"HLSL Vector goodness Work In Progress"

[epetti]

Are the defaults good or did you need to tweak them a bit?

[Rigby]

Are the defaults good or did you need to tweak them a bit?

I didn't touch them, but since there's no accounting for taste, your preferences may differ.  Apparently, between 0.148u5 and 0.149 they added sliders in the menus, but I didn't think to look for them before I left for work today. 

[Tafoid]

did they ever incorporate the timing fixes for Robotron so it played almost like it does on a real machine? I've been watching the release notes for the last few releases and don't recall seeing its inclusion.
not that it matters personally since I have a JROK multi-williams board now, but I'm curious and can't imagine why they would put off adding it, if indeed they did. or maybe I just missed it.

I'm unaware of any timing fixes?  Are you referring to the fixes to the "corner bug" crash?  Do you have a link regarding these fixes?

[gildahl]

Tried Asteroids on 0.149 tonight.  Looks good.  Tempest does too, but the sound on Tempest is messed up--even with the HLSL effects turned off.  Anyone having the same experience?

[Tafoid]

Tried Asteroids on 0.149 tonight.  Looks good.  Tempest does too, but the sound on Tempest is messed up--even with the HLSL effects turned off.  Anyone having the same experience?

Got to make sure that HLSL isn't causing your game to run under 100% speed.  Use F11 to show the emulation speed and see.  Pokey emulation not too long ago became much more accurate and demanding for Atari games, so many of them run a bit slower then earlier versions did.

[gildahl]

So I'm presuming Tempest works for you?

[epetti]

Not working so well for me.  I downloaded the 0.149 binaries and ran a few games including non-vector games, and all I get is a couple giant white triangles that fill most of the screen and then the screen blanks out and I have to Esc to exit.  Tried it with my current mame.ini as well as moving it aside so it would use the defaults.  Re-installed 0.148 binaries and it works just fine.  Any ideas?  I just downloaded from mamedev a few minutes ago, so it's not the initial bad binaries that were originally there that's the problem.

[cmoses]

Are the defaults good or did you need to tweak them a bit?

I didn't love the 149 default HLSL settings.  I think they were better than the ones in 148u5.  I still think they look very washed out.  I took my favorite 148 settings and incorporated them into the mame.ini of 149.  I like how they look.  I like the bloom effect for vector games, but not sold on it yet for raster ones.  I think the raster games that are primarily back backgrounds, classics like Donkey Kong, PacMan, Galaga, etc aren't too bad with the raster bloom, but I don't think it helps games with full screen backgrounds like Congo Bongo, Metal Slug, etc.  You can easily turn down or off the raster bloom in the ini or tweak it in the sliders section. 

[happyfunball]

did they ever incorporate the timing fixes for Robotron so it played almost like it does on a real machine? I've been watching the release notes for the last few releases and don't recall seeing its inclusion.
not that it matters personally since I have a JROK multi-williams board now, but I'm curious and can't imagine why they would put off adding it, if indeed they did. or maybe I just missed it.

I'm unaware of any timing fixes?  Are you referring to the fixes to the "corner bug" crash?  Do you have a link regarding these fixes?

http://www.robotron2084guidebook.com/technical/gameplatforms/mame/install/

these are instructions to install it yourself in .148
there was some discussion on KLOV as well.

http://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?p=2409295&highlight=robotron+mame+timing#post2409295

[Rigby]

Are the defaults good or did you need to tweak them a bit?

I didn't love the 149 default HLSL settings.  I think they were better than the ones in 148u5.  I still think they look very washed out.  I took my favorite 148 settings and incorporated them into the mame.ini of 149.  I like how they look.  I like the bloom effect for vector games, but not sold on it yet for raster ones.  I think the raster games that are primarily back backgrounds, classics like Donkey Kong, PacMan, Galaga, etc aren't too bad with the raster bloom, but I don't think it helps games with full screen backgrounds like Congo Bongo, Metal Slug, etc.  You can easily turn down or off the raster bloom in the ini or tweak it in the sliders section.

Yeah, the default settings are a bit much.  I can say that the machine I first played Metal Slug on had a monitor with some very weird issues, and the default settings for 0.149 immediately reminded me of them -- 20 years later.  I remember a very long phosphor hang-time on that monitor, and the new default settings do not disappoint in that regard.

[Haze]

Not working so well for me.  I downloaded the 0.149 binaries and ran a few games including non-vector games, and all I get is a couple giant white triangles that fill most of the screen and then the screen blanks out and I have to Esc to exit.  Tried it with my current mame.ini as well as moving it aside so it would use the defaults.  Re-installed 0.148 binaries and it works just fine.  Any ideas?  I just downloaded from mamedev a few minutes ago, so it's not the initial bad binaries that were originally there that's the problem.

video card / drivers? any 'HLSL is broken' report needs that information as a bare minimum so that we can see if it's just you or everybody with that config

[gildahl]

Not working so well for me.  I downloaded the 0.149 binaries and ran a few games including non-vector games, and all I get is a couple giant white triangles that fill most of the screen and then the screen blanks out and I have to Esc to exit.  Tried it with my current mame.ini as well as moving it aside so it would use the defaults.  Re-installed 0.148 binaries and it works just fine.  Any ideas?  I just downloaded from mamedev a few minutes ago, so it's not the initial bad binaries that were originally there that's the problem.

