Emulator Development Talk


EvilDragon said:
Hm, SNES9x 1.39 simply recompiled without using any ASM cores yet runs normal NTSC games (no special chips) fullspeed with 500MHz.
Framelimiting disabled, Super Mario World runs 80fps.

With assembler-cores added, I guess there is a lot that can be done.

No, I said mainline SNES9x, not SNES9x from 2003. I'm referring to the current version that has the more accurate audio core.
 
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Exophase said:
EvilDragon said:
Hm, SNES9x 1.39 simply recompiled without using any ASM cores yet runs normal NTSC games (no special chips) fullspeed with 500MHz.
Framelimiting disabled, Super Mario World runs 80fps.

With assembler-cores added, I guess there is a lot that can be done.

No, I said mainline SNES9x, not SNES9x from 2003. I'm referring to the current version that has the more accurate audio core.

Ahh, I didn't know they changed that :)
Newer versions of SNES9x don't like ARM - they don't render any graphics. Someone fixed it long ago for a PDA, but no one knows what he did :)
 
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Talking about filters and emulators in general ,i own a nes, megadrive, atari lynx,saturn & dreamcast and tho the newer systems like the dreamcast display better on a crt tv than say nes, the emulators will always be a prefered choice for me ,running better (disable frameskip),higher resolutions and yes the filters making these game systems look the best they possibly can look.My nes for example is terrible these days with horrible borders (left screen clip) and slower being pal ,i have never understood people who want to play a nes emulator or nes game on say the wii ,50in hdtv but keep the aspectratio the same as original ,bordered around the full screen when you can upscale ,stretch to wide and apply some nice filters.One of the reasons i got rid of my nintendo wii was after buying a few nes and snes games for it ,very disapointing to say the least in pal region ,but even after hacking and using ntsc roms it was still no good and the wii nes/snes emulators were far better in every aspect.

So to get my point across ,i had these sytems when i was young ,i still have them and they are totaly useless on a crt tv of yesteryear as well as the newer hdtv's of today ,emulation keeps these systems alive and looking great.

Long live emulation and it's creators

Paddy
 
paddy said:
i have never understood people who want to play a nes emulator or nes game on say the wii ,50in hdtv but keep the aspectratio the same as original ,bordered around the full screen when you can upscale ,stretch to wide and apply some nice filters.
Maybe because we like our games to be the right shape... <_<
 
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EvilDragon said:
Exophase said:
EvilDragon said:
Hm, SNES9x 1.39 simply recompiled without using any ASM cores yet runs normal NTSC games (no special chips) fullspeed with 500MHz.
Framelimiting disabled, Super Mario World runs 80fps.

With assembler-cores added, I guess there is a lot that can be done.

No, I said mainline SNES9x, not SNES9x from 2003. I'm referring to the current version that has the more accurate audio core.

Ahh, I didn't know they changed that :)
Newer versions of SNES9x don't like ARM - they don't render any graphics. Someone fixed it long ago for a PDA, but no one knows what he did :)

Ahh, this makes more sense, I didn't think a SNES emulator would be taxing the capabilities of the pandora. I am going to have to find some way to run Rock & Roll Racing properly.. It's the only SNES game I own, and I love that game! :)
 
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atomicthumbs said:
how is poinnter formed

how emulator get address
They need to do way instain emulator> who kill thier proccess. becuse these proccess cant cacth sigsegv?
 
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Exophase said:
No, I said mainline SNES9x, not SNES9x from 2003. I'm referring to the current version that has the more accurate audio core.
Is this version 1.52, the one with the new savestate format?
 
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Neko said:
atomicthumbs said:
how is poinnter formed

how emulator get address
They need to do way instain emulator> who kill thier proccess. becuse these proccess cant cacth sigsegv?

it was on the stderr this mroing a emulator in /usr/local/games who had kill its three ps. they are taking the three proccess back to /dev/null too program to rest

my pary are with the player who lost his savgeame ; i am truley sorry for your lots
 
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I like to play with 4:3 (or otherwise original) aspect ratio, but hate the oddly shaped irregular pixels you get from scaling to that from 8:7, so that's why I use stuff like bilinear filter. The irregular pixels are REALLY noticeable and bothersome when watching dither patterns scroll around. I tend not to use stuff like 2xsai/eagle/hq/ntsc filter, though.

--- Examples ---

Source image:
super_mario_world_gameplay.png


Bad:
smwbad.png

Irregular pixels every few lines... very distracting.

OK:
smwok.png

Really blurry, but not as distracting. This is the mode I use.

Good:
smwgood.png

Slight blur around the edges, but otherwise sharp pixels, irregularity is not as noticable (Little overall change in brightness between pixels). This would be my preferred mode but no emulator supports this as I guess it's rather expensive (As described to me.), since the image needs to be rendered to a texture first, then rendered to screen.

If the last image is possible, I'd certainly like to see it available in the emulators on the pandora. :p

Also, make sure you view all images expanded, not squished by the board and with your browser zoom at 100%.
 

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Did you Click Image To Enlarge? In opera 10.5x they'll look pretty similar unless you do so. And even then at the sample resolution, it'll be a bit subtle, I guess... I'd really notice right away, though, and it bothers me when the first image occurs.
 
