OpenBOR for MiSTer

[Sumolx]

I'm just wondering if it would be better to have two folders... /media/fat/openbor/crt and /media/fat/openbor/hdmi. That way when you want to play mods that use higher resolutions or non 320x240 mods.... you can without the save files effecting the each other.

[Retro-Nerd]

Ah ok. Mmh, i don't know if it works as intended. But as i said, i'm perfectly fine with the CRT script.

[Sumolx]

Pushed up some more refactoring but this should do it... I promise!

Installation has been broken up into two separate scripts. Install_OpenBOR.sh has been deprecated. This will allow me to provide fixes without having to run the updater twice. Fixes and updates can now be applied after the archive has been extracted. We now have the following layout:

Code: Select all

/media/fat/Scripts/
    OpenBOR_Updater.sh - Script downloads latest from GitHub and executes installation script provided within archive.
    OpenBOR_CRT.sh - Runs OpenBOR at 320x240 resolution and stores all settings, logs, screenshots to /media/fat/OpenBOR/CRT/
    OpenBOR_HDMI.sh - Runs OpenBOR at HDMI resolution and stores all settings, logs, screenshots to /media/fat/OpenBOR/HDMI/

/media/fat/OpenBOR/
    Paks - Which you will share between both CRT and HDMI OpenBOR launch scripts
    Libs - Libraries needed by OpenBOR to run
    OpenBOR - The main executable which is invoked by the CRT and HDMI scripts.
    CRT/ - Contains CRT specific saves, logs, screenshots
    HDMI/ - Contains HDMI specific saves, logs, screenshots

Delete existing /media/fat/Scripts/Install_OpenBOR.sh and upload the latest OpenBOR_Updater.sh to /media/fat/Scripts and execute this script to get the latest version of OpenBOR.

I've also attached a version of OpenBOR (executable only) which will change the vmode automatically which will allow for higher resolution native displaying via HDMI. I've tested with Golden Axe - Remake (480x272).pak.

Place this executable within /media/fat/OpenBOR/ and remember its for testing purposes only and is to be only invoked by OpenBOR_HDMI.sh

This will allow for external hardware scalers to work with those resolutions natively versus having a view port of 1920x1080 and the graphics being displayed within a subset of that resolution. Hardware scalers should work nicely with this alternative and using the Video Options software scaling feature will be unnecessary.

[Retro-Nerd]

I seems to work. But the controller configs aren't saved in the "HDMI" and "CRT" folders. You have to reconfigure every time you start a game. Actually no logs either.

[Sumolx]

Thank you for confirming the new binary is working for you.... I will fix the other issues.

[Retro-Nerd]

One note: HDMI script uses native 1920x1080p resolution with a viewport of e.g. 480x272 for the game within. This means you can't setup properly aligned CRT filter (scanlines and mask) via a hardware scaler like my Retrotink 4K. If you have this combination (or a different hardware scaler) you have to use the CRT script and 240p game versions.

edit: I think the 240p of the Golden Axe Remake from your site is somewhat broken. Once you've selected a player and press A to start the game it actually quits to the credits, and then quits to Mister menu.

[coolfox89]

Is there a default gamepad config file we can use so we don't have to configure each separate game?

[Sumolx]

One note: HDMI script uses native 1920x1080p resolution with a viewport of e.g. 480x272 for the game within. This means you can't setup properly aligned CRT filter (scanlines and mask) via a hardware scaler like my Retrotink 4K. If you have this combination (or a different hardware scaler) you have to use the CRT script and 240p game versions.

edit: I think the 240p of the Golden Axe Remake from your site is somewhat broken. Once you've selected a player and press A to start the game it actually quits to the credits, and then quits to Mister menu.

I've pushed up some fixes in regards to file handling and tested on my setup. I've also resolved the native output for the HDMI script to render at the resolution specified by the module. Meaning if the module specifies 480x272 the HDMI output should now be 480x272. We should be all set now with the file handling between CRT and HDMI folders. I will test the 240p version of Golden Axe to see what is happening. With this new version could you supply a log file?

Thank you for testing it out.

Is there a default gamepad config file we can use so we don't have to configure each separate game?

Yes, goto Options -> System Options -> Config Settings -> Save Settings To Default.cfg

[Retro-Nerd]

Sure, i will test it later and post a log too.

[Retro-Nerd]

Mmh, just tried Golden Axe Remake 480x272 Remake. The Retrotink 4k doesn't switch to this resolution with the HDMI script. It's still a viewport inside 1920x1080p. Look at the shots. Vertical/Horizontal Factor.

Ingame under "Screen" you can only select 2x = 960x554, higher crashes the engine. But still, the Tink doesn't show the proper resolution via Tink. Screen: Disabled is 480x272 i guess. Maybe the Tink doesn't get the needed meta data for the resolution.

Configs and logs are saved now.

[Retro-Nerd]

And here is the crash log for "Golden Axe Remake" 240p.

[Sumolx]

Ok... You made me work for this one!!!! The version on my website was uTunnels original release which had a bug that I never caught because at the time I played mostly on my PSP which is 480x272.

