MiSTer FPGA Forum

lomdar67 wrote: ↑Tue Jul 07, 2020 6:26 am

alanswx wrote: ↑Tue Jul 07, 2020 1:17 am Anyone want to try this test build? I made the color a little more white when the vector is brighter.

Thanks a lot!

Just wanted to give it a short try because I have to go to work, but couldn't figure out in which folder the overlays have to go to...

I would love to give it a try as well. But as mentioned above not sure where to place the overlays.

Unzip the Overlays to a folder called overlays.

Copy this folder into the folder where Vectrex Games are.

Place the new Vectrex.rbf in _Consoles folder (I renamed mine as VectrexOvr.rbf)

Start Mister and run the VectrexOvr core

Minestorm boots with no overlay

Select F12 to select game and load an overlay file.

Pole Postion, Bedlam and Minestorm tested great.


@alanswx: Thank you this works very well. Great work. Scramble is missing from the zip file, please can this be added?

Vic20-Ian wrote: ↑Tue Jul 07, 2020 11:28 am Select F12 to select game and load an overlay file.

Okay, thanks didn't see that there was an option to load the overlay...

Hope we can somehow "connect" the rom and the overlay at a later time. Maybe with an additional config file or a simple naming convention?

So far it looks very nice and very promising. Didn't have a single problem so far.

I have attached the Scramble overlay as png, maybe someone can convert it...

Just found this collection of Vectrex overlays: https://github.com/raphkoster/vectrex-overlays

Unfortunately all are in png format. I hope someone can convert them...

lomdar67 wrote: ↑Tue Jul 07, 2020 11:38 am

Vic20-Ian wrote: ↑Tue Jul 07, 2020 11:28 am Select F12 to select game and load an overlay file.

Hope we can somehow "connect" the rom and the overlay at a later time. Maybe with an additional config file or a simple naming convention?

If you leave it as is then there is more choice to try other overlays.

Vic20-Ian wrote: ↑Tue Jul 07, 2020 12:16 pm

lomdar67 wrote: ↑Tue Jul 07, 2020 11:38 am

Vic20-Ian wrote: ↑Tue Jul 07, 2020 11:28 am Select F12 to select game and load an overlay file.

Hope we can somehow "connect" the rom and the overlay at a later time. Maybe with an additional config file or a simple naming convention?

If you leave it as is then there is more choice to try other overlays.

Yes sure, but you can have both: Make a naming convention so the overlay can be preloaded with the rom, but leave the option to manually load an overlay in there. In the long term it will be quite annoying to load the rom and load the overlay every time you change the game.

I opened a Vectrex discussion in the Other console subforum:

viewtopic.php?f=24&t=710

Maybe the Vectrex posts can be moved over there, they would be easier to find in the future.

Vic20-Ian wrote: ↑Tue Jul 07, 2020 11:28 am Unzip the Overlays to a folder called overlays.

Copy this folder into the folder where Vectrex Games are.

Place the new Vectrex.rbf in _Consoles folder (I renamed mine as VectrexOvr.rbf)

Start Mister and run the VectrexOvr core

Minestorm boots with no overlay

Select F12 to select game and load an overlay file.

Pole Postion, Bedlam and Minestorm tested great.


@alanswx: Thank you this works very well. Great work. Scramble is missing from the zip file, please can this be added?

No need to unzip them. You can load them right out of the zip. Will save a lot of space.

alanswx wrote: ↑Tue Jul 07, 2020 1:17 pm

Vic20-Ian wrote: ↑Tue Jul 07, 2020 11:28 am Unzip the Overlays to a folder called overlays.

Copy this folder into the folder where Vectrex Games are.

Place the new Vectrex.rbf in _Consoles folder (I renamed mine as VectrexOvr.rbf)

Start Mister and run the VectrexOvr core

Minestorm boots with no overlay

Select F12 to select game and load an overlay file.

Pole Postion, Bedlam and Minestorm tested great.


