

Update docs for lr-mame2003-plus artwork, backdrops, bezels?

  • I just managed to get artwork working with lr-mame2003-plus. Maybe this could go in the docs? Samples are covered, but not artwork, and the key info is buried deep in a thread here:

    Backdrops (and bezels too!) will work out of the box if you have the artwork in ~/RetroPie/BIOS/mame2003/artwork. It doesn't work if they are in the roms folder, which is where you usually put them if you are using AdvMame or mame4all.

    They need to be in the old MAME format (a .zip file containing images and an .art file) and not the new format (a .zip containing a .lay file and images). These can be downloaded from Mr Do's discontinued artwork page at lowish resolution, but there are higher-quality sources out there for individual games. Just don't confuse artwork intended for a 1080p Retroarch overlay with MAME artwork files, and be aware that most people create these to fit their particular monitor resolution. If you, like me, don't use a landscape 1920x1080 monitor, most of the files won't work well.

    Once you have copied the files to the right location, you can go into RGUI -> Quick Menu -> Options -> Display artwork and set it to enabled. You will have to exit the emulator altogether and launch the game, but it will save the preference for artwork for all games.

    This setting and the artwork resolution setting are saved in /opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch-core-options.cfg as

    mame2003_display_artwork = "enabled"
    mame2003_art_resolution = "1"

    Unfortunately, it does not look like you can use -nobezel on a command line to selectively show only the backdrop and not the bezel, in case you wanted to use overlays for bezels, cf If there is a way, let me know!

    One nice thing about MAME backdrops and bezels is that unlike overlays, they are affected by custom settings (RGUI -> Settings -> Video) because they are drawn within the core, not on top of it like overlays are.

