Plumbob Posted February 26 Share Posted February 26 1 hour ago, flaggskull said: I have the green board HERO2 cart and still cannot get it to boot on the 2600+. Using the latest dumper and 1.1x-r2. Not sure the board has anything to do with it? Maybe try 1.1x-r1 vs. r2 and see if that makes a difference. I’ll try r2 and see what happens. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Plumbob Posted February 26 Share Posted February 26 1 hour ago, flaggskull said: I have the green board HERO2 cart and still cannot get it to boot on the 2600+. Using the latest dumper and 1.1x-r2. Not sure the board has anything to do with it? So I updated to 1.1x-r2 using dumper version 1.1.0.9 and the green card HERO2 still works for me. What dumper version are you using? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flaggskull Posted February 27 Share Posted February 27 53 minutes ago, Plumbob said: So I updated to 1.1x-r2 using dumper version 1.1.0.9 and the green card HERO2 still works for me. What dumper version are you using? Hmmm. I'm using dumper 1.1.0.9. I get the load failed message most of the time; however, a couple of times it went to a blank screen. I wonder what could be going on.... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Stamos Mullet Posted February 27 Share Posted February 27 (edited) Ok - So something I noticed with this latest experimental build (but may have been the case in previous builds) On vertically scrolling games, specifically noticeable in Xevious (7800) and River Raid (2600) - as the screen scrolls up (or the background goes down off the bottom as it were), some elements appear to be "undulating" or "sizziling" for lack of a better word. Specifically the "grass" background elements on Xevious first level. The beige/gold grass pixels appear to be "jumping" forward rather than smoothly scrolling. You see a similar effect in River Raid where the Fuel Tanks and enemies seem to undulate the same way. Because it is present and the same issue on both emulators, this would appear to be a Retroarch level video output/options issue. It appears to be at a constant rate, so this isn't a stuttering/timing issue. If I may hazard a guess it looks like the vertical screen height is being stretched at a scale that isn't an even scale factor with the 2600/7800 screen resolution, so alternating lines of pixels are different thicknesses across the board vertically as it tries to compensate for the screen height mismatch. So the pixels are riding over these line thickness changes like they are waves, in and out. smaller and larger. Compare to Xevious on a real 7800 and the background scrolling is smooth as glass. Though I will note - the Improved 7800 color palette is top notch now. Thanks! Edited February 27 by John Stamos Mullet Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Stamos Mullet Posted February 27 Share Posted February 27 I will check this against my other monitors/TVs tomorrow as I only played this on my main gaming TV which is a 55” Samsung 4K. It is possible it’s the TV scaling 720p content weird. I also have a native 720p old 32” HDTV to compare. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RevEng Posted February 27 Share Posted February 27 The shimmering when vertical scrolling is a known issue, and has been present since the original factory firmware. Like you mentioned, it's due to non-integer scaling. Not much to be done there. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Stamos Mullet Posted February 27 Share Posted February 27 32 minutes ago, RevEng said: The shimmering when vertical scrolling is a known issue, and has been present since the original factory firmware. Like you mentioned, it's due to non-integer scaling. Not much to be done there. Uh - can't you just enable integer scaling in retroarch? It's right there. It's an option? Is there a performance hit for it? I wouldn't think so. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RevEng Posted February 27 Share Posted February 27 13 minutes ago, John Stamos Mullet said: Uh - can't you just enable integer scaling in retroarch? It's right there. It's an option? Is there a performance hit for it? I wouldn't think so. If you want to lose 20% of the vertical resolution, I guess it's theoretically possible. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ben from Plaion Posted February 27 Share Posted February 27 @Albert Good news on those Atari Age carts you sent with the latest experimental software from @raz0red@RevEng Aardvark WORKS Aardvark PAL60 WORKS The Byte before Christmas WORKS The Byte before Christmas PAL60 WORKS Millipede WORKS Millipede PAL60 WORKS Venture Reloaded WORKS Venture Reloaded PAL60 WORKS Seaweed Assault WORKS Dragon’s Descent WORKS Cave In WORKS Anguna WORKS PCB Vroom WORKS StarCastle BLACK SCREEN Zippy the Porcupine BLACK SCREEN Stella’s Stocking BLACK SCREEN 5 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Stamos Mullet Posted February 27 Share Posted February 27 9 hours ago, RevEng said: If you want to lose 20% of the vertical resolution, I guess it's theoretically possible. I tried it on the last non-experimental firmware where you can still access the Retroarch menu with a keyboard. Works great, sort of. It scrolls nice and smoothly, but without the performance gains of the experimental firmware, there is screen tearing. I get that some people want to see the whole screen filled, and that’s the reason for the non-integer scaling, but personally I think the smoother scrolling is more accurate. Obviously not my call to make, but just a thought. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raz0red Posted February 27 Author Share Posted February 27 (edited) 26 minutes ago, John Stamos Mullet said: I tried it on the last non-experimental firmware where you can still access the Retroarch menu with a keyboard. Works great, sort of. It scrolls nice and smoothly, but without the performance gains of the experimental firmware, there is screen tearing. I get that some people want to see the whole screen filled, and that’s the reason for the non-integer scaling, but personally I think the smoother scrolling is more accurate. Obviously not my call to make, but just a thought. So, for 7800 NTSC it actually doesn't lose too much (672 out of 720), losing about 7%. However, that is not the case with 7800 PAL (544 out of 720), losing 25% of the screen. I haven't checked on the 2600 side, but even from the 7800 side you can see the issue. Integer scaling is best when using windows not full screen, because depending on the content, you will lose portions of the screen as @RevEng pointed out. The amount that is lost will depend on the specific system being emulated and the content that is being displayed (PAL vs. NTSC, etc.). At some point, I think it would good to provide the options for those that want to use it, but making it a default wouldn't be feasible based on the issues mentioned above. Another option would be to allow for a bilinear filter as it would reduce shimmer, but would lead to a more blurred image. Again, something that could be added as an option in the future. Also, as a side note, the previous builds (non-experimental) do not have tearing (vsync is always enabled). But, they do have missed frames. In our tests before we rewrote the video driver, on average, 25% of frames were being lost (not rendered), which is what led to missing sprites, etc. Chris. Edited February 27 by raz0red 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Stamos Mullet Posted February 27 Share Posted February 27 1 minute ago, raz0red said: So, for 7800 NTSC it actually doesn't lose too much (672 out of 720), losing about 7%. However, that is not the case with 7800 PAL (544 out of 720), losing 25% of the screen. I haven't checked on the 2600 side, but even from the 7800 side you can see the issue. Integer scaling is best when using windows not full screen, because depending on the content, you will lose portions of the screen as @RevEng pointed out. The amount that is lost will depend on the specific emulator and the content that is being displayed (PAL vs. NTSC, etc.). At some point, I think it would good to provide the options for those that want to use it, but making it a default wouldn't be feasible based on the issues mentioned above. Another option would be to allow for a bilinear filter as it would reduce the shimmer, but would lead to a more blurred image. Again, something that could be added as an option in the future. Chris. Another option would be to only enable it for specific games affected by the "shimmer" - by saving game specific settings in retroarch. That way you're not doing it for all games. Though - I would note that I found it initially while playing Ms. Pac-Man 7800, because the dots are different sizes, and it looks kinda weird. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ben from Plaion Posted February 27 Share Posted February 27 11 minutes ago, John Stamos Mullet said: I tried it on the last non-experimental firmware where you can still access the Retroarch menu with a keyboard. Works great, sort of. It scrolls nice and smoothly, but without the performance gains of the experimental firmware, there is screen tearing. I get that some people want to see the whole screen filled, and that’s the reason for the non-integer scaling, but personally I think the smoother scrolling is more accurate. Obviously not my call to make, but just a thought. As I played more retro over the years I tend to play more 1:1. So for the current resolution of 720 the best you could get for 2600 games would be 480w x 576h (a 3x multiply) and at 1080 we could have 640 x 960 (4x multiply). Be nice to see 640 x 960 through a 1080 TV 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Stamos Mullet Posted February 27 Share Posted February 27 (edited) 3 minutes ago, Ben from Plaion said: As I played more retro over the years I tend to play more 1:1. So for the current resolution of 720 the best you could get for 2600 games would be 480w x 576h (a 3x multiply) and at 1080 we could have 640 x 960 (4x multiply). Be nice to see 640 x 960 through a 1080 TV I was thinking that would probably be a best case scenario for integer scaling It also had my thinking my Sammy 4k wasn't the greatest for 720p content. Edited February 27 by John Stamos Mullet Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raz0red Posted February 27 Author Share Posted February 27 (edited) 8 minutes ago, Ben from Plaion said: As I played more retro over the years I tend to play more 1:1. So for the current resolution of 720 the best you could get for 2600 games would be 480w x 576h (a 3x multiply) and at 1080 we could have 640 x 960 (4x multiply). Be nice to see 640 x 960 through a 1080 TV 7800 NTSC is 894 (x4) out of 1080, losing 18% of screen. Again, this is just basic math and will not work well consistently across systems and content. But, if enough people want it, we could definitely add the option at some point. Also, moving to 1080p will reduce performance, on a system that is already resource constrained (prior to this experimental build not being able to render on average 25% of its frames). Chris. Edited February 27 by raz0red 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Stamos Mullet Posted February 27 Share Posted February 27 1 minute ago, raz0red said: 7800 NTSC is 894 (x4) out of 1080, losing 18% of screen. Again, this is just basic math and will not work well consistently across systems and content. But, if enough people want it, we could definitely add the option at some point. Also, moving to 1080p will reduce performance a bit. Chris. To be honest, I don't even really think you need to go too far to enable it as an option, since most people won't care. As long as the retroarch menu is accessible via an OTG cable/keyboard, that's probably enough for us "tinkerers" it would just be nice if we were able to save changes to the config so we don't have to access the menu every time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raz0red Posted February 27 Author Share Posted February 27 (edited) 2 minutes ago, John Stamos Mullet said: To be honest, I don't even really think you need to go too far to enable it as an option, since most people won't care. As long as the retroarch menu is accessible via an OTG cable/keyboard, that's probably enough for us "tinkerers" it would just be nice if we were able to save changes to the config so we don't have to access the menu every time. Just to reiterate, we are no longer using Retroarch for rendering. Its video driver was causing (on average) 25% of the frames to not be rendered, thus we wrote our own to optimize performance due to the constraints of the 2600+ hardware. None of those options will have any affect (this is mentioned on the first page). Chris. Edited February 27 by raz0red 9 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ben from Plaion Posted February 27 Share Posted February 27 5 minutes ago, raz0red said: 7800 NTSC is 894 (x4) out of 1080, losing 18% of screen. Again, this is just basic math and will not work well consistently across systems and content. But, if enough people want it, we could definitely add the option at some point. Also, moving to 1080p will reduce performance, on a system that is already resource constrained (prior to this experimental build not being able to render on average 25% of its frames). Chris. There are dozens of us! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Stamos Mullet Posted February 27 Share Posted February 27 1 minute ago, raz0red said: Just to reiterate, we are no longer using Retroarch for rendering. Its video driver was causing 25% of the frames to not be rendered, thus we wrote our own to optimize performance due to the constraints of the 2600+ hardware. None of those options will have any affect (this is mentioned on the first page). Chris. Oh. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Albert Posted February 27 Share Posted February 27 5 hours ago, Ben from Plaion said: @Albert Good news on those Atari Age carts you sent with the latest experimental software from @raz0red@RevEng Aardvark WORKS Aardvark PAL60 WORKS The Byte before Christmas WORKS The Byte before Christmas PAL60 WORKS Millipede WORKS Millipede PAL60 WORKS Venture Reloaded WORKS Venture Reloaded PAL60 WORKS Seaweed Assault WORKS Dragon’s Descent WORKS Cave In WORKS Anguna WORKS PCB Vroom WORKS StarCastle BLACK SCREEN Zippy the Porcupine BLACK SCREEN Stella’s Stocking BLACK SCREEN That's great, thanks for the update! Now if we can get Star Castle Arcade, Zippy, and Stella's Stocking working. All three of those use bankswitching schemes that don't appear to be supported by the dumper yet. ..Al 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Stamos Mullet Posted February 27 Share Posted February 27 2 hours ago, raz0red said: Another option would be to allow for a bilinear filter as it would reduce shimmer, but would lead to a more blurred image. Again, something that could be added as an option in the future. Just for shits and giggles, I enabled this on the non-experimental firmware and yep - scrolling is smooth as glass, without sacrificing screen size. Also - the blurring (on Xevious at least) is very slight, and actually looks better (to my eyes anyway) than the harder edged pixels. If an option is to be added I would think this would be the best compromise. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrChickenz Posted February 27 Share Posted February 27 1 hour ago, raz0red said: Just to reiterate, we are no longer using Retroarch for rendering. Its video driver was causing (on average) 25% of the frames to not be rendered, thus we wrote our own to optimize performance due to the constraints of the 2600+ hardware. None of those options will have any affect (this is mentioned on the first page). Chris. This is why I was asking if after installing the Experimental firmware can the 2600+ be reverted to Beta 1.1 rev 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raz0red Posted February 27 Author Share Posted February 27 6 minutes ago, MrChickenz said: This is why I was asking if after installing the Experimental firmware can the 2600+ be reverted to Beta 1.1 rev 2 Each image is fully self-contained. When you install one, it replaces all components (including any persisted settings, etc.). Chris. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2LTIME6100 Posted February 27 Share Posted February 27 Is there anything new to report about Pitfall 2? I think if you get this game to run it would be a very good advertisement for the console. By the way, I personally would be very happy about it 😉 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted February 27 Share Posted February 27 2 hours ago, John Stamos Mullet said: I tried it on the last non-experimental firmware where you can still access the Retroarch menu with a keyboard. Has that been removed? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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