Found a version where uTunnels worked with Christuserloeser and got a Dreamcast port of his mod running and it came out fantastic! So I had to find tools to extract a Dreamcast cdi in order to get the pak file and then I repacked the one on my website. Just redownload it and you should be fine.... it's a great mod!

There is an issue though and because I ripped a dreamcast CDI version the music is missing.... I will see if I can restore it.

[Retro-Nerd]

Man, i could pull my hair out. All of the sudden this overlapping letters, like i posted here, is back. I didn't change anything. Just started the Mister new. Had to delete everything configured before in the CRT and HDMI folders.


LINK

edit: Yeah, i can reproduce it now 100%. Just soft rebooting the Mister doesn't do any harm. But every new cold boot messes with the letters in the colored bottom sections of the frontend gui. Another x-file i guess.

The new uploaded Golden Axe Remake 240p (tens times bigger) works. Ingame music is there (tried Remix and Arcade story mode). Yep, it's a nice mod. Played it ages ago on my Dreamcast.

[Sumolx]

The overlapping is a known issue with the engine. The menu was originally designed for the PSP which then became openbors menu. Once you assigned a gamepad to player 1 and specify save a default configuration I believe that's when player 1 buttons then get referenced in the menu instead of keyboard keys. Can be safely ignored as it does not cause any issues beside looking terrible.

[Retro-Nerd]

Good to know. Any luck with sending the game mods proper native resolution to scalers. e.g 480x272, over HDMI? Is maybe the meta data missing here, preventing the resolution switch?

[Sumolx]

I was deceived by my monitor.... you are correct that It is not displaying the native resolution. I will have to see if it's possible with vmode command. Are you familiar with setting custom vmodes for mister? It would be interesting to see if it is something that can be embedded into the engine's backend and automatically switch video mode based on module resolution.

[Retro-Nerd]

I use Mister with direct_video=1 for the most FPGA cores. Which works fine over HDMI, getting the native resolutions of the cores/games. I guess you could ask experts like birdybro on Mister discord. Maybe he can help (or others). I really don't know if something similar is possible for plain Linux stuff.

[Flain]

Is there anyway to change the resolution for CRT? Changing it in the launch script doesn't seem to have any effect.

Most Mistercade users on 15khz would use 480x240 (prdoom via framebuffer looks great at this res)

[Sumolx]

OpenBOR allows game module creators to specify which resolution to run their games in. This means if they want the default resolution of 320x240 there is nothing else to modify. However, they have the ability to specify other resolutions such as 480x272 and higher. This also means that every element defined in the module has specific XYZ spawn points which they have carefully chosen. Altering the native module resolution would break their modules as it was specifically designed for that given resolution.

The reason I lock down the CRT resolution is to prevent damage to the CRT itself if a higher resolution was defined within their module and via the OpenBOR_CRT script (vmode) we have protection from damaging the CRT as the app would just exit.

If your CRT supports higher resolution then you would need to modify the CRT script to the following: vmode 480 272 which is the first supported resolution beyond 320x240 for openbor. Though I believe this would impact the presentation of 320x240... but I think you could use the CRT controls to re-center and resize the image without issue.

[Flain]

The reason I lock down the CRT resolution is to prevent damage to the CRT itself if a higher resolution was defined within their module and via the OpenBOR_CRT script (vmode) we have protection from damaging the CRT as the app would just exit.

If your CRT supports higher resolution then you would need to modify the CRT script to the following: vmode 480 272 which is the first supported resolution beyond 320x240 for openbor. Though I believe this would impact the presentation of 320x240... but I think you could use the CRT controls to re-center and resize the image without issue.

Fair enough, just for people with cabs like astro cities and other candy cabs with mistercades the current video mode doesn't work well (it's all squished, i can take a video if it helps). I've got a few cabs and its the same across multiple cabs, i think its more a problem with the framebuffer feature of mister in general.

[holaplaneta]

Hi there, excellent work.

Been trying to run this since a few days ago. I finally managed to install it with the "OpenBOR_Updater.sh" file and not the "OpenBOR_Install.sh" one, but now I am running into this crash.

/media/fat/Scripts/OpenBOR_CRT.sh: line 16: 1068 Segmentation fault
taskset ${OPENBOR_CPU_MASK} ${OPENBOR_HOME_DIR}/${OPENBOR_EXE_NAME} ${OPENBOR_OPTIONS} > /dev/null 2>/&1

I use a CRT thru MiSTer´s analog component output. No other Cores have issues with it.
Any guidance will be appreciated.
Thank you.

[Brettster]

I get a message when running the updated that the github certificate cannot be trusted, and when I added Pak file to the Pak folder, it just crashes when running openbot HDMI or CRT

[Sumolx]

I get a message when running the updated that the github certificate cannot be trusted, and when I added Pak file to the Pak folder, it just crashes when running openbot HDMI or CRT

I get the same GitHub error when I try to use the updater script before mister sets its clock. Once the mister menu reports the date/time you can execute the script.

