Vertical resolutions

[Dazz]

Hey Bill,

Would it really be difficult to allow vertical resolutions? I know that themes would need to be re-created, but we can leave that up to the people that want to run on a vertical monitor. This seems to be a very common question from BYOAC and also the pinball forums that I visit. Not to mention I am in the planning stages on building a Ultrapin style cabinet that will have a vertical screen, so this will help me out in the future as well.

I think this is definitely something we should throw on the table to consider...

[The Loafer]

Even though I have no need for this right now, I have to agree this is a must have option for any front end.

[billpa]

Perhaps there is a way to window the current horizontal style inside of the vertical screen and then have some sort of customizable letterbox on the top and bottom. You could use that extra area for anything really. Not sure how hard it would be to do but I would imagine it would be much easier than reworking all of the current themes. I understand both sides but I personally do not want to have to worry about two different orientations when I create themes.

[BadBoyBill]

Have specific vertical themes wont probably be on most peoples priorty list, and I doubt there would be many themes created specificaly for vertical.

So another option would be to take the existing themes and run some calculations on them to fit onto a vertical screen. For example if an artwork is on the top half of a horizontal theme then it would be scaled down to fit on the top half somewhere on the vertical layout if the horizontal width of the application is smaller than 1024 or if its the same or larger then to not scale the artwork. Im wrapping my head around the idea to figure out the best way.

The other option would be to do what billpa said, or have the main HS screen take up the bottom half of a vertical layout and use the top half for something else. Or center it and have something on the top and bottom.

The second way would be easiest I think but what to put on the other half of the screen I'm not sure about.

Either way this feature is low on my priority list since theres alot more to do with HS as far as general features go.

[joebells]

if you do decide to add this maybe you could possibly add widescreen too? :D Maybe either do the calculations for that also and/or maybe allow up to three coordinate definitions in the theme files. Like three seperate sections one labeled 4:3, one 16:9 and one vertical. Then HyperSpin could use one of the three depending on what mode it was in. It probably wouldn't be much more work on the part of themers as they would already have the artwork done they would just have to shift it around some for each of the three layouts. Maybe hypertheme could even be setup to create themes for all three layouts, maybe even kind of demand it to finish a theme.

Again just an idea but it would be nice as then the artwork wouldn't be as "stretched" for us widescreeners(it'd still get stretched but it would be equally in both dimensions instead of more in one dimension than the other)

[The Loafer]

BBB: The center idea could be good as a stopgap for now, at least the resolution would support vertical and the graphics wouldn't be distorted. It's true though, many would perhaps complain this isn't good enough support so perhaps it's best to way until it can be done properly.

[BadBoyBill]

Well there is no real proper way to do it from what I can see without having something looking messed up, unless theres straight vertical theme support, I doubt the vertical theme community would be very big at all. It doesnt justify me spending the time to add a feature when I know there will be only a small supporting community.

[The Loafer]

I agree from my own selfish perspective, there's no doubt I'd rather you work on something else :). But we are all assuming the size of the demand for vertical. I don't know, but I can tell you there's quite a few at BYOAC members that are vocal about it. Maybe in the future, a poll can be put forth to actually judge the demand properly?

Here's another issue that would surely be a small amount of users BUT it's starting to get mroe and more common: cabs with rotating monitors. I don't see any easy solve for those!!!

[billpa]

I agree....right now this is a niche piece of software and I wouldnt want you creating a niche feature for a niche product. You cannot please them all no matter how hard you try. I figured the windowed way would be the easiest. Something that just scales down the horizontal frame into the vertical and centers it. Anything else is too much work IMO.

[Dazz]

Well the reason I asked about it is because I will be building a pinball cabinet in the near future... After seeing one online the woman said that we needed one with how much I enjoy Pinball. I haven't decided if I am going to do dual monitor, with the main table vertical and the backglass horizontal, or if I am only going to do a vertical table. I guess it is really just going to depend on how much I can get the monitors for...

[cathaldub]

Well the reason I asked about it is because I will be building a pinball cabinet in the near future... After seeing one online the woman said that we needed one with how much I enjoy Pinball. I haven't decided if I am going to do dual monitor, with the main table vertical and the backglass horizontal, or if I am only going to do a vertical table. I guess it is really just going to depend on how much I can get the monitors for...
How about a single 42" lcd or plasma pinball cabinet:burnout:
http://www.ralphwiggum.net/Albums/MultiPin/Multi-Pin/album/Finished%20Game/multipin.html




http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=AN62fwXF1A0

[racerecchs]

Hey all, absolutely marvelous FE! I had wrestled with Ultrastyle for the last two years, and I'm configuring Hyperspin in less than a afternoon. I also enjoy the aspect of the theme building community.

My only request would be for vertical resolution capability. all of my machines past (and future) will be vertical. This is so I can work in Pins and view vertical and horizontal games on a reasonably sized field.

Anyhoo, I believe there'd actually be a vert Theme comunity, and, hey, if not? Even with no themes, a default Hyperspin in vertical resolution would beat the other FE's hand's down anyway. Just my 2 cents. Anyhoo, again, Great job, MUCH appreciated.

