20 replies to this topic

[sandmountainslim]

When you run Stella do you prefer to have the TV Effects on to simulate a CRT Television or leave them off for the clarity of LCD?

[stephena]

sandmountainslim, on Sun Nov 20, 2011 7:28 PM, said:

When you run Stella do you prefer to have the TV Effects on to simulate a CRT Television or leave them off for the clarity of LCD?

I never have it on, personally. And for the next point release (3.5), neither will anyone else I'm in the process of replacing the current TV effects with Blargg filtering. However, I probably won't have it done in the next month, and I need to release Stella by then (there are several fixes included for the program crashing). Unfortunately, other changes required the removal of the current filters, but I can't put them back and I haven't finished the new ones. So no TV effects for the next release.

[Keatah]

I strongly prefer the Blarg effects. I've seen them work in other emulators and it's great! Will there be all the control options for these like in the 800 emulators?

[Aegis]

I like them and usually have them turned on (apart from on my 1st gen MacBook Air which struggles). Looking forward to the new filters though - been using Altirra and VICE 2.3 a lot lately and their CRT stuff is very nice.

Whilst it's nice to have a clear picture, it's also worth bearing in mind that these games were designed to take advantage of the CRT displays of the time and I like to see these games as the designers did back when they were making them.

[Brian O]

Aegis, on Tue Nov 22, 2011 4:26 PM, said:

I like them and usually have them turned on...

Same here. It reminds me of playing on my grandma's old TV. Shame it's going away in the next version.

-B

[Mirage]

On.

[israelg]

ON !!!

Please look also at the mess HLSL implementation, the Atari looks very nice,

I compared it side to side with real Atari 2600 and the scan lines look very authentic...

I wish that the next Stella version will use this level of TV emulation since Mess is far from perfect...

BUT I prefer playing less perfect emulation with more authentic visuals...

Playing H.E.R.O. this way is more fun...

[Keatah]

to answer the OP's question, it really depends on the game and my mood. Sometimes I like razor sharp LCD images through a digital link. And other times I don't mind the effects on and going though a vga->composite->rf->crt, with all the associated signal loss.

off topic: While I'm thinking about Stella, does it support reading the rom files from a zip file?

[stephena]

Keatah, on Thu Nov 24, 2011 3:07 AM, said:

off topic: While I'm thinking about Stella, does it support reading the rom files from a zip file?

Yes, but the support is very basic. Currently, it looks for a ROM (ending with certain allowed extensions) and uses that. And it only uses the first one it finds, so it really only works with one ROM per ZIP file. At some point I hope to extend this to support multiple ROMs in one ZIP file (perhaps by showing the 'virtual' contents of the ZIP file in the ROM launcher, and letting you select the ROM manually).

[Legend]

I never have them on only because apparently my computer can't run them. I can't update to opengl 2.0. Although if I could get it to work, I'm sure I would play with it on.

[Trebor]

TV Effects On; but blargg's NTSC video emulation is best (thus far) and would be fantastic to see incorporated into Stella.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Off, but mainly because my PC is pretty old and too slow.

[save2600]

Off as I'd rather play Atari on the real thing.

Only time I use Stella is to quickly check out a recent homebrew or something. Never play it more than a few seconds before deciding to put it on an SD card for use in Harmony.

[akator]

On when I play on LCDs, off when I play on the HD CRT.

[NinjaWarrior]

on for me

[Shannon]

Nice to see that the blarrgh filters are gonna make it into Stella!

[sandmountainslim]

Im curious about this upcoming "blarggg filter" what is supposed to do?

[PFL]

sandmountainslim, on Sat Dec 10, 2011 1:06 PM, said:

Im curious about this upcoming "blarggg filter" what is supposed to do?

Same here. I really like the effects in the present build and have them on so that I can have a nice blurry, colour-bleeding flashback to my childhood. Are the Blargg effects so much better? I also notice they are NTSC filters. How will that effect PAL ROMs in Stella. Sorry if that's a silly question!

PS: Shame we'll lose the effects (especially the phosphor burn) for the next build. But I still appreciate your work!

EDIT: Grammar.

Edited by PFL, Sat Dec 10, 2011 2:47 PM.

[Trebor]

sandmountainslim, on Sat Dec 10, 2011 1:06 PM, said:

Im curious about this upcoming "blarggg filter" what is supposed to do?

http://slack.net/~ant/libs/ntsc.html

[Keatah]

Expect much better color fringing and fuzzies, especially where contrast changes. Or where you have two colors that create purple or green fringing. Like blue and red. For example.

If you want to see the blargg filtering in action go and download Atari 800 Emulator 2.2.1
http://atari800.sour...t/features.html
http://sourceforge.n...atari800/files/
If you're not impressed, then you probably didn't tweak it exactly. Keep trying.

[JL]

sandmountainslim, on Sun Nov 20, 2011 7:28 PM, said:

When you run Stella do you prefer to have the TV Effects on to simulate a CRT Television or leave them off for the clarity of LCD?

As much as I normally prefer the most authentic experience as possible, the lines drive me crazy. It's vision-mind connection thing probably along the lines that 3D games give me serious simulation sickness