HLSL Config

[lettuce]

Been playing with the HLSL settings, and cant really manage to get a satisfying looks. Has anyone had any luck in recreating a CRT look on a LCD screen??

[kalars123]

this is the closest i've been able to get, and i'm still not really that happy with it just have to keep tweeking
here are my settings

#
# DIRECT3D POST-PROCESSING OPTIONS
#
hlsl_enable               1
hlslpath                  hlsl
shadow_mask_alpha         0.03
shadow_mask_texture       aperture.png
shadow_mask_x_count       512
shadow_mask_y_count       384
shadow_mask_usize         0.125
shadow_mask_vsize         0.125
oversample_x              1.0
oversample_y              1.0
curvature                 0.05
screen_scale_top          1.0
screen_scale_bottom       1.0
pincushion                0.05
scanline_alpha            0.73
scanline_size             1.0
scanline_bright_scale     .65
scanline_bright_offset    0.6
scanline_jitter           0.10
defocus_x                 .05
defocus_y                 .05
red_converge_x            -0.4
red_converge_y            -0.7
green_converge_x          0.0
green_converge_y          0.0
blue_converge_x           0.0
blue_converge_y           0.0
red_radial_converge_x     0.0
red_radial_converge_y     0.0
green_radial_converge_x   0.0
green_radial_converge_y   0.0
blue_radial_converge_x    0.0
blue_radial_converge_y    0.0
red_from_r                1.0
red_from_g                0.0
red_from_b                0.0
green_from_r              0.0
green_from_g              1.0
green_from_b              0.0
blue_from_r               0.0
blue_from_g               0.0
blue_from_b               1.0
saturation                1.0
red_offset                0.0
green_offset              0.0
blue_offset               0.0
red_scale                 1.1
green_scale               1.1
blue_scale                1.1
red_power                 2.2
green_power               2.2
blue_power                2.2
red_floor                 0.05
green_floor               0.05
blue_floor                0.05
red_phosphor_life         0.45
green_phosphor_life       0.45
blue_phosphor_life        0.45
yiq_enable                0
yiq_w                     4.1887902047863909846168578443727
yiq_a                     0.5
yiq_b                     0.5
yiq_fsc                   1.5
yiq_fsc_scale             0.5
yiq_phase_count           2

[Gray_Area]

I wouldn't worry too much about this. HLSL has gone through a lot of changes in just this first cycle. I'm thinking it may not be till .144 that it becomes relatively mature.

[scofthe7seas]

How does it look in comparison to scanline Pngs? Are there screenshots available? I'm not a connoisseur on the subject but I think my scanlines look pretty good compared to the arcades I have in my areas.

[Vulgar Soul]

How does it look in comparison to scanline Pngs? Are there screenshots available? I'm not a connoisseur on the subject but I think my scanlines look pretty good compared to the arcades I have in my areas.

Check out these threads at MAMEWorld:

http://www.mameworld.info/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=255547&page=&view=&sb=5&o=&vc=1
http://www.mameworld.info/ubbthreads/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Number=256643&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1&vc=1&new=1307880545

HLSL makes every other attempt at emulating a CRT look on an LCD look like a joke. HLSL can emulate and customize everything such as Scanline darkness, brightness, size, and height. It can emulate and customize a Shadow Mask texture. It can even custom emulate other authentic effects like monitor blur/Focus, Scanline jittering, various RGB Color settings, Monitor pincushion, and even color bleeding.

Combine and tweak all these settings together and you'd swear you just warped back to your childhood, looking at your favorite games just the way they appeared on those old cabinets. Just check out what people have done so far in those threads, and this is far from the final build of this feature.

Only problem is HLSL does some very complex calculating that requires a fairly good video card. At least something from the past 2-3 years I believe. If you're using some ancient hardware, enabling HLSL may cause MAME to run slowly or crash.

Also as Gray Area said, the feature is still in a fairly stable, but buggy, early stage of development. It was introduced out of nowhere in the middle of the current 142 development cycle. MAME 143 will be the first full MAME release with the feature, and I'd bet it'll still be actively tweaked and developed until at least MAME 144 is released as he suggested.

Still, the feature is a huge step in the MAME/MESS project. As CRTs become more scarce, this feature will definitely catch on. The capabilities of it are truly amazing.

[scofthe7seas]

I'll have to check it out next time I'm working on the PC in my cabinet. It's not on a network or anything so I'll have to copy some stuff to a thumb drive and ferry it over

[Ond]

I've been playing with this and I have to say I'm quite impressed.  There's quite a few configs for this floating around but I just sat and experimented for some time till I was happy with a look that satisfied.  Reading up on HLSL there's some mixed opinion on weather to combine it with some pre-scale setting or leave pre-scaling off altogether.  For my part I've found a prescale setting of 3 on my 1600 x 1200 LCD gives the best results.  I am running a pair of fairly grunty 5770 Radeon cards in my PC though.  Older cards may not work (must be capable of Shader 3).  Having an Arcade CRT right next to an LCD to configure HLSL would be a good way to setup.  Can someone do this and share the config?  I think most folks are agreed an LCD without some sort of CRT mimicry going on is just pants, at least for those of us who remember what arcade games really looked like.  Until now filter settings in Mame are a poor comparison.  With some further development HLSL could be a big improvement.  The pincushion and curvature feature is nice, I prefer to back that effect off to a minimum and just hint at it.  An LCD with HLSL and smoked glass/plexi combo could produce some very nice results.

