u-man

... i will not move any of my lazy fingers to create a theme, until Evolution is released. That high are my hopes and expectations for Evolution. Not that is impossible to do really nice themes with the current GameEx setup, but in my case, i want less "limitations" .

I think this is a good discussion: http://www.mameworld.info/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=340524&page=0&view=expanded&sb=5&o=&fpart=1&vc=1&new=#Post340524 It brings it to the point. I hope it is of any help for you. Tom, you maybe remember the discussion we had about the filtering, look at post# 25: http://www.gameex.info/forums/topic/14917-vip-exclusive-beta-evolution-mame-enhancer-plug-in-need-help/page-2 Maybe its a good time, to implement the changes of filtering which Headkaze talked about there, only if this is finished off course. I still use my method, for faster updates and with all the changes now, i think it is even faster. You and Headkaze are also very known and nice personalities and i think if you speak a word of rationality to the mame devs, maybe there will be some hope of changes . Especially the .ini filtering, DazzleHP talked about, is a bad thing, because of the dependencies to third party developers. If we can avoid this, we should do this .

I dont think that this will happen , because the MAME-devs announced this a while ago: "Note that output XML is changed so rom managers and frontends need to get updated too." from MAMEDEV.ORG To be honest, i didnt thought that the MAME devs will do the whole MAME, MESS marriage that way. My understanding from reading the first announcement of this was, it will be a option for those who compile their own MAME to combine MAME with MESS. Now it turns out just to be the opposite . Its not only that i dont like MESS (i hate it ) , i also think MESS is not in that good state to explain such a step. However i asked mamesick from MAMEUIFX, if he maybe knows a good solution for this. Here is, what he has answered: "Hi. I believe there's no a simple solution. With the merging MAME-MESS the XML output has changed and there's no distinction between GAMES,COMPUTERS,CONSOLES in the file. The fact I filter all that stuff out in FX is because we don't use the XML list but the internal ARCADE.LST file to create our own. You should try to create a DAT directly from FX at this point but be careful again that in the new XML there's no more a tag "game" which identifies the ROM but a more generic "machine". I know this caused troubles to frontend and ROM managers maintainers." I didnt had the time to update to v0162, also i dont know, if i will even do this, reading all the trouble that comes with it. Does this also means that a update list in GameEx needs to go through all this software-list bullsh*t ? I am satisfied with 0161 as I have all the new HLSL stuff, since along time and will wait until this whole MAME-MESS chaos becomes history.

Like i Said , it is possible to create a arcade.ini, to Affect only arcade or ex-Mame so to say. So i guess there is a Filter that only Filters Mame or arcadegames. I May have a Solution tommorow. I Hope that i could help somehow

Since there is the possibility of using a arcade.ini (which would only apply to arcade games or "old" MAME), my guess is, that you can also filter games by "arcade" .

sry for asking maybe stupid questions, but what is fixed for latest MAME release?

On to the next set of parameters. The second set of options are either enabled or disabled by using 'comments,' which in this case are represented as a double-slash, like this //. The first option is 'linear processing,' which enables interpolation of linear gamma: The effect is subtle, but disabling it via commenting it out (//#define LINEAR_PROCESSING) can improve the framerate with some video cards. Next, we have 'Enable screen curvature.' Pretty self-explanatory, but if you comment this line out, you'll get straight top/bottom/sides of the screen, but with the corner arcs intact (barely visible in this shot): By commenting this out and setting 'cornersize' to 0.0, you get an idealized flat CRT tube, which is represented by the 'CRT-flat' shader variant: The next two options work together (that is, if you uncomment one, you should comment the other). By default, the shader uses 3x oversampling of the beam profile, which makes brighter pixels bleed further into the surrounding scanlines. Here it is with the default oversampling, scaled up 400% (look closely; it's most obvious on the bright red of Mario's sleeve): and here it is with the gaussian beam profile: The gaussian beam profile may have better performance on some video cards. Those are all of the options available for the standard CRT shader, but there are a few more things we can add in. The first of which is support for interlaced video. Some games did a sort of fake doubling of their vertical resolution by showing different lines of a progressive signal on alternating frames in a process known as interlacing. If handled incorrectly, you will see a ton of combing artifacts (weird horizontal lines on moving objects), as well as distorted scanlines (first image taken using this older, non-interlace-supported version): These pictures unfortunately cannot show the jutter in the lower image that occurs from showing different lines on each alternating frame. The main content and most of the part of this tutorial was done by Hunter K. Minor correction done by u-man

