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Author Topic: Altering vector settings in MAME  (Read 6236 times)

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LeedsFan

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Altering vector settings in MAME
« on: April 13, 2019, 06:37:06 pm »
I've just updated the MAME setup in my cabinet and I'm having trouble with the vector games setup. It seems that the beam width is now too thick (whereas before it was too thin... hence all the video snaps for vector games look like crap).  But I can't seem to alter the thickness of the lines in Mame. Even when I press TAB and alter the beam setting there it makes no difference to what's on the screen. Huh?!  Can anyone help please?   :dunno

nexusmtz

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Re: Altering vector settings in MAME
« Reply #1 on: April 13, 2019, 10:12:17 pm »
If you have hlsl enabled, check your bloom scale.

LeedsFan

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Re: Altering vector settings in MAME
« Reply #2 on: April 14, 2019, 03:32:31 am »
Do I need to have hlsl enabled? I thought that was for LCD screens only to help give the "crt" look. I'm running a non-arcade crt monitor with scanlines. My cab PC isn't too powerful. I'll give it a go though. Thanks.

nexusmtz

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Re: Altering vector settings in MAME
« Reply #3 on: April 14, 2019, 04:10:21 am »
No, I'm not saying that you should or shouldn't turn it on, but if it's on, you have several more settings in your slider controls. Some of those settings, like the bloom scale, affect the apparent thickness of the lines.

big10p

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Re: Altering vector settings in MAME
« Reply #4 on: April 14, 2019, 04:17:59 am »
You may want to try an old emu called AAE (Another Acade Emulator) for vector games. No disrespect to MAME, but games look much nicer in AAE. It uses MAME romsets I think, but as it hasn't been updated in years, you may have to find older romsets to match.

LeedsFan

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Re: Altering vector settings in MAME
« Reply #5 on: April 14, 2019, 04:47:52 am »
Well I kind of sorted it out. The contrast setting was causing the lines to look too thick and I wasn't altering contrast earlier. I'm quite happy to just use "scanlines" in raster games as it looks OK to me on this monitor.

For using HLSL I was following these instructions here: https://docs.mamedev.org/advanced/hlsl.html

It clearly says that all the settings can be altered in game using the tilde key so I can see how stuff changes. But I can only alter brightness, contrast, gamma, and the vertical/horizontal position of the game screen. I cannot alter anything like scanlines, curvature of screen etc.etc.

I have set HLSL 1 and using d3d with filter 0 in the main mame.ini as advised above. I also now have a separate vector.ini in the ini folder with same as mame.ini but with scanlines off. Looks good enough for me at the moment. Just wondering why I'm not getting access to all the sliders people say I should?

LeedsFan

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Re: Altering vector settings in MAME
« Reply #6 on: April 14, 2019, 09:21:18 am »
Could it be my graphics card isn't good enough? ASUS EAH5570 lo profile.  https://www.asus.com/Graphics-Cards/EAH5570DI1GD3LP/

nexusmtz

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Re: Altering vector settings in MAME
« Reply #7 on: April 14, 2019, 04:26:31 pm »
The mame.ini entry is hlsl_enable. Try -hlsl_enable -verbose romname from the command line to see if you're getting any errors related to hlsl.

LeedsFan

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Re: Altering vector settings in MAME
« Reply #8 on: April 15, 2019, 03:27:31 am »
Working!  I didn't have DirectX 9.0 installed. Got it here in case anyone else has the same issue....   https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/download/confirmation.aspx?id=8109

I was under the impression that having DX10 or 11 or 12 would automatically have the necessary parts of 9.0 as well.... but it seems not! I suppose this is old news to some people.

Well it's working aaaaaaaannnnnd..... it looks like crap.  :hissy:   But I have something to start with.

Thank you to Nexus and Big10 for trying to help me out. Much appreciated!  :cheers:

Mr. Peabody

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Re: Altering vector settings in MAME
« Reply #9 on: April 15, 2019, 04:28:23 pm »
The scanline and vector bloom rendering are via HLSL (or GLSL, though that's shader territory......). Vector line attributes, including flicker, are standard vector parameters, accessible via the vector tab in the UI versions.

I enjoy the HLSL rendering of vectors, though agree AAE is truer to form: real translucent lines.
« Last Edit: April 15, 2019, 04:32:48 pm by Mr. Peabody »

LeedsFan

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Re: Altering vector settings in MAME
« Reply #10 on: April 15, 2019, 05:38:19 pm »
Thanks for that. I'm using command line version of Mame and I can alter those settings on the fly with the Tilde key. But the beam width max. and min.settings have no effect whatsoever. I can change them on the fly or in the .ini file.... no effect with hlsl on.

With hlsl off they do have an effect.

I'm using a PC CRT monitor and to be honest the hlsl effects for vector games are crap with this monitor. If I turn hlsl off then the vector lines become thinner and look much more like a vector machine, but I lose the bloom/glow effect of hlsl.

Mr. Peabody

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Re: Altering vector settings in MAME
« Reply #11 on: April 20, 2019, 05:30:35 pm »
Testing Tempest with UIFX64 .175 all parameters are active with/without HLSL enabled. Changes in-game may not register until the TAB menu is exited and the game un-paused.

Line width prominence is determined by width minimum, maximum, and intensity. A measurable effect starts with minimum being above 0 (the stock .75 seems a good value) and maximum being at least .5 above that - else no change, right? The stock settings of .75, 4, and .75 look great here - though maximum at 2 is about the same. The ugliness comes from flicker. I don't know where that came from, as I did not see that in the wild. Some people like it. I think it's awful.

javeryh

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Altering vector settings in MAME
« Reply #12 on: February 23, 2021, 10:27:07 am »
Thanks for that. I'm using command line version of Mame and I can alter those settings on the fly with the Tilde key. But the beam width max. and min.settings have no effect whatsoever. I can change them on the fly or in the .ini file.... no effect with hlsl on.

With hlsl off they do have an effect.

I'm using a PC CRT monitor and to be honest the hlsl effects for vector games are crap with this monitor. If I turn hlsl off then the vector lines become thinner and look much more like a vector machine, but I lose the bloom/glow effect of hlsl.

Did you ever sort this out?  I am having the same exact issue.  With hlsl on, I get bloom/glow effects on vector games that look very nice but the lines are WAY too thick so the overall look is terrible.  With hlsl off (and bgfx) on the vector games look better (thin lines) but no bloom/glow and the overall feel is kind of flat.

Has anyone taken the time to make rom.ini files for vector games to get the settings just right?  Changing vector.ini works for some games but many of them look bad and would need their own ini to look good...
« Last Edit: February 24, 2021, 06:49:51 am by javeryh »