Nestopia 1.39

Post by **Agozer** » Tue Jan 10, 2006 6:16 pm

alxnd wrote:. But then how come I am able to play it perfectly in the first 5 minutes? Later, I updated the video drivers, the problem still happens but now it will allow for 10 minutes of smooth play before the propblem begins.

I had the exact same problem, but it got magically fixed after I realised I was using an outdated version. I did not encounter the same problem in 1.23, depite having HQ3X enabled, for example.

powerspike · Post by **powerspike** » Tue Jan 10, 2006 10:51 pm

Clements wrote:This version is working faster for me. The only problem I found was when closing the app, the 'Absolutely Sure?' dialog doesn't appear correctly.

Hmm I don't seem to be having any problems with that. Did you erase the config file before you upgraded? I always do that when there's major changes. Dunno if I need to or not, but I do it just incase. Also It should say "Are you sure?" when you exit.

Clements · Post by **Clements** » Tue Jan 10, 2006 11:48 pm

I always extract to a new directory. It's probably specific to the settings I'm using.

powerspike · Post by **powerspike** » Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:49 am

I should of figured you did that already. Ah well, I hope you manage to figure it out.

Clements · Post by **Clements** » Wed Jan 11, 2006 3:30 am

Tested all my settings one by one and found out it was setting the video to 32-bit that caused it. Fixed it by changing to 16-bit. Changing back to 32-bit makes the problem reappear.

alxnd · Post by **alxnd** » Wed Jan 11, 2006 4:45 am

Agozer wrote:
alxnd wrote:. But then how come I am able to play it perfectly in the first 5 minutes? Later, I updated the video drivers, the problem still happens but now it will allow for 10 minutes of smooth play before the propblem begins.
I had the exact same problem, but it got magically fixed after I realised I was using an outdated version. I did not encounter the same problem in 1.23, depite having HQ3X enabled, for example.

I AM using version 1.24. I started using Nestopia in version 1.23, which also shows the same issue.

powerspike · Post by **powerspike** » Wed Jan 11, 2006 5:09 am

Clements wrote:Tested all my settings one by one and found out it was setting the video to 32-bit that caused it. Fixed it by changing to 16-bit. Changing back to 32-bit makes the problem reappear.

I tried doing that in the video options and still didn't get it. I'm using a radeon 9600 xt @ 1280x1024 and 60Hz for the refresh since I'm using an lcd monitor. For my video drivers I'm using version 5.8 of the catalyst drivers. I wonder if I'd get it if I upgraded to the latest ones. I saw on emutalk that you had a radeon X700 with cat 5.13.

Edit: I upgraded and still nothing. It's probably one of those things that only happens on certain systems or video cards. Dunno if it's worth submiting as a bug report or not.

Post by **Agozer** » Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:16 pm

You should bug the Nestopia developer, I'm sure he's willing to look into this matter.

powerspike · Post by **powerspike** » Thu Jan 12, 2006 8:13 am

He's pretty good about bug reports. I told him timelord ware borked and it was fixed in the next version. I didn't even know he fixed it since he doesn't talk too much on the forums.

xamenus · Post by **xamenus** » Sat Jan 14, 2006 1:13 am

I've reported about 3 or so bugs I found 1.24, and I know that at least 2 have been fixed.

Emulation-wise, everything seems to be working, except maybe a few Japanese games which someone reported. Since emulation seems to be stable, maybe the author could now add more features to compete with VirtuaNES.

What (useful) features does VirtuaNES have that Nestopia doesn't?

Clements · Post by **Clements** » Sat Jan 14, 2006 1:35 am

- Adjustable shortcut keys
- Multiple language support (via plugins)
- 192kHz sound option (however useful, it's there anyway)
- Channel Equaliser
- Lowpass filters
- Adjustable Scanlines (0-100%)
- Ability to set refresh rate along with resolution
- Support for some additional special controllers

xamenus · Post by **xamenus** » Sat Jan 14, 2006 2:48 am

Clements wrote:- Adjustable shortcut keys
- Multiple language support (via plugins)
- 192kHz sound option (however useful, it's there anyway)
- Channel Equaliser
- Lowpass filters
- Adjustable Scanlines (0-100%)
- Ability to set refresh rate along with resolution
- Support for some additional special controllers

OK, so I posted those on the Nestopia forum.

Except for the first one, Nestopia lets you configure hotkeys in the Input menu.

Clements · Post by **Clements** » Sat Jan 14, 2006 6:31 pm

Must have missed that one. I'm looking forward to some of those in Nestopia, as Nestopia already has a few unique features over VirtuaNES.

kamaitachi · Post by **kamaitachi** » Sat Jan 14, 2006 9:41 pm

The shortcut key configuration features in Nestopia (as of version 1.23) are not as extensive as VirtuaNES, though. I like having save and load state mapped to the gamepad. Nestopia only accepts keyboard shortcuts for those functions. At least you can map the fast forward function to a gamepad button. That is one of the most useful shortcuts.

For a long time I had the screen left clip, 240 line, vsync and pause toggles mapped to the gamepad too, that was handy at times.

Also, it is cool that VirtuaNES treats the analog joystick axes on my PSX gamepad as buttons. Four "buttons" for each stick, plus the built-in L3/R3 buttons, plus all the regular buttons, adds up to 24 buttons. Sweet.

