Adjustable aspect ratio, scanlines effect, unblurred window

nicknicknickandnick · Thu Jan 22, 2004 11:03 am

It's good to find that CCS64 development continues. I'll put some wishes here.

I've been playing around with the views of V3.0, and I can't find one that my eyes can handle long-term yet. The windowed mode has a blurry effect that makes text especially difficult, as though my glasses weren't working in places.

Earlier V3.0 betas had a window whose aspect ratio could be changed by dragging either the horizontal or vertical, but they are locked together now in an aspect ratio that is a little too wide. It would be nice to be able to adjust the aspect ratio again, either by dragging or inputting numbers somewhere.

The full-screen view choices are fewer than in previous betas, I notice (I suppose it's all part of continued development). I miss 1600×900×32 in particular because its aspect ratio was accurate compared to other choices. The scanlines effect is harsher in many views of V3 than V2, which had thinner gaps and was much easier for my eyes to handle. I prefer a good scanlines effect to the blocky appearance of no scanlines (if I could wish for any effect, it would be a way to emulate the pixel gaps of a Commodore monitor). There are a few view choices with good thin gaps with scanlines, but the aspect ratios are far too wide.

Anyway, thanks for all the enjoyment.

Roger Frames · Post by **Roger Frames** » Sun May 02, 2004 5:09 am

I have to agree here.
I suggest that the window mode has a scanlines effect instead of the awful blurry one..

Post by **Stuart Toomer** » Sun May 02, 2004 1:18 pm

Some replies:

1. The Scan-Lines graphic mode was only in the MS-DOS version of CCS64 - I don't know if this effect can be added to the Win-32 version for any resolution chosen (see 2 below).

2. The choice of graphical resolutions now depends upon what your graphics card natively supports, since CCS64 V3.0 BETA detects this (CCS64 V2.0 BETA had them hard-coded).

3. CCS64 V3.0 BETA originally allowed horizontal/vertical window resizing *without* maintaining the aspect ratio. Hakan changed this, so that the aspect ratio was always maintained.

4. The "blurry" effect? Do you mean the PAL TV emulation? If you don't like this, then don't use a PAL graphics mode, but still use the PAL Palette.

nicknicknickandnick · Post by **nicknicknickandnick** » Thu May 13, 2004 6:06 am

3. Yes, which prevents me from setting the aspect ratio to what looks right for me. (Making circular objects in Doodle! less squashed, etc.)

4. Changing from PAL to NTSC does not change the blurry effect present in windowed mode.

Post by **Stuart Toomer** » Thu May 13, 2004 8:59 am

nicknicknickandnick wrote:3. Yes, which prevents me from setting the aspect ratio to what looks right for me. (Making circular objects in Doodle! less squashed, etc.)

4. Changing from PAL to NTSC does not change the blurry effect present in windowed mode.

I don't mean change from PAL to NTSC. I mean change your CCS64 Graphics Mode from a PAL Graphics Mode to a non-PAL Graphics Mode. You can still use the PAL Palette, if you wish.

nicknicknickandnick · Post by **nicknicknickandnick** » Thu May 13, 2004 7:19 pm

OK, could you list exactly what menu pages I should access to do what you say? As far as I can tell, I have looked at all the settings, and I can't find anything called Graphics Mode, but I'd like to be sure.

Anyhow, here are bitmap images of what I mean by blurred. The second is a zoom. (I compared them with VICE, and the edges remained sharp for VICE when zoomed.)

Post by **Stuart Toomer** » Thu May 13, 2004 11:19 pm

nicknicknickandnick wrote:OK, could you list exactly what menu pages I should access to do what you say? As far as I can tell, I have looked at all the settings, and I can't find anything called Graphics Mode, but I'd like to be sure.

Anyhow, here are bitmap images of what I mean by blurred. The second is a zoom. (I compared them with VICE, and the edges remained sharp for VICE when zoomed.)

The palette seems OK to me, so there's no problem with graphics settings.

Are you referring to the clarity of the font that is being used in the text of the menu? Possibly this is what you mean by "blurred". If so, it hasn't changed since CCS64 V1.09. Because the Windowed mode is smaller than Full-Screen mode, the text will look smaller.

nicknicknickandnick · Post by **nicknicknickandnick** » Sat May 15, 2004 2:14 am

Hi again, thanks for the interest.

