Slowness on my laptop excluding one display mode

Belgarion · Post by **Belgarion** » Thu Jul 28, 2005 3:58 pm

Hi

When using 640*480 DR Full I have no problems. When using any other mode whole thing gets extremely slow. GUI is so slow that it's almost impossible to use.

Why is this a problem? It works all right in that one display mode...
Well. It's my laptop. And native resolution is 1024*768. So it's does not look so good in 640*480.

I believe it's because of my laptop's display accelerator. My laptop has P3 1GHz, 768MB RAM, Trident 8MB display acc.

All the special modes work well on that 640*480 but it gets very slow if I use any other mode.

Will there be any mode that would allow me (and others who use laptop with poor display acc.) to use better resolutions? It's just so totally weird that even lower resolutions won't work as well as 640*480

What's the magic in that resolution and could that magic be stretch in other modes as well?

I heard that in DOS version everything should work fine but I'm using WinXP and it is important to get my usb controller to work (laptop does not have game port)

Post by **Nach** » Thu Jul 28, 2005 5:40 pm

What's wrong with just using 640x480? That's a perfectly normal resolution.

The fact that your desktop is 1024x768 won't affect a full screen DirectX mode in anyway.

Joe Camacho · Post by **Joe Camacho** » Thu Jul 28, 2005 6:00 pm

I wouldn't use special filters on that video card.

Belgarion · Post by **Belgarion** » Thu Jul 28, 2005 7:01 pm

Nach wrote:What's wrong with just using 640x480? That's a perfectly normal resolution.

Yes it is very normal but that has nothing to do with the problem. Like I said up there, the native resolution of the TFT panel is 1024*768. 640*480 is either _very_ small box in middle of the display or sclaled to look very poor.

The fact that your desktop is 1024x768 won't affect a full screen DirectX mode in anyway.

I did not say that it would. The native resolution of the TFT panel is that what sets the limits. If you know what TFT is, you should know what happens (Only 1024*768 works without any scaling. Scaling distorts the pixels more or less depending on the resolution of the panel, used resolution and the position on the screen.)

Joe: I don't even wish to use special filters. I just said that they work with no problem in 640*480. Why I said that? Because that makes the unusefullness of other resolutions even more strange (because there seems to be enough power to use filters but no to use any higher of lower resolutions.)

Post by **Nach** » Thu Jul 28, 2005 8:23 pm

Belgarion wrote:
The fact that your desktop is 1024x768 won't affect a full screen DirectX mode in anyway.
I did not say that it would. The native resolution of the TFT panel is that what sets the limits. If you know what TFT is, you should know what happens (Only 1024*768 works without any scaling. Scaling distorts the pixels more or less depending on the resolution of the panel, used resolution and the position on the screen.)

I'm currently typing this on my Laptop which has a 15" TFT screen with a native resolution of 1024x768. I also use ZSNESW in 800x600 full with HQ3x no problem.
If you have scaling issues, it's your drivers, not the screen.

Post by **Agozer** » Thu Jul 28, 2005 8:32 pm

Joe Camacho wrote:I wouldn't use special filters on that video card.

I think he's able to use Interpolation, but I wouldn't go higher than that. Maybe 2xSaI, but it's so-so.

Belgarion · Post by **Belgarion** » Thu Jul 28, 2005 8:57 pm

Nach wrote:
Belgarion wrote: I'm currently typing this on my Laptop which has a 15" TFT screen with a native resolution of 1024x768. I also use ZSNESW in 800x600 full with HQ3x no problem.
If you have scaling issues, it's your drivers, not the screen.

Scaling issues? Scaling is the issue. Btw. there doesn't seem to bee any HQ3x in 640*480 DR Full.

Belgarion · Post by **Belgarion** » Thu Jul 28, 2005 8:58 pm

Agozer wrote: I think he's able to use Interpolation, but I wouldn't go higher than that. Maybe 2xSaI, but it's so-so.

I tried and every filter seemed to be working just fine in 640*480 DR Full.

Post by **Agozer** » Thu Jul 28, 2005 8:58 pm

Belgarion wrote:
Nach wrote:
Belgarion wrote: I'm currently typing this on my Laptop which has a 15" TFT screen with a native resolution of 1024x768. I also use ZSNESW in 800x600 full with HQ3x no problem.
If you have scaling issues, it's your drivers, not the screen.
Scaling issues? Scaling is the issue. Btw. there doesn't seem to bee any HQ3x in 640*480 DR Full.

HQ3x = 800x600 and up. HQ4x = 1280x1024 only.