Next, we have 'overscan.' Each CRT showed a slightly different amount of the picture, and the cut-off portion was referred to as overscan. You can modify the amount of over- or underscan by changing this variable. Setting it to (0.00,0.00) will assume you want the picture aligned exactly with the borders of the window. Setting it to a value greater than 1.0 (for example, 1.10,1.10) will cut off a large portion of the screen (approximately 10% in this example): while setting it to a value less than 1.0 will surround the screen with black bars (i.e., underscan): Increasing the overscan slightly, say, to 1.02,1.02, can cut off unsightly garbage lines at the top of the screen, which is common on NES games. Next, we have 'aspect ratio,' which controls how much our screen curvature settings will affect the top/bottom and sides of the image. The default setting of 1.0, 0.75 means the curvature will be more pronounced on the top/bottom than on the sides, to compensate for the standard 4:3 aspect ratio. Setting it to 1.0, 1.0 will make the settings affect both sides of the screen equally, which isn't quite right in that the top/bottom actually appears more curved than the sides: If for some reason you want only the sides straight, you can set it to 1.0, 0.5: or 0.5, 1.0 to make only the top/bottom straight: Next up, we have 'simulated distance from viewer to monitor.' Similar to the 'aspect ratio' setting, this exaggerates the effect of the 'tilt angle' setting that we'll be covering in just a moment. The default value of 2.0 is reasonable. Increasing the value reduces the effect of the tilt angle: while lower values magnify it: Next, we have 'radius of curvature,' which determines how curved our simulated TV tube will be. Setting the value to 2.0 reduces the curvature to something more like what I remember. 'Tilt angle' pincushions one side of the screen. To tilt the screen back, use a negative value for the second number. The default for the 'arcade tilt' variant, (0.0,-0.15), is a sane value: while increasing the second value tilts it back further, which can be disorienting: After that, we come to 'cornersize,' which determines the radius of the corner arc. I think a setting of 0.03, as used in the default image, looks appropriate. Increasing the value to 0.10 makes for some silly, super-round corners: while a value of 0.001 makes for super-pointy corners: For the last parameter in this section, we have 'cornersmooth,' which determines how sharp (sharp as in sharp/blur, not as in pointy) the corners look. The default value is 1000.0, which looks fine, but I noticed that if you set the value insanely low (i.e., 80), you get a little vignetting around the edges, which reminds me of my crummy old TVs:

Customizing the CRT Geom Shader This document identifies some of the user-configurable options available in the CRT Geom Shader and provides some screenshots to explain their effects. For individuals interested in recapturing the look of retro gaming consoles played on a CRT television like the ones we grew up with, the CRT Geom Shader provides the closest approximation available for modern LCD displays. The pixel shader is purely cosmetic--nothing could impart the technical advantages of a CRT, such as negligible input lag and insanely high contrast, to an LCD--but it can go a long way to displaying old games as we remember them. Since memory and nostalgia are important to the way we perceive these games, each person will have different feelings about what looks "right" to them. We will be using the latest (as of the time of this writing, 7/28/12) and most complete version of the shader, known as CRT-Geom. This shader allows for simulated screen curvature, rounded corners, simulation of a back-tilted screen (for arcade emulation) and many other goodies. All images are captured at 4x scale, click the thumbnails to embiggen. This is what the shader looks like with all default parameters, also known as the 'curved' variant (cgwg chose sane values for all of the variables by default): The user-configurable parameters are primarily located in two places in the shader, starting at line 87 in the .vsh section of the shader and line 12 for the .fsh section. You should be able to open and edit the shader in any text editor, but I recommend Notepad++. In the following examples, we are talking about this portion of the .vsh shader-code: // START of parameters // gamma of simulated CRT CRTgamma = 2.4; // gamma of display monitor (typically 2.2 is correct) monitorgamma = 2.2; // overscan (e.g. 1.02 for 2% overscan) overscan = vec2(0.90,0.90); // aspect ratio aspect = vec2(1.0, 0.75); // lengths are measured in units of (approximately) the width of the monitor // simulated distance from viewer to monitor d = 2.0; // radius of curvature R = 3.0; // tilt angle in radians // (behavior might be a bit wrong if both components are nonzero) const vec2 angle = vec2(0.0,0.0); // size of curved corners cornersize = 0.03; // border smoothness parameter // decrease if borders are too aliased cornersmooth = 100.0; // END of parameters The first parameters, 'gamma of simulated CRT' and 'gamma of display monitor' allow the shader to determine how much gamma correction to apply to the image. CRT displays generally had higher gamma ratings than most LCD displays (2.4 for a typical CRT vs 2.2 for a typical LCD), so the shader adds 0.2 to the gamma to compensate. If you calibrate your LCD to a higher or lower gamma setting, you may wish to change the 'gamma of display monitor' to reflect your individual settings. You can also raise or lower the simulated gamma to make a darker, more saturated look: or a lighter, desaturated look:

Sorry for the late response, but yeah, the actual UIFX has v01 of Jezzes shader (actual is v03) and it will be corrected ASAP. The CRT-geom shader conversion should be allright . PS: i am curious what will happen with his fork

Hah, I have finally found a person who has the same problem as me with my own theme. I never could solve that puzzle, if you ever found a solution for this, please let me know it. PM me or post it here, I would be so happy, if this thing can be solved. The problem with this is, that other people doesnt have this weird bug, but we both should have something similar in the setup or whatever, what causes this bug. There was a time, where this worked and I could place the listnum field wherever I wish, but this was years ago. Now I am forced to live with it , cause no one could ever recreate this problem, but at least I am not alone now and maybe we could find out together, what is causing this . PS: I am really hooked with the Confluence Skin and my classic Xbox. With CoinOPS 7 Massive it is a really big arcade weapon with native 15khz support, right out of the box. My Xbox with a 2 TB HDD contains now nearly every NTSC title that was made for the Xbox and the awesome CoinOPS 7 and this at a cost of 120 Euros. It is silence modded and the only thing I hear from my Xbox is the HDD from time to time .