And before all you die hard CRT folk start slamming the use of LCDs  I'll preempt that argument by saying if the genuine arcade look is what you want then you still can't beat a CRT.  For those wanting to make use of an LCD (lighter, easier to rotate, no degaussing blah blah blah) HLSL with the right supporting hardware is very cool! 

[Vulgar Soul]

I'll have to check it out next time I'm working on the PC in my cabinet. It's not on a network or anything so I'll have to copy some stuff to a thumb drive and ferry it over

Just hope you're packin a nice video card in that PC. You gotta appreciate HLSL is all it's glory! Just make sure you enable it MAME.ini.

Anyway, I think you should wait another week for the official release of MAME 0.143. I'm willing to bet that version will be a bit more stable/ more user-friendly, and less buggy than what we're using now.

[Vulgar Soul]

I've been playing with this and I have to say I'm quite impressed.  There's quite a few configs for this floating around but I just sat and experimented for some time till I was happy with a look that satisfied.  Reading up on HLSL there's some mixed opinion on weather to combine it with some pre-scale setting or leave pre-scaling off altogether.  For my part I've found a prescale setting of 3 on my 1600 x 1200 LCD gives the best results.  I am running a pair of fairly grunty 5770 Radeon cards in my PC though.  Older cards may not work (must be capable of Shader 3).  Having an Arcade CRT right next to an LCD to configure HLSL would be a good way to setup.  Can someone do this and share the config?  I think most folks are agreed an LCD without some sort of CRT mimicry going on is just pants, at least for those of us who remember what arcade games really looked like.  Until now filter settings in Mame are a poor comparison.  With some further development HLSL could be a big improvement.  The pincushion and curvature feature is nice, I prefer to back that effect off to a minimum and just hint at it.  An LCD with HLSL and smoked glass/plexi combo could produce some very nice results.

And before all you die hard CRT folk start slamming the use of LCDs  I'll preempt that argument by saying if the genuine arcade look is what you want then you still can't beat a CRT.  For those wanting to make use of an LCD (lighter, easier to rotate, no degaussing blah blah blah) HLSL with the right supporting hardware is very cool! 

I've been waiting for someone out there with an Arcade monitor to do a "LCD and HLSL vs. Arcade CRT" photo comparison. I would love to see how HLSL stacks up directly next to the real thing. Maybe beyond a few obvious physical difference CRTs will always have the more authentic look, but even at this early stage I bet with some tweaking the difference between the two would really be too close to call for anyone but the most strictly purist of judgement.

Also, are you still using the u4 version of HLSL? In u4 I ran it with prescaling at 4, but I believe since than, enabling it automatically does it's own prescaling. Raising it any further in MAME causes my computer to crash. I usually add a bit of defocus to soften the image just a bit so it look less "blocky" and closer to a CRT image.

[Ond]

I've been waiting for someone out there with an Arcade monitor to do a "LCD and HLSL vs. Arcade CRT" photo comparison. I would love to see how HLSL stacks up directly next to the real thing. Maybe beyond a few obvious physical difference CRTs will always have the more authentic look, but even at this early stage I bet with some tweaking the difference between the two would really be too close to call for anyone but the most strictly purist of judgement.

Also, are you still using the u4 version of HLSL? In u4 I ran it with prescaling at 4, but I believe since than, enabling it automatically does it's own prescaling. Raising it any further in MAME causes my computer to crash. I usually add a bit of defocus to soften the image just a bit so it look less "blocky" and closer to a CRT image.

Yeah the photo comparison would be useful (and shared config) I don't have a Arcade CRT handy, hopefully someone who does can do this.  I am still using U4 HLSL, I found with Prescale set to 4 on this particular LCD it was just too sharp and edgy. I've messed with defocus but prefer to leave it off. If my memory serves me well I remember actual arcade montiors being all over the place when it came to focus, some poorly adjusted units were really blurry.  I spent a number of years working in televison production (in the 80's  ) and had the luxury of staring at $30K reference monitors for much of that time whilst I adusted black levels etc on studio cameras.  Those monitors had a much finer shadow mask than Arcade CRTs higher quality etc.  In short, a pin sharp CRT with no covergence errors etc is the look I was spoiled with, it's just a personal preference.  I'll have to check out the latest HLSL version this weekend.  If in fact this feature ends up being able to mimic an arcade CRT very closely and I can't see any reason why it shouldn't, it makes the use of LCDs a much more attractive option.