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Idle logo

When the core is loaded with nothing mounted, a bouncing logo screensaver plays behind the file picker. This is the built-in default:

The default idle logo: an optical-disc glyph beside a "MiSTer DVD" wordmark
The built-in logo. It cycles through a palette on each bounce.

You can replace it with your own artwork.

Where the file goes

Drop a boot.rom at:

/media/fat/games/DVD/boot.rom

Create the games/DVD folder if it does not exist — this core does not make it for you.

The framework also accepts the file as DVD.ROM — that exact name, uppercase — next to the core's .rbf, in /media/fat/, or in /media/fat/bootrom/.

Reload the core after placing it

The file is read once at core load. Placing it while the core is already running does nothing until you reload.

Making one

Convert any PNG with idle_logo.py, run on your PC. It is not in the release zip — download it from the repository (it needs only Python 3, no libraries):

python3 idle_logo.py --png mylogo.png --out boot.rom     # add --fit to downscale
python3 idle_logo.py --verify boot.rom                   # preview what will render
Flag Effect
--fit Box-average downscale to fit the maximum size
--colour RRGGBB Pin a fixed colour (otherwise the logo cycles a palette on each bounce)
--speed SX,SY Pin the drift speed (also disables the random re-roll on each bounce)
--invert Invert which pixels are lit
--verify FILE Round-trip an existing file and print an ASCII preview

Always eyeball the --verify output. What it prints is what will bounce.

Size

Up to 256×64 pixels shown 1:1, or up to a 512×128 on-screen footprint at 2× scale. The converter picks sensibly based on the source size.

The image is one-bit — a pixel is either lit or not. Colour comes from the palette cycling or from --colour, not from the source artwork.

How the converter decides what is 'on'

A pixel is lit if it differs from the background — using the alpha channel when the PNG has transparency, otherwise colour distance from the median corner colour. This matters for coloured logos on dark backgrounds: an earlier version thresholded on brightness and turned such images completely blank.

--fit box-averages each cell and lights it at 30% coverage, so thin strokes survive the downscale. Results smaller than 8×4 are refused with a diagnostic rather than written, since a "valid" 1×1 file would bounce an invisible dot.

If it does not show

  • Reload the core — the file is only read at load time.
  • Run --verify on the file. If the preview is blank, the conversion is the problem.
  • The core was launched with a file — via file association or an MGL — in which case MiSTer skips boot.rom entirely and the built-in logo shows in that session.
  • A corrupt or truncated file is ignored and the built-in logo is used instead, so a malformed file fails safe.

Artwork

Use your own artwork. The oval-with-"DVD" mark is a trademark of the DVD Format/Logo Licensing Corporation. Plain "DVD" letterforms are descriptive and fine.

Reset in the OSD returns to the idle screen, and a custom logo survives it. See Loading a movie.