Believe me, you wont be disappointed

This for sure, will be MAMEUIFX exclusive... I am done with the MAME devs No you cant find this shader anywhere and you cant copy it over to any other MAME build, cause it will not work.... it will be exclusive .

You dont believe.... here is my comparison OpenGL vs. new HLSL: OpenGL: new HLSL: You decide.... but I found the new HLSL very nice

Yes, I was able to get it work with GameEx. My previous commandline assumed that you have setup MAME as a seperate emulator, if you want to use the mame section of GameEx, you should consider the following: this is what I did... - set up your mame.ini with the paths and settings you want - make sure you have a folder called ini - copy (not move) mame.ini to your ini folder. - now it should all work as you expected it to. Like I said there are no options for OpenGL, but you can change some stuff, if you open the shader with a textedit app and look inside of it. Its well documented inside and you can change some stuff like bloom or scanlines. Sadly, you need to do this manually and there will be no sliders. Hopefully in the next update of MAMEUIFX, there will be more HLSL stuff, keep your eyes open The included HLSL shader will be way better than the original MAME one, you can bet your ass on it and it will be a good competitive shader vs. OpenGL ... believe me... plus it will have sliders and more options to manipulate the final image than the OpenGL pendant.

ok.... as i promised to look for a commandline for mameuifx... here it is: The command line uses mame.ini for its rompath settings, in particular. If you use a non-standard path and have it set in UI, it will likely not carry over to normal command line operation. You should be able to start i.e. dkong (Donkey Kong) as: mameuifx64 dkong -rompath path\to\roms with 'path\to\roms' being your location on drive for ROMS. EXAMPLE: mameuifx64.exe dkong -rompath D:\GAMESTATION\MAME\ROMS_0160

Its not a easy task to do this... because it depends on your HLSL settings, how the D3D part will look. Basically the slotmask of OpenGL looks way better and fits for every game. Downsides are missing sliders, so you dont have options for phosphor life, blur or focus, colorshifting, vector settings, other slotmasks etc. etc. Also it is very resource hungry and you need a good graphicscard, if you intend to use it for all games. So to say, the OpenGL shader is as it is... live with it or dont Wait the next release of MAMEUIFX, there will be some suprises

no it is not, you would need to alter the mame.ini properly , but it would work. follow the link in the first post into the downloadsection and read the instructions. meanwhile, i will try to found out, how you can start straight into a game with MAMEUIFX and a commandline. I know this is possible too.

as Draco says.... and for the opengl options: you need to set the video-mode in the display-section to opengl... then the opengl function are enabled and not greyed out anymore.

I just bumped this thread to inform you, that MAME 0160 is out and in this case, MAMEUIFX 0160 is out too: http://mame32fx.altervista.org/home.htm The shader mentioned here in this thread, is now implemented right into MAMEUIFX and you can enable it easy via GUI. 1) Enable OpenGL Video Mode 2) Enable GLSL in OpenGL options 3) Select the Shader 4) Play a game "You'll need a really powerful PC and a good video card with OpenGL 2.0 support for enjoying the experience...." I am very happy about this release or mamesick (creator of MAMEUIFX) , there will be even more stuff coming out in the near future. It turns out that this collaboration is awesome and that I have found a person, that is really nice to work with. Check it out folks

Yeah, i know. I have put this allready in the description of the shader, in the downloadsection. If people cannot compile, they should wait for the next release, like you mentioned. Stay tuned, one MAME Distro will be greatly updated in the next update/release of MAME.

Yesterday i have compared different shaders, OpenGL vs. HLSL (direct3d) and found out interesing things. It seems that OpenGL has way better handling of the graphiclayer than Direct3D and it doesnt matters, if you use shaders or not. i.e. you can try Wonderboy Deluxe and compare the two different graphic-layers. At default Direct3D creates tearing and stutter. Now if you start the same game with default settings and OpenGL, all errors are gone. It seems that every game that runs at different speed from 60Hz, looks way better on OpenGL at default settings with audio synced. I allready informed Calamity (GroovyMAME), to check this out too. I am really impressed how OpenGL turns out, especially with this nice shader.

Shaders in MAME slow down in general. A shader is a additional FX, if you dont have a dedicated graphicscard, these FX are rendered by CPU. As MAME emulation is done 100% through CPU, you will likely get slow downs. Also HLSL settings are very important, especially the prescale filter. Silly settings result in poor performance. HLSL is more resource friendly, i.e. I can play most roms with HLSL and a Intel HD 4000, but I cant do the same with OpenGL. If you dont have a dedicated graphicscard and at least Intel HD 4000 or ATI equivalent, I wouldnt recommend HLSL or OpenGL at all. In this cases, its best to work with overlays, but thats it.

i tested both.... the shader and the mame.exe... both work... thats odd