I loaded both images into two separate tabs and flipped back and forth between them. The difference was so subtle I have a great deal of trouble believing that someone could tell the difference if they weren't side by side.
 
If you open the "good" and "bad" images in a new tab each as WizardStan says (in Firefox, right-click image then center-click on View Image), then make sure each image is zoomed to 100% by clicking the +, you'll be able to switch between the two tabs to see the difference. Basically one is crisp and one is filtered/blurred. I prefer the "bad" crisp one personally. The difference is subtle but it's enough to make me feel like I've had three beers.

In practice though I'd just be playing it at native res x2, which would look like this: http://imgur.com/dAH7o.png
 
Look at the thickness of the hollow blue box at the top. in the Bad image it is thicker on the top of the bottom section. in the Good image it is the same thickness. Imagine if this thickness irregularity was across the whole image, and then you jumped in the game, or something, you'd see many bands of thicker pixels travel on the screen.
 
Exophase said:
Incorrect aspect ratio is more pure? Really? I think the ideal would be to use a really high resolution display and a high quality filter to stretch horizontally just to get the aspect ratio right. With 640 pixels for this Pandora will at least be able to give a sharper aspect-correct image than GP2X and Wiz can (although the approximate bilinear filtering used in horizontal stretching looks pretty decent even at 320 width.. even DaveC thinks so)
Yeah it would be ideal but such a display doesn't exist yet on a gaming display, maybe someday.

As far as "more pure" nothing will look like a CRT except a CRT the only thing kind of close is OLED. 1:1 looks "more pure" even if less correct as in slightly off aspect. I think sometime what looks better may not be the most correct. Usually scaling using even multiples like 1:1, 2:1, etc look better than 1.5:1 or 1.25:1 etc. Since you can't light half of an LCD pixel you have to unevenly double some and leave others at 1:1 etc. That tends to look hideous. In these cases I prefer the "less pure" 1:1, 2:1 H+V etc. The problem with filters is they mostly tend to indiscriminantly blurr adjacent pixels together even ones above and below. This leads to loss of contrast and a fuzzy look. It doesn't look like a CRT it looks like a busted LCD. TVs never blurred pixels vertically they were pretty separated by scanlines. Horizontally they did a bit although RGB arcade monitors were pretty sharp.

I think the reason the scaling looks nice in emus like Temper is because it only applies the filter horizontally and not vertically. This is as close to a CRT as you can probably get as if gives a slight blur horizontally but keeps vertical lines sharp. I did actually use it in Temper on the Wiz for awhile because the screen size made a bigger image more desirable, and the filter looked pretty good. I do admit though that I fell back to 1:1 even on the Wiz as there is some rippling/distortion that in the end got to me a bit. I bet if the same technique was used on the Pandora, filter for horizontal only to get correct aspect but vertical it was 2:1 without filtering it would look pretty good.

On the Pandora hopefully there will be a few options for these modes. Everyone has a preference. I still prefer regular pixels where every one is consistant (not fractional) given by integer doubling even if the aspect it a bit off. Uneven fractional scaling is awful and I think that is the worst option you get uneven pixels and these rippling lines when the screen scrolls Blech! Filtering to "hide" fractional scaling can be bad as it just makes things look out of focus, kind of like your eyes are bad and it just ruins fine detail, but tends to look better than the raw fractional.

Everything is a compromise. That is why options are good as them you can just pick what you like.
 
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@paulguy:
bsnes by byuu + pixellate shader by fes: http://img511.imageshack.us/img511/1409/bsnespixellate.png
Is this what you are looking for?
(Before anyone asks: bsnes will never run on Pandora)
 
Yeah that's pretty much what I'd want. Although, does that use a shader? I'm not sure if the shaders work in Linux.

EDIT: Also, the difference isn't that subtle to me and my vision is poor... maybe I'm just strange? I know I'd notice the irregular pixels right away.
 
paulguy said:
I like to play with 4:3 (or otherwise original) aspect ratio, but hate the oddly shaped irregular pixels you get from scaling to that from 8:7, so that's why I use stuff like bilinear filter. The irregular pixels are REALLY noticeable and bothersome when watching dither patterns scroll around. I tend not to use stuff like 2xsai/eagle/hq/ntsc filter, though.

--- Examples ---

Slight blur around the edges, but otherwise sharp pixels, irregularity is not as noticable (Little overall change in brightness between pixels). This would be my preferred mode but no emulator supports this as I guess it's rather expensive (As described to me.), since the image needs to be rendered to a texture first, then rendered to screen.

If the last image is possible, I'd certainly like to see it available in the emulators on the pandora. :p

Bad news for you: You aint gonna get that last image as that is like 5X native resolution or so. The Pandora is mostly 2X native. I guess you could do the same effect but it would be much more noticeable and would slow things down allot.
 
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I still wonder, why SNES had no 4:3 aspect ratio when you take the pixels as normal square Pixels. Original SNES had a weird Aspect ratio, I don't know if this was because of non square "pixels" onto CRT TVs or whatever. Megadrive had (more or less) 4:3 aspect ratio, at least more than the nearly "square" SNES image.
So what would be the correct aspect Ratio for a SNES game?
 
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