TheNamec - Mega Bezel Packs Amiga, Commodore 64, VIC20, CRTgaming soon

This is absolutely beautiful. Very attentively and respectfully designed, very much looking forward to the release.

Bravo!

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From what I see on the blog there is little left, right? only one has coming soon the others put DLUpload.

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Hello there people, I’ve got LOTS of good news! Long hours of work undergone the Mega Bezel Commodore Pack, I’ve gone silent as it was mainly on the coding and testing side.

PERFORMANCE PROFILES

First of all, I’ve reached a very scalable solution for perfomance by refactoring my presets nesting chain: this way you can choose the one better suiting your machine from a wide array of EXTREME, ADVANCED, STANDARD, BASIC and POTATO pre-made variations. Sincerely, I’m astonished by @HyperspaceMadness Mega Bezel Shader capability to retain great quality even on basic profiles!

To give you an idea of the processing chain, here’s the ideal workflow from out-of-the-box presets (user side, in green) up to the interface with HSM Shader: I’m so happy to have a centralized, general solution for shader and separate displays!

From my internal testing, HSM Mega Bezel can be pretty intensive on GPU: luckily enough, Commodore systems are not very intensive on the CPU side to emulate, so I carefully tailored a whopping 34 presets variations for each model ready for you to choose from, mixing post-processing effects, color correction, multi-layering and pre-baked overlays to balance maximum image quality and performance even on the lowest end.

Differences are subtle in static images, but noticeable in motion! Look at these 400% zoomed-in Lemmings:

ENOUGH TALKING, SHOW US SOMETHING

Here’s some in-game captures for you to compare the various presets quality powered by the newborn before/after function in latest MEGA BEZEL alpha. Zoom to 100% to taste the CRT goodness!

AMIGA CD32+C1084S-D2-Black, day, extreme

A1200SYNTH+MegaBezelBlack, night, extreme - Monkey Island 2

A1200+C1084S-D1, night, advanced - Cannon Fodder

AMIGA CD32+MegaBezelBlack, night, advanced - Super Skidmarks

A500+C1084, day, basic - Hybris

A600+C1084S, day, potato - FlashBack

RELEASE CANDIDATE… WHAT?!

The balance-driven approach consolidated the release candidate features list, you can refer to the following table to compare features and CPU/GPU load for each preset.

What does “Release Candidate” mean? I’ll be releasing the first public test of the AMIGA RETROPACK on Saturday, July 24th. So if you’ve been brave enough to read to the very end, you know when to come here for download. :smile:

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Wishing to download it for testing, I am satisfied with the STANDARD.

Extraordinary work :+1: :smile:

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Can’t wait to get hands on these beauties :heart_eyes: Amazing work, thank you! :metal::sunglasses::metal:

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Mega Bezel Commodore Pack Release Candidate 1 is out!

Download it while it’s still hot on the Official DevBlog

:grin:

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That’s a great thing to wake up and find. Thank you so much for your hard work on these @TheNamec!

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Thank you very much, this excellent, when I have time I will put some captures.

Just one thing, the commodore 64? I miss him :cry:

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Excellent, I’d love to see some gaming action!

I was building a list of Amiga exclusives and top-notch games just to take new screenshots (beyond my preferred top five). If you mind, I can share that: the range spans 1988-1998!

Next two steps for full release are Commodore64 and VIC20 packs. Preset system should remain the same and assets are in a good status, so expect something not too far in the future.

I plan to drop five C64 models, three VIC20 and two VC20 variations… multiplied by 34 presets each…

374 more presets to go! Damn! :exploding_head:

I absolutely need some feedback before going on

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Whenever you want, more than one of us will do well when creating our Amiga romset, the amiga catalog is immense.

That one you put as commodore is absolutely incredible, the effect of the led on the cassette is magnificent, in fact I mentioned it to Duimon in his post, I’m happy with that.

Personally, I would start with that one and then do the others, are there too many presets, do you really need that much? That is to say, most of them with STANDARD or ADVANCED conform, I am doing the arcade ones and I am not going to do advanced or anything, night version yes but nothing else.

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@TheNamec Absolutely Amazing Work, No complaints here :beer: :+1: :grin: :grin: :grin:

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The whole point is inclusiveness, my idea about “design for all” is to bring complex shaders experience to everybody: so there was an actual extensive research and development behind the definition of EXT, ADV, STD, BAS and POT performance profiles. In fact, weaker GPUs may struggle with the most advanced solutions! Hence the need for so many variation profiles.

I’m pretty sure @HyperspaceMadness has some tricks up his sleeve for inclusiveness for the future! :wink:

Thank you! That effect on Datassette was the reason I had to build my custom layer ordering to separate background+led from bezel+decal, using decal as an actual ‘bezel led’. Ahhh, feels like ages ago!

