mame HLSL settings not working.

[rhzucal]

I have a general hyperspin setup with mame 0.159. I've watched a ton of videos trying to find why my hlsl setup isn't working. No matter what I change my screen looks the same. No scanlines....nothing. I have it turned on in mame. I checked the ini. All checks out there. I turn the two global settings in hyperlauchhq to true for hlsl. I still get nothing. Please help.

[lamprey]

Does HLSL work if you just run Mame by itself? Do you have DirectX 9.0c installed?

[rhzucal]

When clicking on a game just through the mame emulator it still doesn't work. This is the setup I used.


I don't remember anything about directx 9.0.

Would it have anything to do with having on roms just on the c drive and not physically in the hyperspin folders?

[lamprey]

Forget HyperSpin for a bit; focus on just getting Mame working. When you run Mame and launch a game what happens? Does the game launch and play, but you don't get any HLSL affects? Or is the screen just blank/black? Or, does the game not even launch?

HLSL required DirectX 9. If you don't have that installed it won't work and I think you'll just get a blank/black screen.

1. Disable HLSL in your mame.ini.
2. Launch a game and verify that it works without HLSL. If not, get it working (check ini paths and such).
3. Once working, enable HLSL and see what happens. If you get a black screen, you probably need DirectX.

If you are still having trouble, give us more details about your setup and what is happening.

[rhzucal]

I really appreciate the help. The directx 9.0 download worked. I see hlsl and can adjust the filters....BUT...now my system crawls.  I have a AMD 3.0 ghz with ATI hd4200.  If you need more details let me know but I read threads from 2011 with guys running garbage getting no performance issues. Not that I have a beast but jeez. It's a little newer. So now what.....with hlsl off I have no issues.  Overall it's very choppy. Not playable with hlsl on. Again...I really appreciate the help.

[vwalbridge]

You probably need more optimized HLSL settings. MAME's default HLSL settings are really bad and look nothing close to a CRT anyway.

I have some decent settings you could try but they are meant for vertical games. I'll post the settings here if you are interested.

I've noticed even the smallest change in the HLSL section of the Mame.ini file can really put a load on your system so you'll need to play with different settings to balance what looks good to you and what your system can handle.

[rhzucal]

Cool. Do you know which specific hlsl settings carry the most load when changed. Honestly I might not even care to see the scan lines that much. Maybe more of just a smoothness to the pixels. I guess I'll play around with it.  Thanks again

[vwalbridge]

You can try these settings and see what you think. These include the rounded corners and a little pincushion effect too. Keep in mind that I use these setting for vertical games so YMMV. I've found these settings don't seem to stress the system too much but still look decent. Check your FPS in mame and see if you are dropping frames or running less than 100%.

Code: [Select]

#
# DIRECT3D POST-PROCESSING OPTIONS
#
hlsl_enable               1
hlslpath                  hlsl
hlsl_prescale_x           0
hlsl_prescale_y           0
hlsl_preset               -1
hlsl_write               
hlsl_snap_width           1024
hlsl_snap_height          768
shadow_mask_alpha         0.1
shadow_mask_texture       aperture.png
shadow_mask_x_count       800
shadow_mask_y_count       600
shadow_mask_usize         0.09375
shadow_mask_vsize         0.109375
curvature                 0.040000
pincushion                0.02
scanline_alpha            1.0
scanline_size             1.0
scanline_height           1.0
scanline_bright_scale     1.0
scanline_bright_offset    0.0
scanline_jitter           0.05
defocus                   0.0,0.0
converge_x                0.2,0.0,0.0
converge_y                0.0,0.0,0.0
radial_converge_x         0.2,0.0,0.0
radial_converge_y         0.0,0.0,0.0
red_ratio                 1.0,0.0,0.0
grn_ratio                 0.0,1.0,0.0
blu_ratio                 0.0,0.0,1.0
saturation                1.15
offset                    -0.15,-0.16,-0.16
scale                     1.15,1.16,1.16
power                     1.1,0.95,0.8
floor                     0.0,0.0,0.0
phosphor_life             0.0,0.0,0.0

#
# NTSC POST-PROCESSING OPTIONS
#
yiq_enable                0
yiq_cc                    3.59754545
yiq_a                     0.5
yiq_b                     0.5
yiq_o                     1.570796325
yiq_p                     1.0
yiq_n                     1.0
yiq_y                     6.0
yiq_i                     1.2
yiq_q                     0.6
yiq_scan_time             52.6
yiq_phase_count           2

#
# VECTOR POST-PROCESSING OPTIONS
#
vector_length_scale       0.8
vector_length_ratio       500.0

#
# BLOOM POST-PROCESSING OPTIONS
#
vector_bloom_scale        0.3
raster_bloom_scale        0.225
bloom_lvl0_weight         1.0
bloom_lvl1_weight         0.21
bloom_lvl2_weight         0.19
bloom_lvl3_weight         0.17
bloom_lvl4_weight         0.15
bloom_lvl5_weight         0.14
bloom_lvl6_weight         0.13
bloom_lvl7_weight         0.12
bloom_lvl8_weight         0.11
bloom_lvl9_weight         0.10
bloom_lvl10_weight        0.09


[lamprey]

Generally, the prescale is one of the highest impactors of performance.

I'd also suggest getting version .0162 or higher of mame (think that is the version where the new changes were introduced). They (Jezze) redid how some of the HLSL stuff works so you don't have to be worried about the games resolution anymore (shadow_mask_x/y_count). HLSL handles scaling/tiling the mask for you. The downside is that the newer version of HLSL is slightly more power hungry, so you may lose even more performance.

[rhzucal]

The ini almost did it. It was close. You could tell there was a little lag. Overall I appreciate the help. I think im going to just add an effect and disable hlsl for now. One more question. Years ago I played with mame plus plus. In the advanced settings it had an Image Enhancement option. It had a drop down list. Specifically Maxim Stepin's HQ3X. Can I use those in this version of mame?  There were 20 options in the drop down list. Is that considered an "effect" now.  Is there a grand list of download able effects?  I think this is a better route for me at this point.