Keatah Posted May 9, 2012 Share Posted May 9, 2012 Ok. It seems to be ALT + L .. and the fps counter is not real, it either stays at 60Hz or whatever it is set at in the video options. Changing my cpu clock down to 200 MHz clearly drops the framerate, but the FPS counter stays the same. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted May 9, 2012 Share Posted May 9, 2012 If I bring down the clock speed to 600MHz I see a slight drop in performance (the FPS counter doesn't change) with filtering on, perhaps 10 - 15%. I can regain 100% performance by changing the flipping policy from blit to flip in the EXTREME graphics control panel. So with a worst of the worst openGL cards, a 600MHz clockspeed on a pentium mobile from 2003, it is possible to get full speed with the filtering. Nicely done! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted May 9, 2012 Share Posted May 9, 2012 I got to looking closely at the overall graphics and something isn't quite right. I noticed it when playing Phoenix. But it is not specific to this one game. And I believe that with the right adjustments it can be tuned out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+stephena Posted May 9, 2012 Author Share Posted May 9, 2012 Keetah, so many post, so I'll address them all at once 'TIA' mode is when you're actually playing a game (the TIA is the video chip in a real console). And the command is Alt-l (an L, not a one). Alt-1 will actually disable TV effects if you're in OpenGL mode. I'll be the first to say that the manual could use an overhaul/re-write. As the documentation states, the FPS is the internal counter for debugging ROMs, not the actual framerate the emulator is running at (think of it as virtual fps). But I agree that adding actual fps would be beneficial too. As for things not looking quite right, remember this is only a pre-release to work out the major bugs. Custom TV filtering mode can't currently be customized, so you can't (yet) see the full potential of the filtering. Also, I suspect this will be an ongoing experiment, and that whatever I release in 3.7 will be further tweaked in future releases. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trebor Posted May 9, 2012 Share Posted May 9, 2012 stephena, Thank you, thank you, thank you! This looks and works fantastic. Stella's palette is already very accurate (IMHO) so regarding customizing settings, I was really only interested in scanline intensity. Sure enough, that's already in place to adjust. Composite mode with adjusted scanline intensity - looks fantastic, I've been waiting and hoping for this a long time with Stella - Well worth the wait. It reallly is fantastic. Excellent work! It really and truly is appreciated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trebor Posted May 9, 2012 Share Posted May 9, 2012 (edited) One question/request not related to blargg filtering: When working off duel displays - both the menu and game playing windows - continue to want to display on the primary display, even when launched from the secondary. Granted, I can drag the Window to the secondary display, but once I exit or start a game, the window jumps right back to the primary display again and needs to be dragged back. Is there anyway for Stella to remember to remain on the secondary display? It's not a huge deal, as the majority of my playing is full screen on one display, but occassionally I want to play on my other system with duel displays in a window. If not difficult to fix, it would be great for Stella recall its 'last' position and remain there - or at least remain on the same (secondary) display, Thanks I'm an idiot - Unchecked :"Center Window" does just what I was looking for - Sorry to trouble you.. Edited May 9, 2012 by Trebor Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+stephena Posted May 9, 2012 Author Share Posted May 9, 2012 OK, here's another test build. Notes as follows: Hopefully fixed scanline issue in fullscreen non-integral stretching mode Added Shift-Alt-9/Alt-9 to decrease/increase scanline width Added Shift-Alt-0/Alt-0 to decrease/increase scanline height These last two adjustments won't be staying; they're just for debugging purposes. To those that have been experiencing problems with scanline glitches, please test as follows: Set your window (ie, not fullscreen) to zoom level 3 by repeatedly pressing Alt-equals. You should see scanline glitches. Try pressing Shift-Alt-9 to decrease scanline width. Keep doing that one at a time until you see improvements. Alternatively, try pressing Shift-Alt-0 to decrease scanlineheight. Keep doing that one at a time until you see improvements. Let me know your desktop resolution and the numbers for width and height (from steps 2 and 3) where the problems go away. Basically, I need to determine why the scanlines aren't being drawn correctly, and this is the only way I can think of. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eshu Posted May 9, 2012 Share Posted May 9, 2012 Resolution: 1600x900 Pal Roms: Height 746 or 753 fixes the issue - it starts on 750 NTSC Roms: Height 632 or 629 fixes the issue - it starts on 630 Width doesn't seem to fix the issue. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PFL Posted May 9, 2012 Share Posted May 9, 2012 Yeah, it definitely runs under OGL 1.2. That's all my netbook supports (on-board GMA 945). I played around with test build 2 last night and for whatever reason it is definitely running slower than previous releases. There's no slowdown as such. It just seems to be consistently a little slow and it doesn't matter whether I have any filters/scanlines on or not. It's still totally playable though. Is there a way to check screen output FPS? It'd be interesting to see if it's still running at fully 60 FPS... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+stephena Posted May 9, 2012 Author Share Posted May 9, 2012 I'll consider adding real fps in addition to the virtual fps that is already there. As for the scanline issue, I'm confused For your NTSC ROMs, can you post snapshots at each of the following heights: 629, 630, 631, 632? But before you do that, also decrease the width by 20 pixels or so. I want to make absolutely sure width is not a factor. Also, play with other zoom levels and see if the behaviour is consistent, and please report the #'s. (but I don't need snapshots for those). For the slowdowns, try editing the Stella config file at %APPDATA%/stella/stella.ini, and change gl_vbo to 0 instead of 1. Maybe that's causing a slowdown?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eshu Posted May 9, 2012 Share Posted May 9, 2012 629: 630: 631: 632: I can't seem to cause the issue at other zoom levels. