Stellerator gets TV effects

[DirtyHairy]

I have finally gotten myself to rewrite the video "driver" of Stellerator. The new driver is much more advanced than the old video output. In particular, it now supports the following effects:

 

• The same, adjustable phosphor algorithm used in Stella
• TV simulation in either composite or S-Video mode (modelled after a shader created by themaister for libretro)
• Ajustable scanline effect
• High quality scaling that reduces both blur and aliasing effects --- the same "QIS" (quasi-integer scaling) algorithm that we implemented in Stella for the upcoming 6.1
• Framerate is more resistant to variations in the browser clock. This is most noticable in games that employ extensive flicker.

The new driver uses WebGL (GPU acceleration in the browser) exclusively, and the effects run on the GPU. You can configure the effects in the settings menu.

 

If you try the new version and run into any video issues, please report back here. While I have tried to be as compatible as possible, the TV effects in particular might be glitchy with some older GPUs --- I am curious how well the code runs on other systems.

 

The new version is labelled 1.0.0-beta.9 (I'll move on to "stable" versions again soonish). Stellerator can run if your browser is offline, and you'll have to reload the page two or three times to make sure that the new version is picked up by the browser. You'll know when it has updated when a modal notifies you of the update on load. You can also double check the version on the "About" page.

 

As usual, the emulator runs on modern versions of Chrome, Safari, Firefox and iOS Safari. It might also work on the new, chromium-based edge, but I have never tried ?  If you add it to your homescreen on iOS, you'll end up with something that is pretty close to a mobile app (be sure to pause it before putting it in the background). It might also work on Android, but the last time I checked (two or so years ago), it ran too slow on all devices I tested.

 

Have fun, and give me some feedback if you test  or use it. The URL is https://6502ts.github.io/stellerator-ng

 

  

 

 

 

 

Edited March 15, 2020 by DirtyHairy