Post by **Nach** » Thu Jul 28, 2005 8:59 pm

Belgarion wrote:
Nach wrote: I'm currently typing this on my Laptop which has a 15" TFT screen with a native resolution of 1024x768. I also use ZSNESW in 800x600 full with HQ3x no problem.
If you have scaling issues, it's your drivers, not the screen.
Scaling issues? Scaling is the issue.

And you should blame your driver. Perhaps see what options you have.

Belgarion wrote: Btw. there doesn't seem to bee any HQ3x in 640*480 DR Full.

Of course not, that's not 3 times the size, so you can't go above HQ2x.

Belgarion · Post by **Belgarion** » Thu Jul 28, 2005 9:50 pm

Nach wrote: And you should blame your driver. Perhaps see what options you have.

Drivers? If monitor have to scale, the quality suffers in almost every situation. You can't scale 640*480 to 1024*768 without loosing quality if you have fixed position pixels in that 1024*768 display.

Thought it is quite strange that every time the monitor have to scale, there is quite much black in the borders. That might be a problem that I could blame the drivers for. Thought IBM has no alternative drivers available for R30.

What's the problem in other resolutions in ZSNES? There have to be some problem if they won't work like that single mode (even the the smaller ones won't work.)
What is so "heavy" in other display modes and why?

Joe Camacho · Post by **Joe Camacho** » Thu Jul 28, 2005 9:55 pm

Belgarion wrote: What's the problem in other resolutions in ZSNES? There have to be some problem if they won't work like that single mode (even the the smaller ones won't work.)
What is so "heavy" in other display modes and why?

Well, it would be a problem with zsnes if every computer that uses zsnes would suffer from the same issue. But that's not the case.

Post by **Agozer** » Thu Jul 28, 2005 9:55 pm

Higher resolution means more video memory goes into displaying things, so things slow down if the system and/or the video card can't keep up. This may not seem much in Windows, but when you start playing games, it most certainly shows.

Post by **Nach** » Thu Jul 28, 2005 9:58 pm

And the smaller resolutions are non standard thus not being supported as well.

Belgarion · Post by **Belgarion** » Thu Jul 28, 2005 10:06 pm

Yeah. It could be so. Though how can ZSNES needs so much memory etc. I could even play Warcraft III in my laptop

Not in 1024*768 though but it worked better in 1024*768 than ZSNES (non playable though.) I can't even see any improvement due higher resolutions normally but in TFT one offcourse would like to use native resolution.

Is that not some sort of a bug etc? I didn't use any filters etc. And why would it work in DOS just fine?

Btw. I usually see improvement in performance using lower disp. mode even though it is non-standard. And btw. ZSNES gets faster and faster when dropping the resolution (though not playable in smallest.) Only exception is the 640*480 where everything works as it should. And only DR Full mode.

whicker · Post by **whicker** » Fri Jul 29, 2005 4:52 am

ahh yes. laptop video chips and drivers...

Based on your description, I doubt your card has hardware scaling, and reverts to HEL to do the drawing. Software scaling == slideshow.

Gil_Hamilton · Post by **Gil_Hamilton** » Sun Jul 31, 2005 11:57 pm

whicker wrote:ahh yes. laptop video chips and drivers...

Based on your description, I doubt your card has hardware scaling, and reverts to HEL to do the drawing. Software scaling == slideshow.

On a chip that old, it's pretty much guaranteed.

And that's EXACTLY the problem.

To explain for those that don't "get it":
ZSNES is working with software that was intended for a specific FIXED resolution. Unlike a PC game that merely draws the game at a new resolution when the setting is changed, ZSNES MUST stretch the image to the new resolution.

Which is all well and good if your video card can stretch images in hardware. But when it can't, it sucks badly.

Belgarion · Post by **Belgarion** » Mon Aug 01, 2005 2:19 pm

Gil_Hamilton wrote:On a chip that old, it's pretty much guaranteed.
And that's EXACTLY the problem.

To explain for those that don't "get it":
ZSNES is working with software that was intended for a specific FIXED resolution. Unlike a PC game that merely draws the game at a new resolution when the setting is changed, ZSNES MUST stretch the image to the new resolution.

Which is all well and good if your video card can stretch images in hardware. But when it can't, it sucks badly.

Yeah.. I understood the one before you but now one thing comes to mind.
How come other resolutions work in MSDOS version? (or so I've heard.)
Can the operation not be done in same way in Windows version too?

If not, I wonder why...

Do you know the name of that hardware scaling operation? So I might keep an eye if some other laptop has the feature.

Noxious Ninja · Post by **Noxious Ninja** » Mon Aug 01, 2005 2:48 pm

Pretty much anything modern. Hell, the Intel integrated video probably has it. I'll find out whenever I get my new laptop.