Is it possible to reposition emulators in full screen mode?

[transfan]

I want to know if I have a game which will not completely fill up my widescreen (i.e. every game made before widescreen monitors), if it is possible to move it to the left or right instead of it being centered?

Further, is there anything you can do with that unused real estate (black bars)?

This is for any emulator or old pc game.  Maybe there's a utility to do this?

I know mame can move the position of the screen, but it still seems to be confined to a 4:3 window



Thanks in advance

[nitz]

A lot of monitors have settings to move the horizontal/vertical postion of the image. That's probably your best bet.

I think there is a way to fill in the black bars with bezel art in MAME - someone else will have to help you with that though as I have no idea how. If no one tells you in this thread, I would start a new thread with that question as the title.

As for being confined to a 4:3 window, I think this is what you would want anyway - otherwise the image will be stretched out which looks terrible IMO. But if you really want to do it, you should be able to get MAME to do this, exact settings may depend on your resolution and video card.

Hope this is helpful!

[transfan]

Thanks.  I certainly want to keep it 4:3, but I just want to move it to one side for a project I'm doing.  I could use the monitor to do it but I only need it to be done for emulators.  Other software needs to be widescreen.

Thanks tho!

[nitz]

I don't know if all monitors are like this, but on mine, that setting is specific to resolution.

Example: My desktop resolution is 1680x1050 and my emulator resolution is 640x480. If I shift the screen in my emulator, the desktop remains unaffected. The next time I boot the emulator, it remembers that setting and shifts the screen to the appropriate place again.

You can usually monkey with resolution settings slightly in an emulator without really affecting performance too much, so you could just make sure your emulators are in a different resolution than other software.

So try that if you haven't already. If that doesn't work, you will probably need to look into getting some sort of utility.

[nexusmtz]

MAME can place multiple objects on the screen in arbitrary positions using the layout feature. Of course, this won't help with any other emulators.

Here's an example .lay to move a 4x3 (horizontal) or 3x4 (vertical) game screen to the left or right on a 16x9 monitor:

Code: [Select]

<mamelayout version="2">
<element name="widescreen">
<rect>
<bounds x="0" y="0" width="192" height="108" />
<color red="0" green="0" blue="0" />
</rect>
</element>

<view name="HLeft">
<backdrop element="widescreen">
<bounds left="0" top="0" right="192" bottom="108" />
</backdrop>
<screen index="0">
<bounds left="0" top="0" right="128" bottom="108" />
</screen>
</view>
<view name="VLeft">
<backdrop element="widescreen">
<bounds left="0" top="0" right="192" bottom="108" />
</backdrop>
<screen index="0">
<bounds left="0" top="0" right="81" bottom="108" />
</screen>
</view>
<view name="HRight">
<backdrop element="widescreen">
<bounds left="0" top="0" right="192" bottom="108" />
</backdrop>
<screen index="0">
<bounds left="64" top="0" right="192" bottom="108" />
</screen>
</view>
<view name="VRight">
<backdrop element="widescreen">
<bounds left="0" top="0" right="192" bottom="108" />
</backdrop>
<screen index="0">
<bounds left="111" top="0" right="192" bottom="108" />
</screen>
</view>

</mamelayout>
192x108 is specified as the backdrop dimension instead of 16x9 so it's easier to divide by 4 and 3. The rest of the numbers come from placing a 1.333 aspect picture on the 16x9 screen.


Regarding other emulators, it's much easier to force a position when you're working with a window instead of fullscreen. When you're in fullscreen mode, the program believes that it is responsible for presenting everything to you, including the black background. In windowed mode, you can use a utility like AutoHotkey to push windows to where you want them.

As for what to do with the spare area, special moves for fighting games comes to mind. Or pretty much anything that others are using 2 monitors for. In the example layout above, the backdrop could just as easily have been a .png image, so its use is only limited by resolution and imagination.

--Nexusmtz