Reach out to me via PM and we can debug it

Hi there, excellent work.

Been trying to run this since a few days ago. I finally managed to install it with the "OpenBOR_Updater.sh" file and not the "OpenBOR_Install.sh" one, but now I am running into this crash.

/media/fat/Scripts/OpenBOR_CRT.sh: line 16: 1068 Segmentation fault
taskset ${OPENBOR_CPU_MASK} ${OPENBOR_HOME_DIR}/${OPENBOR_EXE_NAME} ${OPENBOR_OPTIONS} > /dev/null 2>/&1

I use a CRT thru MiSTer´s analog component output. No other Cores have issues with it.
Any guidance will be appreciated.
Thank you.

Reach out to me via PM and we can debug it

The reason I lock down the CRT resolution is to prevent damage to the CRT itself if a higher resolution was defined within their module and via the OpenBOR_CRT script (vmode) we have protection from damaging the CRT as the app would just exit.

If your CRT supports higher resolution then you would need to modify the CRT script to the following: vmode 480 272 which is the first supported resolution beyond 320x240 for openbor. Though I believe this would impact the presentation of 320x240... but I think you could use the CRT controls to re-center and resize the image without issue.

Fair enough, just for people with cabs like astro cities and other candy cabs with mistercades the current video mode doesn't work well (it's all squished, i can take a video if it helps). I've got a few cabs and its the same across multiple cabs, i think its more a problem with the framebuffer feature of mister in general.

Try changing the crt script and let me know how well it works out. Is your monitor CGA or a multi resolution monitor?

[Flain]

It's regular 15khz (no multisync) - it's a nano MS9 (common in astro cities and some other candy cabs). Changing the resolution is better but still horizontally squished. I think it's more an issue with how games run from scripts work, the only game that really looks great that i run in that mode is prDoom and that allows you to pass video parameters to doom itself. If OpenBOR itself doesn't support that (i couldn't successfully google any setting like that) then it's probably as good as it'll yet.

Thankyou for the work though! - i'll still get good use out of it on my MiSTer loungeroom/LCD TV setup!

[Brettster]

the problem was one of the PAK files, with it removed it worked as expected

[Sumolx]

It's regular 15khz (no multisync) - it's a nano MS9 (common in astro cities and some other candy cabs). Changing the resolution is better but still horizontally squished. I think it's more an issue with how games run from scripts work, the only game that really looks great that i run in that mode is prDoom and that allows you to pass video parameters to doom itself. If OpenBOR itself doesn't support that (i couldn't successfully google any setting like that) then it's probably as good as it'll yet.

Thankyou for the work though! - i'll still get good use out of it on my MiSTer loungeroom/LCD TV setup!

Looking at the PRDoom script it specifies the vmode for 640 480 and you are not finding issues at that resolution with a CGA monitor? Last time I tried something like that I blew up a nano chassis. Well to be fair I believe the mister must be doing something special... I think it converts it to 640x240 for analog out. I guess you could try using the same resolution but if things don't look right I would power it off right away so you don't blow the chassis. If it does look ok.... then you can use the video option to scale image to 2x and that should work.

[holaplaneta]

Reach out to me via PM and we can debug it

Thank you! Will do.

Really appreciate it.

[Flain]

Looking at the PRDoom script it specifies the vmode for 640 480 and you are not finding issues at that resolution with a CGA monitor? Last time I tried something like that I blew up a nano chassis. Well to be fair I believe the mister must be doing something special... I think it converts it to 640x240 for analog out. I guess you could try using the same resolution but if things don't look right I would power it off right away so you don't blow the chassis. If it does look ok.... then you can use the video option to scale image to 2x and that should work.

I modified the launch script for prdoom for it to do 480x240. Changed the resolution parameter passed to prdoom along with the command that puts mister into the right video mode. With MiSTercade there is a mister.ini file and 480x240 is what they set as the vga out resolution for the mister menu, seems to work best. The exact video mode setting is video_mode=480,12,48,36,240,4,3,16,9089

[RexMendicorvm]

I installed the core via "OpenBOR_Updater.sh" ("OpenBOR_Install.sh" wasn't working for me). I can get to the pak menu, but every time I try to load a pak it either crashes immediately to a "Press any key" prompt, or it starts to load but then crashes to this:

"/media/fat/Scripts/OpenBOR_HDMI.sh: line 13: 15910 Segmentation fault
taskset ${OPENBOR_CPU_MASK} ${OPENBOR_HOME_DIR}/${OPENBOR_EXE_NAME} ${OPENBOR_OPTIONS} > /dev/null 2>/&1"

Any help would be appreciated; I've been an OpenBOR fanboy for years & would love to play it on my MiSTer!

[Sumolx]

Ok... First make sure you have SCummVM installed as it will install all the necessary libraries need not only for SCummVM but also OpenBOR. Once you have then add a few basic pak files to the Paks directory (I recommend some thing simple like Crisis Evil 1 & 2). Make sure the menu system is then shown. If you can run those games then it should be good to go. Let me know if you run into any other issues.