of the lampshade of the 1084 image is noticed in the amiga screen....
I don't like that effect cause distorsion in the real winuae 'image

[onkelarie]

I must admit it looks pretty neat. Nostalgia is the keyword and since nostalgia is just as pointless, it's a nice feature to add on top of the screen...

[Toni Wilen]

I can add automatic size/aspect ratio detection because I don't need to care about possible backwards compatibility yet.

[Jgames]

Ambermoon;
Your scanlines doesn't look good, some are bigger than the others (or darker), they are not uniform.
This kind of wrong looks, i tend to get it all the time with a lot of emulators and only in fullscreen mode.
I tend to have the best results when using the LCD native resolution.
Toni, do you know why this happens? thx.

[Ambermoon]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

I can add automatic size/aspect ratio detection because I don't need to care about possible backwards compatibility yet.

For the fullscreen resoulution of WinUAE or the resolution the Amiga runs in? The latter one, I thought, was already covered in the filter settings.

If you mean the WinUAE resolution, that would be great. I could then provide the bezel in 16:9 and all that WinUAE would have to do is to crop the image to make it work with almost any 'normal' resolution.

On a sidenote: Automatic scaling/resizing naturally doesn't work as good with the bezel as it does without, since it would have to take the position and size of the bezels 'screen' into account. Would this be difficult to implement?

[Baboon]

That looks awesome...A nice finishing touch!

I'll test this once I finish work later.

[Ambermoon]

Originally Posted by Jgames

Ambermoon;
Your scanlines doesn't look good, some are bigger than the other, they are not uniform.
This kind of wrong looks, i tend to get it all the time with a lot of emulators and only in fullscreen mode.
I tend to have the best results when using the LCD native resolution.
Toni, do you know why this happens? thx.

If I understand you correctly, you don't use your LCDs native resolution?

If that's so, it's the cause for the non-uniform scanlines. I didn't touch these. Try the native resolution instead. if that's a 16:10 res everything should work fine. If not, you have to crop (for 4:3) or extend (for 16:9) the bezel in photoshop or something similar. At least for now.

Toni might implement a solution for this eventually (see his post above).

[Toni Wilen]

I meant fixing aspect ratio automatically (cropping/centering, instead of using non-1:1 scaling)

"autoscaling" Amiga display to visible bezel area should be possible.

[Ambermoon]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

I meant fixing aspect ratio automatically (cropping/centering, instead of using non-1:1 scaling)

"autoscaling" Amiga display to visible bezel area should be possible.

Great. Would it be possible to make this user definable? Meaning not fixed to on specific bezel size. For example by four definable values: top offset, left offset, width, height.

This would allow other bezel screen sizes to be implemented pretty easy.