Suggestion: Default VideoModeWin = 2 Instead of 3

LDAWG · Post by **LDAWG** » Tue Dec 20, 2005 1:33 am

As far as I know, some Video Cards don't handle "D" Modes correctly.

This is one of the causes of people booting ZSNES up, for the first time, into a Black Screen.

I think it'd be a good idea to make the default for VideoModeWin be 2 (512x448 R WIN) instead of 3 (512x448 DR WIN), in the next release of ZSNES.

VideoModeWin = 2

Any feedback?

Aerdan · Post by **Aerdan** » Tue Dec 20, 2005 6:08 pm

Except, um, not.

Most people who use ZSNES don't encounter this problem because they don't have ancient hardware that would take except to D modes.

That being said, making any sort of video mode changes at this point in time would be pointless, as grinvader is currently working on killing off the hardcoded video mode list.

LDAWG · Post by **LDAWG** » Tue Dec 20, 2005 7:14 pm

Isn't the goal of every software Delevoper to make their product as compatiblity as possible... especially if it comprimises nothing for the rest of the user base?

Starman Ghost · Post by **Starman Ghost** » Tue Dec 20, 2005 7:47 pm

LDAWG wrote:Isn't the goal of every software Delevoper to make their product as compatiblity as possible... especially if it comprimises nothing for the rest of the user base?

Yes, but that's Aerdan for you.

Clements · Post by **Clements** » Tue Dec 20, 2005 7:51 pm

Hopefully the new video mode changes will make the whole problem redundant, and allow me to play @ native resolution on my laptop like I can with bsnes.

Post by **pagefault** » Wed Dec 21, 2005 9:49 pm

It's interesting you bring this up. It used to be 2 but I changed it to 3 so people would get more filters by default. I didn't know it would cause problems on some drivers, which is very odd. What do you guys know about the black screen, do you guys have any computers you can get the black screen on? I would like to run a test program on this computer to find out why it's doing that and finally fix the issue, any takers?

Also there will be new sound code coming very soon. Hopefully will fix a lot of the noise issues people are having. Especially with ToP.

byuu · Post by **byuu** » Wed Dec 21, 2005 10:21 pm

I've seen and had people report the black screen thing, too. I got it on a cheap S3 Savage IX chipset, myself.

I know one possible cause is using the video hardware to do the surface conversion from 16-bit to 32-bit. Some video cards won't give errors when you create the surface with DDSD_PIXELFORMAT and the appropriate flags, but will instead output a black image instead. Maybe checking the device capabilities would be a good idea?
Of course, it could be something else, too.

Ultimately, it comes down to people using archaic hardware, and us emu authors continuing to support it, instead of focusing our efforts on more important things.

BTW pagefault, may I ask how you implement the scanlines in ZSNES? I notice the 50/75/100% options basically dim every other scanline (or alpha blend with black, whatever you prefer to call it), but DirectDraw itself doesn't support alpha blending, and using the win32 AlphaBlend API on an HDC handle would be horrendously slow on a video memory surface... do you just use a runtime generated lookup table for that?
I thought about that, but doubling the video bandwidth for 256x224 to do that seems like a bad trade-off :/
For the DD renderer, I just blit black lines using a color key instead, and leave the blended scanlines to the D3D renderer.

Oh, by the way... this laptop doesn't show the black screen with ZSNES in mode 2 or 3, but I would be willing to run your test anyway, if you like.

LDAWG · Post by **LDAWG** » Wed Dec 21, 2005 10:34 pm

I have a computer at work with a 32MB ATi Rage 128 Ultra Video Card, which I can reproduce this issue on.

I'll run the test for you!

Here is some info on it:

ASIC Type = RAGE 128 PRO ULTRA
ASIC ID = 5446
Bus Type = AGP 1X, 2X, 4X

BIOS Version = 001.001.003.003
BIOS Date = 5/29/2001

Memory Size = 32.0 MB
Memory Type = SDR SGRAM 1:1 / SDRAM

Driver File = ati2dvaa.dll
Release Version = 6.65.020110m-2507C

Here is some info on the latest Windows XP Driver, I could find for it (older Drivers have the same issue):

Driver 6.13.10.5004
-----------------------------------------------
Driver Date = 1/10/2002
Driver Provider = ATI Technologies Inc.
Digital Signer = Microsoft Windows Hardware Compatibility Publisher