scanlines etc. on mame 0.119?

[studmeister]

i'm used to using advancemame so i have no idea what i need to do in order to get scanlines on the latest version of mame. do i need to configure it within gameex?

sorry for asking easy questions, but i just have no idea what i'm doing

[Brian Hoffman]

i'm used to using advancemame so i have no idea what i need to do in order to get scanlines on the latest version of mame. do i need to configure it within gameex?

sorry for asking easy questions, but i just have no idea what i'm doing

Goto gameex advanced config... Choose advanced mame settings.. Add this line -effect <filename>

-effect <filename>

Specifies a single PNG file that is used as an overlay over any game

screens in the video display. This PNG file is assumed to live in the

root of one of the artpath directories. The pattern in the PNG file

Now all you need to do is Dl these effects.

[enoch]

And prepare for them not to look as good. Actually, it's like this: in old Mame (ie - before the video re-write) if using switchres (say, 800*600) and using scanlines, they will look EXACTLY like real native resolution-produced scanlines (albeit perhaps not quite as bright). However, the cost of this is that different games will have different geometries relative to 800*600, and most won't fit the screen*. Alternatively, using the old scanline effects with hwstretch looks like ass in most games (there are a select few that, for some strange reason, look okay), or in golden age, mostly black background games suffer some color quality.

New Mame, using D3D, has a different format. While there is no dimming of the image by the overlay - a problem in old mame - the scanlines don't 'match'. That is, the lines don't delineate text, etc, evenly. (Note, I'm only talking about scanline effects that produce significant 'blank traces', and not at all about aperture, etc, effects.)

* the 'fractional' sub-parametre in advancemame fixes this, but there are sometimes distortions or artifacts in the game, regardless of other parametre's settings. Further, running a non-native resolution in advancemame is not the same as using switchres in regular old mame; although the scanline effects look correct anyway, the cost is color quality (that I haven't been able to rectify...but is okay if you're not comparing), more so than in regular mame with switchres and effects.

[bkenobi]

Wow, that was technical.

Any chance you can dumb that down? I've tried playing with scanlines in the past but never seemed to get anything working that looked better. I'm sure I was just doing it wrong though.

[studmeister]

thanks people. i got the scanlines from here (http://aarongiles.com/overlays.zip) & now i can go back to my scanlines once again!

[enoch]

bk: hahahah, it's not that much, really. Simply:

old mame - switchres + scanlines = authentic look (and maybe slightly dimmer than without) but games don't fit the screen.

old mame - hwstretch + scanlines = gradations of shaded scanlines and dimmer picture (again, some very few games look okay, though are still slightly dimmer - ex: Mortal Kombat), Bubbles is a good test game.

new mame w/ D3D - depending on your monitor, the various 'scanline' png's will appear differently. On both my 21" Trinitron PC CRT and 27" CRTs, they look like pencil-drawn lines and are off-grid. If you've never seen native resolutions, then compare old mame scanlines, you'll see the difference. (Scanlines, scanlines 75x2, 75x4, etc, look like just a fine mesh texture, vs actual lines; I don't personally like this effect.) Benefit of new format: no effect on color/brightness quality. Disadvantage: above png's don't 'line-up'.

I compared mame32 .112 and .119: the only difference I could see was on .119 scanlines 75Dx4 looked like it was pre-tty closely aligned, but still didn't look quite real.

*Notice that with old mame + switchres (auto), your monitor will produce small natural scanlines, but not the same as native. Also, if you have a PC monitor, you actually CAN get native resolutions with soft15khz - if you add high horizontal refresh modelines. It's a simple equation, and you can get a 'native' resolution at 31khz (vertical refresh) and higher, if you up the horizontal refresh.