The blurred effect is the softening of all edges so that there are transition colour pixels. (I think this effect is called anti-aliasing.) This effect is present for all uses of the windowed mode of version 3, text and graphics. I can't make a screen capture for version 2 to show the difference, so I have to show VICE to illustrate the difference. One picture shows VICE with FRODO palette, double scan setting on, and the other is similar to what I like about CCS64 version 2 with thin gaps separating scan lines (double scan setting off in VICE). The third picture shows a zoom (without scan lines), and notice that there are no transition colour pixels. The edges are sharp.

So, my eyes have a much easier time focusing with the CCS64 version 2 view (like VICE with scan lines, shown here with colours that are not as good for some reason) than the windowed view of version 3 because the blurred effect doesn't feel good for my eyes in the long term.

StevenRoy · Post by **StevenRoy** » Fri May 21, 2004 11:13 pm

I believe the anti-aliasing effect is caused by the use of a Direct3d function call to scale the emulation output to fit the CCS64 3.0 window. There is probably a way to disable that in the function call, but I don't think CCS64 implements that flag yet. (At least I think it's just a flag.)

I found the smoothing effect a little distracting at first, but I ended up getting used to it. (However, this isn't like when I discovered the "OpenGL scaling" feature in my favourite Nintendo emulator and thought "Cool!".)

Using a full-screen mode instead might be a viable alternative, since I believe they're done pretty much the same way as in CCS64 2.0, which means there won't be any smoothing or anti-aliasing.

(Note that when you select a screen mode in the Video menu, there are 16-bit and 32-bit PAL versions of most available modes. This adds some blurriness to simulate a PAL TV. I actually think the effect is ugly, but others seem to like it.)

Forcing a certain aspect ratio on those who use CCS64 in windowed mode was probably a mistake. It should be up to each user to decide what looks best on their computer.

I'm lucky enough to have a monitor that remembers its size and position settings for each video mode. Since CCS64 is the only program on that computer that I have set to run at 400x300, I can adjust the monitor itself to get the aspect ratio I want for that mode. It might be possible that your monitor can do that too. Experiment a bit.

LocalH · Post by **LocalH** » Thu Aug 26, 2004 12:03 am

StevenRoy wrote:I believe the anti-aliasing effect is caused by the use of a Direct3d function call to scale the emulation output to fit the CCS64 3.0 window. There is probably a way to disable that in the function call, but I don't think CCS64 implements that flag yet. (At least I think it's just a flag.)

I'm not so sure, from what I've heard talking to developers of some other emulators. For example, I had a similar filtering effect with Kega Fusion (the Sega SMS/GG/Genesis/SCD/32x emulator), and Steve Snake alluded to the fact that it was basically up to the drivers. I disabled antialiasing and anisotropic filtering in the Display control panel, and it rectified the situation. Perhaps this would also work here? I currently use the 2.0 beta in fullscreen mode, in PAL mode but synced to screen (thus it runs 13% fast, but all interlaced-effects and scrolling-effects are perfect and smooth).

Melroc · Post by **Melroc** » Thu Sep 02, 2004 2:18 pm

I think a screenmode like 756x384 via pixel doubling and without any scanlines, like it is available in other emulators like WinUAE, would solve many problems.
With such a resolution it is also possible to get a nearly perfect 50hz PAL display, without any problems via "PowerStrip".
Please think about such an enhancement, thx...

Post by **Stuart Toomer** » Thu Sep 02, 2004 8:04 pm

In CCS64 V3.0 BETA, the reslutions available depend upon what your graphics driver can do - they are not pre-set resolutions, as in earlier versions of the emulator.

Melroc · Post by **Melroc** » Fri Sep 03, 2004 1:09 pm

hm... i don't think this is 100% right, because then it would be possible for me to switch to 756x384@50hz without scanlines. (burning eyes within a few minutes

)
i'm currently using a geforce-fx 5700u / forceware 61.77 / dx9.0c
and as mentioned above i have a crystal clear view using for example WinUAE...
just compare the display using the same settings in both emu's and you know what i mean