Full Screen Choppy

[miteluode]

oh wow, that sounds cool. will definitely have a look at that... but yeah, this is hi res mode:

what it's supposed to look like:


what is being suggested:


(exhaust heat ii, snes9x v1.53. seems the records screen is the only place it's used... most games are like that. the seikens only use it in menus, for example.)

edit: well, as you can see, the cityscape in the first screenshot is all whack, but you get the picture

[Yuber]

I enable hi-res support if I'm playing SoM or SD3, but very few of the games I play use it(as far as I know). I don't think FF4-6, CT,or the BoF games use hi-res mode(correct me if I'm wrong), but I haven't played much of the BoF games yet.(on my backlog, & nintendo_nerd told me about the retrans patch for BoF2) Enabling it doesn't increase crackling very much, but I disable it in games that don't use it.

Games that use hi-res mode do look very strange if you disable it, though. I don't have a list of games that use it, but if it's needed I'll enable it. My PC is pretty damn slow, so I disable any settings that decrease speed. I know tons of people hate xBR shaders, but I want games to run at a constant 60fps with 5xBR enabled.

[kode54]

Yeah, that above example is of the rare 512 width plus interlaced 448/480 height.

[grinvader]

Games that use hi-res mode do look very strange if you disable it, though.

It's not "very strange" - aside from some sprites, you're seeing one half/quarter of the screen, depending.

[Yuber]

I'm a bit obsessive, so even small flaws look "very strange" to me. You might ask why I'm willing to deal with xBR shaders'(fairly large) flaws, and the main reason is that 9x's CRT filters/shaders all look like shit on my ancient monitor. Overall, 5xBR leaves more detail than HQx filters, at least in CT & FF6. My biggest knock on xBR filters is that they make tiling & other imperfections a lot more obvious. 9x CRT filters' scanlines are really fat and obtrusive instead of razor thin like they're supposed to be. MAME's scanlines look great, but all 9x CRT filters I've tried cover my screen with fat, buggy black lines.

Is hi-res mode really all that rare on the SNES? It's not a big deal, but I'd like to know some obscure uses of the 512x448 mode. Despite its slow ass CPU, games like SD3 could easily pass as early 2d PSX games. OG Square's pixel art is absolutely gorgeous, especially in FF6.

[grinvader]

They are few and far between. Probably around 1% of all games use hires or interlace, even less both.

[Yuber]

In that case, I'll keep hi-res support disabled unless I'm playing SoM or SD3. I'm a lot pickier about sound than I am about visuals, and keeping hi-res support off does noticeably reduce crackling. 9x's OpenGL mode gets rid of 100% of the audio problems for me, but I get tons of screen tearing & jerkiness in OGL mode. Even with vsync and/or triple buffering enabled, I get severe jerkiness due to my shit GPU. Having an old monitor probably doesn't help either.

[paulguy]

The monitor will make no difference, but I have a feeling that you probably have some kind of audio or graphics drivers problem...

[Gil_Hamilton]

In that case, I'll keep hi-res support disabled unless I'm playing SoM or SD3. I'm a lot pickier about sound than I am about visuals, and keeping hi-res support off does noticeably reduce crackling. 9x's OpenGL mode gets rid of 100% of the audio problems for me, but I get tons of screen tearing & jerkiness in OGL mode. Even with vsync and/or triple buffering enabled, I get severe jerkiness due to my shit GPU. Having an old monitor probably doesn't help either.

Your graphics chip is irrelevant unless it's some pathetic 90s Intel shit.
SNES emulation does not use enough graphics hardware resources to be GPU-limited.

[Yuber]

@paulguy: Pete's OGL 2.9 driver works just fine for me in epsxe, but it very well could be a driver issue I don't know about. Thankfully, I get almost zero crackling in 9x with my current settings.(DX9 mode) Enabling hi-res support for SD2-3 does cause some minor crackling, but it's pretty negligible. Substituting Xaudio2 for Directsound helped the most.

@Gil: In that case, it's probably my shitty AMD CPU. I'm thinking about replacing my MB and buying a good Intel CPU. I could just buy a better AMD CPU, but I think a good Intel CPU(an i7 4770K or better) would do wonders for general performance. GPU wise, I want a Radeon 7950 or better. I may buy a new MB instead of a new monitor. This monitor is sufficient for now.

[Gil_Hamilton]

It's not your CPU either. It's a software issue.

[Yuber]

9x does inherently have some minor sound cracking bugs, but upgrading certainly can't hurt. I'm mainly upgrading my PC so I can play PS2, GC and Wii games upscaled to 1080p at full speed. 9x runs fine on my current slow setup, and from what I've read on other forums, everyone seems to get at least some audio cracking in 9x. After optimizing the sound settings for my system though, 9x's sound is nearly flawless.