Graphically it (Tempest) looks fine for me.  It's just the sound that's off.  There is sound, but it's vague and distorted.  This is with HLSL on or off.  Its the same in both the official build and my own build (both x64).

[epetti]

video card / drivers? any 'HLSL is broken' report needs that information as a bare minimum so that we can see if it's just you or everybody with that config

I have an older computer.  I'm starting to think it's probably just worth me staying on .148.  I am having this problem even with hlsl disabled.  My computer is:

Intel Celeron 2.70GHz
Intel 82845G/GL/GE/PE/GV Graphics Controller
Video BIOS Version 2897
Intel Graphics Miniport Driver Version 6.14.10.3943

Running Windows XP.

Not sure if this is all the info or where I should go to give anything more.  Attached is a screenshot of what I get when I launch any game, and my mame.ini.

[Gray_Area]

Yeah, it's pretty nice now in color vecs, though still not as nice as AAE. You have to create tricks to get trail-y shots in Asteroids Deluxe, and it's still not great. Raster HLSL is a little wonky now, too. Vector blossom is nice, but I can hold off a bit.  I'll have to address those other points later....

[Nightbring3r]

Yeah, it's pretty nice now in color vecs, though still not as nice as AAE. You have to create tricks to get trail-y shots in Asteroids Deluxe, and it's still not great. Raster HLSL is a little wonky now, too. Vector blossom is nice, but I can hold off a bit.  I'll have to address those other points later....

Yeah color vectors don't look bad, but there are some oddities with interactions of the glow and multiple vectors. Black and white vectors look OK as long as the don't make heavy use of intensity. Solar Quest looks good, but AD and Star Castle look bad. I'm sure there are some tweaks in the settings that will help, but right now I can't get Star Castle to show a different intensity when the shield is damaged, for example.

Still, it's a pretty good first attempt and even if it doesn't look as good as AAE it's already better just from not blacking out after 25 mins and not having all of AAEs controller and orientation issues.

[Gray_Area]

Still, it's a pretty good first attempt and even if it doesn't look as good as AAE it's already better just from not blacking out after 25 mins and not having all of AAEs controller and orientation issues.

I never had any of those problems......

[Nightbring3r]

Run AAE for 25 mins. Maybe not all games, but Asteroids for sure will go dark.

Analog control? Forget it.

Rotate a vertical game? Forget it.

There are a bunch of other little emulation issues (extra ship shows up in Asteroids after the first game, star field wrong in Tempest, missing sounds in Star Castle and Solar Quest, etc), but those are the big ones.

AAE was pretty awesome but like most non-MAME emulators, it was eventually abandoned. The source was released (or some version of it) but no one has taken it over and no one is likely to. Still looks better than MAME, but MAME plays better.

[Gray_Area]

Run AAE for 25 mins. Maybe not all games, but Asteroids for sure will go dark.

Analog control? Forget it.

Rotate a vertical game? Forget it.

There are a bunch of other little emulation issues (extra ship shows up in Asteroids after the first game, star field wrong in Tempest, missing sounds in Star Castle and Solar Quest, etc), but those are the big ones.

AAE was pretty awesome but like most non-MAME emulators, it was eventually abandoned. The source was released (or some version of it) but no one has taken it over and no one is likely to. Still looks better than MAME, but MAME plays better.

Depends what games you care for. Outside of the big three and a special favorite (Astdelux, tempest, and bzone - and Black Widow) I don't much care. Star Wars would be a nice bonus, but not critical to me. Rotating, while more common now, is still pretty uncommon. Still, could possibly....probably....write a simple bat to make the video hardware rotate the desktop on game load. And it might not bork anything.

[Nightbring3r]

Well, I can't complain too much. AAE is what got me into vectors and now I own a Tempest and an AD. I played a fair amount of Solar Quest on AAE, but I always felt like I was missing out because the spinner games didn't work right (TAC/Scan, Zektor, etc). I guess I'm just glad the MAME HLSL effects are coming along since they're likely to be supported for awhile.

[rockyrocket]

Anyone else getting a black screen when running a vector rom through .150 with HLSL enabled?.
 I can run raster roms fine with HLSL but not vectors and can toggle the black screen on and off with CTRL + Alt + F5 (HLSL shortcut).
 This is with the .150 HLSL files, is it just me or are the new vector effects broken with .150?.

[stripe4]

Anyone else getting a black screen when running a vector rom through .150 with HLSL enabled?.
 I can run raster roms fine with HLSL but not vectors and can toggle the black screen on and off with CTRL + Alt + F5 (HLSL shortcut).
 This is with the .150 HLSL files, is it just me or are the new vector effects broken with .150?.

Yes, vector HLSL is broken in 0.150. Haze has written a post about new features in 0.150 (a very nice read, as always, thank you!), and vector HLSL brokenness is also mentioned:
http://mamedev.emulab.it/haze/2013/09/17/mame-mess-ume-0-150/

[rockyrocket]

Thanks stripe4 thats good info!.