Here we go, NO-ORI indicates that the game was a conversion, not originally programmed for Amiga

ECS/OCS

  • The Pawn (1986) NO-ORI
  • Hybris (1988)
  • F/A18 Interceptor (1988)
  • Battle Squadron: Destruction Of Barrax Empire (1989)
  • Unreal (1990)
  • Wings (1990)
  • Gods (1991) NO-ORI
  • SWIV (1991)
  • Super Twintris (1991)
  • Moonstone: A Hard Days Knight (1991)
  • Agony (1992)
  • Apidya (1992)
  • Flashback (1992)
  • Project X (1992)
  • Jim Power: In Mutant Planet (1992)
  • Turrican II: The Final Fight (1992) NO-ORI
  • Risky woods (1992) NO-ORI
  • Shadow Of The Beast III (1992)
  • Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge (1992)
  • Xenon 2: Megablast (1992) NO-ORI
  • Ambermoon (1993)
  • Lionheart (1993)
  • The Settlers (1993)
  • Walker (1993) NO-ORI?
  • Perihelion: The Prophecy (1993)
  • F17 Challenge (1993)
  • Blastar (1993)
  • Traps ‘n’ Treasures (1993)
  • K240 (1994)
  • Ruff 'n tumble (1994)
  • Elfmania (1994)
  • Darkmere: The Nightmare’s Begun (1994)
  • Universe (1994)
  • Assassin Special Edition (1994)
  • Mr. Nutz: Hoppin’ Mad (1994)
  • Odyssey (1995)

AGA

  • DeLuxe Galaga (1993)
  • Civilization (1993) NO-ORI
  • Uridium 2 (1993)
  • Aladdin (1994)
  • Body Blows Galactic (1994)
  • Shadow fighter (1995) NO-ORI?
  • Virocop (1995)
  • Xtreme Racing (1995)
  • Slam Tilt (1996)
  • Myst (1997)
  • Worms: The Director’s Cut (1997)
  • T-zer0 (1999)
  • Napalm: The Crimson Crisis (1999)
  • Wasted Dreams (1999)

CD32 (AGA)

  • Arabian Nights (1993)
  • Sensible Soccer: International Edition v1.2 (1994)
  • Akira (1994)
  • Alien Breed II: The Horror Continues (1994)
  • Banshee (1994)
  • Brian The Lion (1994)
  • The Chaos Engine (1994)
  • Benefactor (1994)
  • Fire & Ice: The Daring Adventures Of Cool Coyote (1994)
  • Disposable Hero (1994)
  • Cannon Fodder (1994)
  • Dark Seed (1994) NO-ORI
  • Lemmings (1994)
  • Heimdall 2: Into The Hall Of Worlds (1994) NO-ORI
  • Gunship 2000 (1994) NO-ORI
  • Microcosm (1994) NO-ORI
  • Kid Chaos (1994)
  • Brian the Lion (1994)
  • Naughty Ones (1994)
  • James Pond 3: Operation Starfi5h (1994) NO-ORI
  • Roadkill (1994)
  • Guardian (1994)
  • Zool 2 (1994)
  • Superfrog (1994)
  • Gloom (1995)
  • Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe (1995)
  • Super Stardust (1995)
  • The Misadventures of Flink (1995)
  • Super Stardust (1995)
  • Pinball Illusions (1995)
  • Fightin Spirit (1996)
  • OnEscapee (1997)
  • Genetic Species (1998)
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And an impressive job you done in the creation.

As impressive as your graphics and presets are, I am even more impressed with your meticulous documentation skills.

After you complete the work on this awesome collection, I feel the Mega Bezel could benefit from those skills. (In the spirit of inclusiveness.)

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Thank you for your kind words! :heart_eyes:

Let’s see how far we can go with preset collections and shader integration. I’m pretty sure Mega Bezel framework can become one of the exclusive ‘selling points’ to get new audience and creators attention to the Libretro community, pushing the ‘design for all’ concept to new levels of easiness of use and deep control over customization.

Also… it’s so fun to enhence old games with so many tools, ranging from advanced colors postprocessing, grid masking and fake scanlines, simulated CRT technology peculiarities, upscaling tricks, smart overscan cropping… it’s like an old memories REMASTER!!! :partying_face:

Killing those old amiga letterboxes after 33 years makes my inner child happy!

And yes, EXT and ADV multilayering enable advanced manipulation of procedural bezels while keeping background and leds intact :grin:

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I agree. I also think of the Mega Bezel as a “framework” as opposed to a “shader”. Combined with @HyperspaceMadness’s existing and potential future changes to RA code, who knows what we will be looking at in another year? :exploding_head:

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Full integration in Retroarch with AI powered recognition of screen specifics and best case autoconfiguration? :grin:

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i’m following the work of @Duimon and @HyperspaceMadness but you @TheNamec…what to say !!! your work is incredible and it’s an old amiga fan who tells you that :wink: I found my child’s soul just before having sold my A1200 and my C64 (a heartbreaking) keep the good work, you’re amazing :+1:

is it wanted to have the background overlay not completely centered? for me, to much on the right but maybe i’m wrong (PUAE core with 1200synth Extreme)

And just a feedback and a question : is it not possible to have a simple path to put shaders and overlays (like a kind of convention)

for @Duimon : RetroArch\shaders\Duimon-Mega-Bezel

for you : RetroArch\shaders\shaders_slang\bezel

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It’s by design, a trick to show some background while not shrinking the actual Amiga too much. This way you can have a sense of depth, a tension to the right and some breath to the left :wink:

As you may have noticed, there’s quite a turmoil with the various Mega Bezel projects. We all work individually, but we a continuous undergoing discussion so I think we will adopt some kind of standard as soon as the packs comes to a ‘stable’ form :muscle:

A heartbreaking, I still remember the day I had to throw away my c1084 before a move. Not by chance it was the first classic monitor I drew for the Commodore Pack! :grin:

Have fun with BC Kid, I loved it in the good old days when I didn’t even know of PC Engine existance!!! Thanks for the screenshot :star_struck:

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Tks for your fast answer and a big tks again for your amazing work :+1:

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I’ve got the “megabezel-commodore-pack-4k” folder in the root shaders directory.

\shaders\megabezel-commodore-pack-4k

and it works just fine. :grin: All the presets that need :/ syntax are using it.

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