Zhoul

I must confess that I haven't been keeping up with all the recent developments around here. Do the newer do-it-all versions of CoinOPS rename roms from the console folders or something? I'm not entirely sure I'm going to use CoinOPS as a front end for everything, but I like that Brit gave us that option. Either way I don't think I'd want it renaming stuff behind my back.

Yes, I understand your point, but in my opinion, my personal way of thinking, CoinOPS is fine the way it is now. 100 times better than it was in the past, and 10000 times better than any other MAME emu. My collection of arcade games is around 700 titles, and the overscan under 2X really does not bother me at all. An yes, I would like to be able to slide the screen anytime, for some game or another, but since this will not be possible, I did take it out from my mind for quite some time. Peace, man! Regards, Cospefogo. Ok. Well if all you're saying is that it's better than it was before, then sure, I agree with that. We couldn't even use point filtering at all before and now we finally can. It's been a long time coming. I'd also like to point out to Brit that I appreciate your attempt to solve the problem. This is meant as constructive criticism and not an attempt to attack you personally. I say this knowing how sensitive you can be about this stuff. I'm just trying to point out that it's not a complete solution to the problem. It's great for games that can fit nicely within the 2-3x multiple, but it's not useful at all for games that do not. Even games with a little over scan sometimes need a little adjustment. Wouldn't it be more useful if the user could center the screen properly on a per game basis rather than by some predetermined math formula? Games that don't fit means we have to disable the pixel perfect modes and re-enable the bilinear filtering and then back to pixel perfect mode and point filtering when finished. What if you have company over? They shouldn't have to know all of that stuff just to play some games properly. That's why I never understood why emulation ports have strayed so far from Xport's gui. He got it right years ago. Why re-invent the wheel? That said, if Brit could combine his Pixel Perfect system with some per-game settings he'd have the best screensizing system around, bar-none.

Ah, but if you're granting permission, it's not really stealing then is it?

Well, I used to think exactly the same. I used to pester BP to have custom settings per game. I used to lose nights of sleep hacking CoinOPS in several different installations just to have the games running under pixel perfect settings. I am the most lunatic pixel perfect and correct aspect ratio lover on face of the earth, and I assure you, my friend. CoinOPS is right on the spot now. I tested arcade game by arcade game, title by title, and all the time when the overscan happens, it is fully acceptable. Nothing really critical is lost on the image cropping... ...OF COURSE, TALKING ABOUT ARCADE GAMES. I see you point when you mention that Dragon Quest games have been badly affected by the overscan, and I understand this is a really awful situation, since Dragon Quest series is one of my favorite of all time... but then I suggest - keep playing classic console games on the Xport emulators. I do that myself, I don't like to mix things much. For me CoinOPS will ever be a ARCADE EMULATOR... My mind can't deal with the idea of opening a MAME emu to play Yo Noid! =D Hope you get my point, its just how I feel about it. CoinOPS became a piece of art, a superb marvelous jewel. The best of all time! Cheers, brother! Let's play DQ3 translated to English on Xport's. Ha ha! Regards, Cospefogo. What about arcade games with oddball resolutions? Unlike console systems, arcade games don't follow a single standard. On an SDTV with 480i, there isn't much real estate to work with. If there's too much overscan at 2x -- you're screwed. What do you do when that happens? Play with a chunk of screen missing or play with the screen so small that you need a magnifying glass? Even when a game is playable with overscan, sometimes that game would look better if moved up or down a few pixels. I'm not sure if there's a single emulator from Xport that I didn't have to fine tune at least one game for. What happens when you have friends or family over and the game they're playing doesn't fit the screen properly? They need *you* to fix it for them. Great. Why not just set it one time and never think about it again?

It makes more sense to set a game once and be done with it than to have to disable pixel perfect *every* time a game doesn't fit the screen properly. If you don't like per game settings yourself then why not add a global override? Then everyone can be happy. Personally, I find automated systems inferior just like the example I gave in my previous post.

Global settings are no match for per game settings. For example, let's say you have a game that has part of it's score cut off at the top with 2x overscan enabled. In Xport's emulators this issue happens often, but his GUI allows you to center the screen so you can see the full score. In the SNES Dragon Quest games, pixel perfect 2x will cutoff the top part of the the pop up menu. With Xport's per game settings, this problem is solved without affecting other games. In Zsnexbox, you only have global settings, so when you adjust the screen for Dragon Quest you just adjusted the screen for EVERY other game. So to play another game, you need to re-center the screen. To play Dragon Quest after that you need to repeat the process all over again. For maximum customization, per game settings are necessary. The only question is whether or not Brit is willing to add this feature. Brit's on the cusp of becoming the *first* on the scene to reach Xport quality imo, so I can't see him ignoring this feature for too much longer. You guys just need to let him know.

Currently, there's no way around the blurriness issue in CoinOPS unless you modify an xbe for each unique game resolution and then filter out the non-matching roms. It's either that or play your games with smudged graphics. On a positive note, Brit may look into the problem when driver development slows down a bit.

