Blurry Screen Problem, Really Sorry to Ask This

[Sex Pixels]

Hi, all.

It seems that this question's been asked many, many times before, and I truly apologize for contributing to the redundancy, but even after substantial trawling, I still haven't found a solution that works. Please bear with me.

I'm running Windows 7 on a 1920×1080 monitor. Both my display drivers and DirectX are updated, yet whenever I try to switch to a larger DR W video mode, I always get slight screen blurriness! The only mode that displays correctly is 512×448 DR W. I've tried everything I can think of: custom resolutions, full screen mode, making sure ALL filters are disabled... but I still keep getting the blur!

Can anyone please provide me with additional steps I can take to try troubleshooting this issue? I really want to use ZSNES (SNES9x and higan/bsnes both give me problems with IPS-patched ROMs), but I just can't ignore this blurry screen.

[odditude]

non-integer multiples of the output will produce a slight blur. your only options if you want a super-crisp display are integer multiples of 256x224 (512x448, 768x672, 1024x896) - which have the downside of being 8:7 aspect ratio.

keep in mind an NTSC TV/monitor scaled the SNES output to fill its 4:3 screen - so that beautiful, crisp, square-pixeled display you're searching for doesn't match what a SNES actually looked like on a TV.

to get that supercrisp output at the correct aspect ratio, you'd need a window resolution of 1792x1344 - which isn't happening on a 1080p display.

[Sex Pixels]

You're saying, then, that even setting a display mode of 1024×896 will still produce blur? Because it does. (That was actually the resolution I was trying to get.)

I did something just now that was purely accidental: I changed the video mode, clicked out of the emulator, then clicked back inside of it, it disabled Aero (visual themes), and for a split second, I got that pixel-perfect display. Is there really no way of achieving this? I just don't understand why I can get it in other SNES emulators, but not with ZSNES.

[odditude]

it's because zsnes uses an old version of directdraw, and modern versions of windows perform bilinear interpolation when upscaling. try disabling aero (right-click properties/compatibility/disable desktop composition).

again, though, it'll be the wrong aspect ratio.

[Sex Pixels]

Nope, even after disabling Aero/desktop composition, it still gives me the blur. The ideal mode I would like to run ZSNES in is the 1024×896 DR W one (aspect ratio is irrelevant to me). I don't understand why this happens, since I'm running the emulator in a window.

[kode54]

Sorry, the blur is entirely up to your video card drivers, so long as ZSNES uses DirectDraw.

[Truth Unknown]

You can use DXGL (DirectX 1-7 to OpenGL Wrapper) to force the scaling method from Bilinear to Nearest. Just remember to use "CUSTOM DS F" set to your monitor's native resolution to reduce the impact of the pixel warping, as all the pixels will have to vary size (3x3 4x3 3x3 4x3 for an example). Just a warning, DXGL is still beta and may produce glitches with ZSNES.

[Sex Pixels]

You can use DXGL (DirectX 1-7 to OpenGL Wrapper) to force the scaling method from Bilinear to Nearest. Just remember to use "CUSTOM DS F" set to your monitor's native resolution to reduce the impact of the pixel warping, as all the pixels will have to vary size (3x3 4x3 3x3 4x3 for an example). Just a warning, DXGL is still beta and may produce glitches with ZSNES.

Thank you so much for this! It works perfectly now, and there's absolutely no pixel skewing/warping (possibly because I'm still running the program in a window at the 8:7 AR). I'm so glad that I can finally use ZSNES with no complaints now!