OK, What did I forget....

[IG-88]

I had to buy a new video card recently for my desktop and now all my Mame games are, how should I say, blocky, pixelated, whatever. Isn't there a setting somewhere in Mame that smooths out the video images? It's like my games are running on an old Atari......

I went from an 64mb Geoforce 4200 (I think) to my new Volari 128MB card. Maybe I have to adjust my card somehow?

What do you all think?

[SirPeale]

It's *actually* supposed to look that way!

If you're looking for the softer images, I think it's something to do with D3D.

[IG-88]

It's *actually* supposed to look that way!

If you're looking for the softer images, I think it's something to do with D3D.

Oh ya, I realize that but this is realllll bad. There is a definate difference between my old card and my new one. Which leads me to think I had a setting that went back to default in mame when I changed out the card or it's something I got to set on this new card. I like the orginal game look but on a PC monitor if that makes any sense.

[versapak]

D3D = Direct 3D

[IG-88]

OH ya. What should I do with D3D then?

[elvis]

Either use DirectDraw if you card supports automatic filtering via the drivers, or use D3D and force bilinear filtering to smooth the 'blocky' images you speak of.

It's all in the windows.txt file included with MAME.

http://www.mame.net/readmewin.html

[IG-88]

Either use DirectDraw if you card supports automatic filtering via the drivers, or use D3D and force bilinear filtering to smooth the 'blocky' images you speak of.

It's all in the windows.txt file included with MAME.

http://www.mame.net/readmewin.html

I'm still running MAME32, don't know if I want to (or can) set-up the other. Is it possible to do either option otherwise? How do I the DirectDraw thing?

[thrash242]

<SARCASM>I've heard of some wondrous and strange things called, among other things, help files, readmes, manuals, etc.  I'm not sure what they're for, but they might help.</SARCASM>

[Beeeph]

make sure you uninstalled the driver for previous video card before you install the new card and driver.  Just a suggestion.

[lucindrea]

boot into safe mode , open device manager , check view->show hidden devices , ande DELETE any video card that shows up , then reboot ...

windows tends to keep a "record" of every card you ever put in a machine for some reasion ... normlay not a problem , but sometimes they conflict and you will never know it because the card isnt installed and theirfore the os wont show you the device.

[elvis]

I'm still running MAME32, don't know if I want to (or can) set-up the other. Is it possible to do either option otherwise? How do I the DirectDraw thing?

MAME32 for better or worse simply converts all of the MAME options to nice little check-boxes for folks who are scared of a command line.

Check your global video opions, and there you will find all of the DirectDraw and Direct3D options you could ever want to tweak.

As someone above said, it's all covered in great detail in the help file.  It would be silly for anyone here to rewrite that when the authors have already done such a bang up job.

[IG-88]

<SARCASM>I've heard of some wondrous and strange things called, among other things, help files, readmes, manuals, etc.

[Chris]

I wonder if the problem is that your new video card supports the game's native resolutions, and you've gotten used to hardware stretch.  Try forcing the resolution to 640x480 and turn hardware stretch on.

--Chris

[elvis]

The problem is this:

Nvidia and ATi cards automatically apply a bilinear filter when stretching any non-native resolution to a larger one.  This is a feature built into the drivers that cannot be turned off.  It has been there for years.

Volari and Matrox cards do not apply the filter.

For many years, some people wanted the filer, and others didn't.  It got to the point where people would buy a particular card just to have or avoid the filters!  Pretty silly.

The MAME team decided to get around this by adding the D3D blitter.  Only the 2D component of D3D is used, and you can customise the filtering process.  They did this for the exact reason this thread exists!

From the windows.txt help file INCLUDED WITH MAME:

-d3dfilter [f] / -flt [f]

        Select the type of filtering to apply to the image when stretching. 0
        is point filtering, 1 is bi-linear filtering, 2 is bi-cubic filtering
        (flat kernel), 3 is bi-cubic filtering gaussian kernel), 4 is
        anisotropic filtering. Note that very few graphics cards support
        bi-cubic filtering, and that older graphics cards may not support
        anisotropic filtering. The default is bi-linear filtering (-d3dfilter
        1). This option requires -direct3d.

In other words, 0 = blocky, 1, 2, 3 and 4 are progressively less blocky (although you'd be hard pressed to see the difference from 1 to 4 in 2D, but anyhoo...)

In MAME32 EVERY SINGLE option available to MAME users is in the GUI config.  In this case, it's under the video options, where you'd expect it to be. (Surprise surprise).

So once again, it's all in the manual.  Rather than make random speculations, people need to go find the FREE and READILY AVAILABLE documentation that some poor bastard spent hours/days/weeks writing, and actually READ IT!  Honestly, it's less effort to RTFM than it is to STFW.  And you don't have to wait for a forum reply either.

Thank your lucky stars you even get documentation.  When I was a lad, we had to read the source code and decipher this stuff for ourselves.

Sorry for getting hot under the collar here, but you all have the power to answer these questions for yourselves.  The facts are at your disposal, and better yet come packaged with the very program you are asking questions about!  ::exasperated::

[IG-88]

The problem is this:

Nvidia and ATi cards automatically apply a bilinear filter when stretching any non-native resolution to a larger one.