[brycej]

There are a number of people, including myself, building dual monitor pinball cabinets. Check them out at: http://www.futurepinball.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=33

I would love to have a vertical version of Hyperspin for my cabinet.

Cheers.

[Dazz]

Yeah, I am going to start bitching to BadBoyBill very shortly about getting this incorporated. I picked up a 40" Samsung 550 yesterday and while I can't use it in a dedicated machine (it's our bedroom tv replacement) I can screw around with it when the woman isn't around. Sometime this week I am going to try out the new FP settings using it and my computer monitor.

Once I get another job I WILL HAVE MY PIN!

Looking at this TV a 40" table wouldn't be that bad... BUT it is just going to depend on what I can find on sale at the time. Noting smaller than 40" though.

[Laslo]

Not sure if this would be easy to implement, but maybe just to make vertical resolutions look nicer you could do something like this:

http://img530.imageshack.us/img530/1643/hyperspin43.jpg

or

http://img520.imageshack.us/img520/5921/hyperspin432.jpg

[abispac]

I am building a dedicated donkey kong cab with all dk games in it, im using an vertical monitor, i believe the best way someone can program hyperspin to display in the top half of the screen the regular dk theme and in the bottom half maybe displaying the whell just like in hyperpin, i dont think it will required alot of programing, but i really dont have a clue how to do that, please help the small vertical cab comunity as it will be really cool to have a dedicated pacman galaga and more cab in its original monitorstyle.....EDIT, maybe use the same system as hyperpin dont know much but i looks to me they are pretty much the same....
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a178/ode1979/HYPERVERTICAL.jpg

[abispac]

I think i got a good solution for this, all it needs its to have the whell coded as in hyperpin, then users that might want that future, will have to create or modify themes in order fit the screen, i modified the dkong theme just to make an example, my mouse broke on me so im using a mouse emulator with my keyboard, but modifiyng a theme or creating one wont be so much of a problem... please hyperspin creators, code the well so we can use this future thanks.
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a178/ode1979/dkong.jpg

[iammud]

I know people hate resurrecting old threads, but...

http://i43.tinypic.com/15qrl28.png

Since HS will likely never support vertical monitors, I decided to go ahead and do it.
I had a whole tutorial here on how to do it, but no one seemed interested, so bye bye...

[rrcade]

I was just wondering about this myself, will there be a Vertical monitor HS?
I did this with Maximus Arcade on a pacman machine a while ago, I'd like to redo it with HS if a vertical layout is a future release.

[iammud]

I've searched and searched this forum for vertical info. I'm not a developer, nor have any say in this, but as far as I can tell, it's not happening. :(

[Dazz]

It's been mentioned before... HyperSpin will never be supported for vertical resolutions.

[rrcade]

Just curious, why?

[Dazz]

Just curious, why?It would require a complete re-write of HyperSpin, again. Also, there really isn't that much of a demand for it. Vertical games are a very very small portion of the available games for any system. Also, a horizontal monitor will play vertical games just fine where as a vertical monitor isn't very good at playing horizontal games.

[iammud]

It would require a complete re-write of HyperSpin, again. Also, there really isn't that much of a demand for it. Vertical games are a very very small portion of the available games for any system. Also, a horizontal monitor will play vertical games just fine where as a vertical monitor isn't very good at playing horizontal games.

You're right, most people won't want to play hori games on their vert monitor, or even have them on their wheel! Which is why hyperspin doesn't need a complete rework. We can work with what we have, for the most part.

Hyperspin needs 5 features tops to make it friendly for vert monitor users.
1: Control over the game name/year/manufacturer text. Rotating w/ axis positioning. Or, as I've been begging for, a toggle to hide it.
2: Special swf artwork repositioning. Rotating wouldn't even be needed if you made the artwork per wheel, as we can just replace the artwork with new adjusted swf files. Not required as I recreated this with a default theme, and will add it to each vertical style theme
3: The option to set max image height of a wheel. This will allow for rotated wheel art to work on HP and HS style wheels without having a border on it. Also not required as we can manage with bordered wheel art.
4. Rotating wheel text and art. Even this isn't really required, as 99% of vertical games have wheel art. We can have an alternate wheel set with generic wheel art.
5. Rotate exit and favorites menus. Again these aren't even required, as most vert monitor users are going to be using their favorites list as a primary, and see sideways windows after exit


With the new hypertheme out, a LOT of alternate themes are going to be created (due to limited available artwork); why not encourage some of those to be true vertical themes? There's under 800 vertical arcade games that are worthwhile on the PC, likely under 50 of those have themes. Recreating those 50 themes won't be a problem. I've already recreated a bunch, and plan on releasing all of my work...

The vert monitor community may be small, but we shouldn't be ignored.


Edit, okay I take a lot of that back, looks like we already can do majority of the vert monitor requests in this thread. Granted, with some ghetto methods, but whatever's cleaver...

http://iammud.unpunk.com/hyperspin2/3styles.gif

[123fakestreet]

Being new to Hyperspin, this is one of the only limitations I am experiencing. Using a rotating monitor, what I am hoping for is a vertical games wheel for MAME and modifying the themes to work on top of that. A vertical MAME XML is easy enough to create, now if I could only rotate the list!