Using an emulator to play an emulator that isn't emulated on the Xbox? Clever.

Perhaps they're the Batman & Robin of the emulation world? http://tinyurl.com/kor6gw OK, so that isn't *actually* a picture of Batman & Robin.

Since when does a feature request qualify as "complaining about you?" There was absolutely no ill intention in any of my posts. The suggestion I made was merely an attempt to discuss the possibility of removing some of the blurriness in CoinOPS. Some users maintain 10 or more hacked copies of the CoinOPS executable in order to get around CoinOPS' lack of a custom screen sizing option: http://fancyxbox.info/?doc=1&secao=coinops Good luck with your future projects, and if you do decide to continue CoinOPS development, hopefully you'll give this feature another look.

And thus ends speculation regarding the rumored "Fire Crotch" release.

Actually, I'd appreciate a response to the points I made if you don't mind doing so.

How does multiple screensizes make any difference? The games themselves don't actually run at their native resolutions. All games run at the same resolution that the emulator is set to run at: 480i, 720p, etc. If a game doesn't fit within the chosen Xbox resolution, then squishing the game to fit via bilinear filtering is always an option. If the emulator saves per game settings, then setting one game to use bilinear filtering should have no effect on other games. The key here is that the user has the choice to use point filtering to sharpen the games that do fit. This is far more preferable over the current method which looks like the games are being played behind a layer of Vaseline.

Perhaps XPort could give you a hand with that if a request was made. Does anyone here have his email?

How about finally adding per game settings so we don't have to run multiple versions of CoinOPS to do what a single copy should be doing? This would allow us to permanently set graphic filters for older games since they can be used together with no slow down issues. It would also allow us to set games up to run at their proper resolutions, which would allow the user to eliminate much of the unnecessary blurring by running the emulator with point filtering instead of blur-linear filtering. The below links go into the subject with greater detail: http://fancyxbox.info/?doc=1&secao=coinops http://www.1emulation.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=30058 Props to Cospefogo for his workaround hack.

A+ research and presentation, Enkak. There's something to like for just about everyone on that list.

Excellent work Cos and thanks for sharing your research! Still, this is a lot of trouble for something that should be an option within the emulator itself. Can you imagine if everyone had to create multiple versions for EVERY one of Xport's emulators? Ugh. Thankfully, we don't have to do that since resolution customization is a standard feature in all of Xport's emulators. No blur-o-vision or the need to run hex edited copies. Someday, hopefully, there will also be a version of MAME that does the same thing since it's THE emulator that needs resolution customization the most.

Unless you're planning on testing every single game just for the ability to use a filter, there really isn't a better solution than Xport's method. For example: The user sets the global filter setting to use "Simple2x." The first time you open a game it remembers that you used "Simple2x," so that the next time you open it it uses it again. However, if you open a game that already has "Simple2x" disabled, that becomes the new global default. If you change that game's setting to "Super Eagle Engine," that becomes the game's new default and the new global default. Thus, the next time you run a game for the first time it'll default to "Super Eagle Engine" because that was the setting last used by the game you just played. In other words, once a game has been played it defaults to it's own saved settings when loaded in the future. Since the global filter remembers the setting for the last game played, you can easily set up your favorites just by opening the games without having to bother changing the filter. So... - You set Pac-Man to use "Simple2x." Close the game. - You run Mr. Do! for the first time. - Mr. Do! automatically defaults to "Simple2x" and saves that setting as it's own. - Then you run all your favorite old games so they default to that filter, too. Once saved, the user doesn't have to change it again. Problem solved.

A few Simple2x observations... I noticed that when using Simple2x, it seems that some games after 1982 begin to slow down, with the slowdown becoming more widespread in 1987. In order to get Simple2x to work with older games, while keeping it off for newer ones, we could use 1982 as a cutoff point. The downside to this would be that many newer games that can run Simple2x at full speed would be missed since slowdown doesn't become significant until 1987+. Sure, it would work, but it would be a hokey solution because some games would benefit from it, while others would not. Another option would be to test every game and just apply Simple2x to all those that can use it, but wouldn't it be much easier and faster just to program the GUI to remember the Simple2x setting for each game individually? Or would this require a whole rewrite?

I must admit, fully functional save states would be a nice luxury.

Good ideas here, but if I were to pick one, I'd say that autofire is the big daddy of the bunch.

Well Brit, unless we tested every rom to find out which games can handle Simple2x without slowdown, the best solution would be to save the setting for each game individually per the user's preference.

How about the ability to choose which games use Simple2x and which do not? In a perfect world, they'd all use Simple2x, but that's just not feasible with a 733mhz processor.

If anyone deserves a break, it's BP. Not to sound preachy, but keep in mind that this is a hobby and not a full time job.

A patch would be so cool. You're awesome, Brit.