Nestopia is already a great program, however.

alxnd · Post by **alxnd** » Mon Jan 16, 2006 5:16 am

Yesterday, I *downgraded* my video drivers to the version immediately earlier to the one I was using, and the problem I was having with FPS has gone away with no further clues as to why it might have happened.

Anyway, Nestopia is running top notch now, and I have to say it is the best NES emulator I have used.

xamenus · Post by **xamenus** » Fri Jan 20, 2006 7:36 pm

I've never really been impressed with video filters, but the new NTSC filter in Nestopia 1.25 is quite interesting! Kinda makes me feel like I'm playing the real thing on my TV...

JFD62780 · Post by **JFD62780** » Sat Jan 21, 2006 7:13 am

xamenus wrote:I've never really been impressed with video filters, but the new NTSC filter in Nestopia 1.25 is quite interesting! Kinda makes me feel like I'm playing the real thing on my TV...

Yep, tried NTSC mode, a few nitpicks: Actually NES graphics on NTSC would have passive zigzaggy dot patterns, as much as we wished them to be as depicted like Nestopia depicted it, not to mention, eight pixel columns were omitted on both the left and right sides of the screen. You don't have to remedy the dotpattern, Marty, but please do something about the missing 16 pixel columns!

Seriously Marty, I'm amazed you did the NTSC thingy!

kode54 · Post by **kode54** » Sat Jan 21, 2006 8:57 am

JFD62780 wrote:eight pixel columns were omitted on both the left and right sides of the screen.

The filter was designed to stretch the image to 682 pixels wide. Anything less, in this case 640, results in cropping.

crocomire · Post by **crocomire** » Sat Jan 21, 2006 9:44 pm

Oh shit, I have an error in emulator startup...

Nestopia cause an error in NESTOPIA.EXE
Nestopia will now close

I put unicows.dll in nestopia folder (I have Win Me), and now I don't understand why this happen...

No problems with Nestopia 1.23

adventure_of_link · Post by **adventure_of_link** » Sun Jan 22, 2006 2:28 am

Try putting it in either C:\Windows\System and/or C:\Windows\System32.

blargg · Post by **blargg** » Mon Jan 23, 2006 10:53 am

JFD62780 wrote:Yep, tried NTSC mode, a few nitpicks: Actually NES graphics on NTSC would have passive zigzaggy dot patterns

An example would help, particularly of what you mean by "passive". I haven't seen Nestopia in action so I don't know whether it does things differently than the NTSC emulation code I tested on my machine. I compared the output on my machine with a video capture from a NES and the "zigzaggy dot patterns" looked roughly the same. I plan on eventually writing a new version of the NTSC emulation code from scratch after I read up on NTSC video and fully reverse-engineer NES video generation.

As for the cropping, I looked at Nestopia's source and it appears to be intentionally cropping to 640 pixels after stretching the NES output to around 720 pixels, resulting in loss of 16 source NES pixels, as well as loss of the overscan borders. Maybe the 640 is a limitation elsewhere in Nestopia?

See the NTSC emulation discussion on Nesdev if you're interested in how this got started.

kode54 · Post by **kode54** » Mon Jan 23, 2006 11:51 am

The filter in Nestopia appears to be alternating between the first two phases every other scanline instead of cycling through all three:

Code: Select all

				for (uint i=0, phase=(basePhase^=1); i < HEIGHT; ++i) // correct
				{
					{
						const float (&quads)[PALETTE_SIZE][4] = lut.nesPhases[phase^=1]; // incorrect
						float* NST_RESTRICT out = composite + COMPOSITE_PADDING;

That line should increment to 2 before cycling back to 0. The original code would increment and check it towards the end of the loop, but the effect should be the same if it is incremented first.

Code: Select all

			if ( phase++ > 1 )
				phase = 0;

It could easily be:

Code: Select all

						const float (&quads)[PALETTE_SIZE][4] = lut.nesPhases[ ( phase = ( phase + 1 ) % 3 ) ];

Whee, modulo and in-place assignment.

FirebrandX · Post by **FirebrandX** » Mon Jan 23, 2006 3:34 pm

What's funny is I spent years annoyed by NTSC Nes output, and now there's a friggen filter for it! Gotta love emulation!

Marty · Post by **Marty** » Mon Jan 23, 2006 4:12 pm

kode54 wrote:The filter in Nestopia appears to be alternating between the first two phases every other scanline instead of cycling through all three

Yeah, it's an embarrassing bug that I forgot to fix before the v1.25 release. With the bug removed, the ziggyziggy lines will show up correctly.

As for the 640 pixel cropping, it was mainly for my own convinience and the fact that most resolutions won't show anything outside that range anyway.

While on the subject, I managed to speed up the filter by using fixed-point arithmetics. After some tweaking, I settled on a value of 10 for the shifter. According to my tests, it doesn't seem to cause any noticeable loss in precision. This optimization gave a nice speed boost of +80fps on my comp (+100fps without resorting to the /QIfist hack I used for v1.25).

kode54 · Post by **kode54** » Mon Jan 23, 2006 7:25 pm

Yeah, I'm trying to figure a way to handle stretching the image from 256 to 682 for non-NTSC, for uniformity. That, or I'll bother to make my crap window resizeable, at least when switching the filter on and off. It's nice and all, but it's sucking up over 60% of my Athlon64 3200+ for 16bpp, and pushing sub-real-time if I compile for 32bpp. And I already ruled out video memory transfers, as it runs that slow when targeting another memory buffer instead of actually locking and updating a display surface.

Since you seem to have sped that right up, I'm looking forward to seeing it.