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+stephena Posted May 9, 2012 Author Share Posted May 9, 2012 OK, I need to think about this a little more. Snapshot 3 in particular looks very suspicious. I've seen that type of pattern before, I just need to remember where. Just to confirm, what type of video card do you have? And this problem only happens in zoom level 3 in both NTSC and PAL modes?? Please try all possible zoom levels with Alt-equals for both NTSC and PAL ROMs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted May 9, 2012 Share Posted May 9, 2012 (edited) Yeah, it definitely runs under OGL 1.2. That's all my netbook supports (on-board GMA 945). I played around with test build 2 last night and for whatever reason it is definitely running slower than previous releases. There's no slowdown as such. It just seems to be consistently a little slow and it doesn't matter whether I have any filters/scanlines on or not. It's still totally playable though. Is there a way to check screen output FPS? It'd be interesting to see if it's still running at fully 60 FPS... Agreed. Slower, effects on/off makes no difference. Regain yo'speed by changing the flipping policy to flip instead of blit. Worked perfectly here. You might be able to get to the control panel for your graphics driver with ctrl-alt-F12 if you have its hotkeys turned on. What netbook are you running and when was it made? And what processor is it? I've got an 82855GM GPU and it gets full speed. Also, a good way to tell if you're dropping below speed is to listen to the sound of demon attack or some similarly sounding game. start with a small window on stella 3.6.1, then move up to 3.7 see if there's a change. 3.7 is slower all around, effects on or off. That's why u use 3.6.1 to verify your machine can achieve full speed. Anyways, then listen for differences between 3.6 and 3.7. If you're not getting full speed. set the flipping policy to flip instead of blit. In flip the chip just swaps register assignments. but in blit, the chip needs to move 3 screens' worth of data bit by bit. This is an opengl setting in the 3d settings of the Extreme Graphics control panel. Extreme indeed! a 10 year old graphics chip doing all this! BTW: all the TV effects seem to be in order and as intended. So far. I'll kind follow along with the tests here see what I can see. I also didn't see any change in speed if gl_vbo is set to 0 or 1. Even when I eco-clocked my cpu to 600MHz where the speed is right on the edge of 99-100% full fps. Regarding my not-quite-right post earlier. I suppose it is from lack of blooming in the effects. In level 1 of Phoenix, the bird's wings are x amount of millimeters in thickness. With the effects turned on, the wings are now about 10% thinner. NTSC blooming and fuzziness should actually make them thicker, shouldn't it? Edited May 9, 2012 by Keatah Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+stephena Posted May 9, 2012 Author Share Posted May 9, 2012 I'll have a look at the differences between 3.6.1 and the current code. If TV effects are disabled, it should be the same speed as 3.6.1. Of course enabling the effects will definitely slow things down a little. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+stephena Posted May 10, 2012 Author Share Posted May 10, 2012 OK, here's another test build that hopefully fixes the scanline weirdness. Or at leas I hope it does, since this is taking much longer than I expected, and I want to move on the UI stuff and being able to customize the filtering. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eshu Posted May 10, 2012 Share Posted May 10, 2012 working perfectly for me Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
israelg Posted May 10, 2012 Share Posted May 10, 2012 Look at the picture of my LCD monitor running @ 1920x1080 Very nice...! I.G Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
israelg Posted May 10, 2012 Share Posted May 10, 2012 The picture... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
israelg Posted May 10, 2012 Share Posted May 10, 2012 Sorry... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trebor Posted May 10, 2012 Share Posted May 10, 2012 stephena, For the record I was seeing issues too with scanline intensity greater than 80% @1920x1080 / Zoom x2. I am running Win 7 64-bit with a ATI Radeon HD 5670 card - driver 8.792.0.0 This latest version (test 4) has fixed that issue as well. It looks like you nailed down all problems with it...congrats. And once again, thank you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted May 11, 2012 Share Posted May 11, 2012 After jamming more with this and discussing blargg effects emulation with the guy next door, the kids overheard it and they promptly modified some of their Barbie dolls into Blargg-a-Buddies. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+stephena Posted May 11, 2012 Author Share Posted May 11, 2012 Good to hear that things are working better now, and thanks for the words of support. I still need to look into emulating phosphor mode for TV effects by making use of OpenGL blending (the current code is a software-only approximation), get custom mode exposed through the UI, and update the documentation. Then we'll be ready for a new release, perhaps by the end of next week. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trebor Posted May 13, 2012 Share Posted May 13, 2012 Good to hear that things are working better now, and thanks for the words of support. I still need to look into emulating phosphor mode for TV effects by making use of OpenGL blending (the current code is a software-only approximation), get custom mode exposed through the UI, and update the documentation. Then we'll be ready for a new release, perhaps by the end of next week. Very cool. Thanks for the update, stephena. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
israelg Posted May 14, 2012 Share Posted May 14, 2012 Great work... I am sorry I didn't have the time to connect and compare a real Atari... I.G Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+stephena Posted May 14, 2012 Author Share Posted May 14, 2012 Great work... I am sorry I didn't have the time to connect and compare a real Atari... I.G That's OK. This first version is going to be released soon even if it's not completely accurate. The beta releases in this thread were more for making sure they're aren't any huge bugs. The effects can be refined over the next few releases, when I get more feedback. That being said, I think it's pretty accurate already (at least compared to the test equipment I have). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
AtariAge on Instagram
Watch us on YouTube
Chat on Discord
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.