How to Size Front End

[bizzy]

Hi All,

I'm looking for some info about how to go about booting straight into my front end and having some bezeling (painted glass).

At the moment I am using a 23" widescreen monitor, I have all my emulators running at Standard 4:3 which I am fine with as it just has 2 black strips either side. My issue is, my front end (MALA) runs at full screen meaning that if I put bezelling it will cut of the front end. Is there any way around this? I understand I can run MALA in a window - but then I can see the windows OS behind it.

Also can someone link me to how to set up my system to basically hide windows? I am using Windows 7 32 bit.

Thanks.

[edekoning]

You will need to change your mala layout to add the black bars, so basically put all the controls in a centered 4:3 area. Note that we have a MaLa Frontend subforum: http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/board,43.0.html

[bulbousbeard]

Use a frontend that actually supports 4:3 properly (hint hint)?

[bizzy]

Use a frontend that actually supports 4:3 properly (hint hint)?

Care to elaborate?

[yotsuya]

Use a frontend that actually supports 4:3 properly (hint hint)?

Care to elaborate?

He's passively trying to tell you to try his front end. I don't know why he doesn't just give you a link. 

Depending on your video card settings, you could also just set your resolution to something like 800x600 and check the setting to maintain aspect ratio.

[dashingw]

There are  Mame bezels you can get that cover those black bars. I think I already sent you pictures of that. And again I think mGalaxy would work better for you. New update coming apparently in a few weeks as well... Just a thought.....

There is some nice wide screen bezel art out there for certain games as well....

[dashingw]

Sorry, damn thing posted twice... Lol

[BadMouth]

BYO Mala layout with black bars on the sides.

I have a widescreen rotating monitor, but wanted the front end to appear the same whichever way the monitor was turned.
So I ended up with what appears to be a square, but one has black bars left and right and the other has black bars top and bottom.
Behind the tinted plexi, it looks the same either way.

It was easy to just open the background image in paint.net, change the canvas size, and paint the bars black.
That and changing the resolution of the layout in Mala layout editor is all you need to do.

[bulbousbeard]

If you have an Nvidia card, I have another suggestion.

Create a custom resolution in your Nvidia settings and run your desktop at that resolution.

For example, say you've got a 1080p monitor. It's 1920x1080. If you want a 4:3 resolution, just take the pixel height and multiply it by 1.333333333333333.

In this case, 1.333333333333333 * 1080 = 1440. 1440x1080 is 4:3 for a 1080p display. If you're running at a different resolution, do the same thing.

When you run at a custom resolution like this, there are no stretching artifacts, because you're using 100% of your monitor's height. Mala should work if you do this. I have no idea if AMD has a similar custom resolution setting.