@alanswx: Thank you this works very well. Great work. Scramble is missing from the zip file, please can this be added?

No need to unzip them. You can load them right out of the zip. Will save a lot of space.

@alanswx,
I have just managed to try them all! They look awesome! Many thanks for that.

very good !!!

like on my real vectrex

alanswx wrote: ↑Tue Jul 07, 2020 1:17 am Anyone want to try this test build? I made the color a little more white when the vector is brighter.

This is fantastic! It is working really well. The aspect ratio also looks good. How fast was this? I was totally not expecting to have overlay support this quickly, amazing job!

Only thing is the overlay seems slightly cut off on the right and the resolution is relatively low. Is it possible to use higher resolution overlays and how do you make your own?

For some weird reason trying to copy the overlays using samba gave me an error message, worked fine using FTP.

It seems like the Vectrex core is drawing all vectors with the same brightness, while the Vectrex can use a different brightness for each vector.

I also just noticed the Vectrex core is using a rendering resolution that differs from the video_mode settings. That is odd for vector games that don't have a fixed resolution (the resolution of the Vectrex is variable per vector). The result looks really rough when not using integer scale and really small when I use full hd with integer scaling.

EDIT: 720p with integer scaling gives me full screen. Would be great if there was a 1080p option as well, or it just used what is defined in video_mode.
EDIT2: It isn't drawing everything at the same brightness. Might be that the number of brightness levels, or the brightness curve is off.

More overlays. Oh no.. A lot of these are cropped wrong. Back to the graphics pipeline!

@alanswx,
Thanks! I cant wait to try them!

Alkadian wrote: ↑Tue Jul 07, 2020 8:25 pm @alanswx,
Thanks! I cant wait to try them!

I need to do some housework but I will try to update them more diligently and get a new pack out.

alanswx wrote: ↑Tue Jul 07, 2020 8:40 pm

Alkadian wrote: ↑Tue Jul 07, 2020 8:25 pm @alanswx,
Thanks! I cant wait to try them!

I need to do some housework but I will try to update them more diligently and get a new pack out.

That's great. Please no rush, just when you get a chance. Thanks!

alanswx wrote: ↑Tue Jul 07, 2020 8:04 pm More overlays. Oh no.. A lot of these are cropped wrong. Back to the graphics pipeline!

Wow, that is quite the collection, I very much appreciate your efforts!

These overlays are great!

TwinX wrote: ↑Thu Jul 09, 2020 7:14 am These overlays are great!

I agree, it really adds dimension to these games. I hope this feature will become official

Bits n Stuff wrote: ↑Fri Jul 10, 2020 3:16 am @alanswx Wow, these really are fantastic!! It really is transformative to the games!!
How are the .ovr files created? I ask as onscreen the relatively low resolution of the original images can bring up on screen noise around text and any none horizontal or vertical edges.

Scramble-USA-Europe.png (56.01 KiB) Viewed 9508 times

I ask as I may be able to assist in preventing sorting that out if I was able to create .ovr files.

The readme has a howto and there is a python script in the directory. The source of the original higher resolution images are also in the readme. It would be great if they could be cleaned up / centered / maybe redrawn (ie: pinball doesn’t seem to line up)
https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Vectrex ... r/overlays

Could they be converted to Scalable Vector format SVG and make use of that rather than bitmap?

Vector graphic overlay would be more fitting for a Vector System

Vic20-Ian wrote: ↑Fri Jul 10, 2020 8:19 am Could they be converted to Scalable Vector format SVG and make use of that rather than bitmap?

Vector graphic overlay would be more fitting for a Vector System

We don't have a vector monitor. it has to be rasterized for output on our lcd. We could try to kick up the resolution to match the overlays, but when I did that I ran out of bram - so we would need to majorly modify the core to try to use some other ram. I don't think it is worthwhile. I haven't looked at Grabulosaure's version, http://temlib.org/pub/mister/misc/vectrex/



Alan