Zsnes and Windows Vista problem

[Rambo1979uk]

I have a problem with the filter in Zsnes at 1280x1042 S, it doesn't want to smooth the screen anymore like it does in XP, is there any way to fix this, is it a something to do with direct draw, I've looked around on here and around the net but can't find any help, another problem I've found at 1280x80 DS F mode using interpolation, it uses a filter but it's not clear, it looks fuzzy, didn't have this problem in XP.

I've tried a few other emulators like Mame, Kega Fusion and WinUAE and they all work fine with the filters, zsnes seems to be the only one I can't get to work proper, it might be the GPU card or the drivers these other emulators work fine so I'm guessing it's something to do with Zsnes it's self.

Does anyone else have this problem and know of a fix to get around it?

My GPU is a 7800gt with latest drivers if thats any help.

Thanks for any help anyone can give

[Deathlike2]

This is not a ZSNES bug.

There is auto-filtering done in the older versions of Windows (9x, 2K, XP), but not in Vista.

Interpolation is a software filter, which is not the same as the auto-filtering that older Windows OSes perform.

[Rambo1979uk]

I didn't know that, thanks for letting me know, just wondering, is there a way to have Zsnes do that kind of filter so it looks like it does in Windows XP? , I know it can be done in Vista as other emulators do it so maybe I'm missing something.

Another thing I noticed is that Snes9x seems fine with the filter in Vista, but Snes9x doesn't work as well as Zsnes does for me on either OS.

Is there any way of changeing the filter in Zsnes that looks pretty much the same as it does in XP?

Thanks for your help.

[Rambo1979uk]

It sounds like a Zsnes problem to me, all other emulators I've tried works fine like they do in XP, even Snes9x works fine, so it's got to be a Zsnes problem.

[Deathlike2]

It is not a ZSNES problem. It is the behavior of DirectDraw under Vista. Most of the emus you are using are probably using Direct3D or OpenGL, which avoids this issue altogether (this is not a toggle or anything, it is the API the emu is designed around).

This behavior also occurs with Snes9x, and that uses DirectDraw as well.

If you really want that filtering, IIRC, you can try disabling Aero and see if that helps out.

[Rambo1979uk]

No such luck, I'll leave it at that, with any luck, a future version of Zsnes or some patch for Vista will sort it out.

Anyhow, thanks for all the help.

[Rambo1979uk]

Just for the record, you are right about the direct 3d and direct draw, I tried Mame out and with direct 3d, it looked right but with direct draw there was no filter, so it sounds like Vista is the problem.

I don't suppose theres a way of getting Zsnes to use direct 3d is there?, I don't think there is from what I've seen but thought I'll ask.

Anyhow, thanks again for all the help, I don't need to start rapping my head all over the internet to sort this thing out anymore

[Deathlike2]

Just for the record, you are right about the direct 3d and direct draw, I tried Mame out and with direct 3d, it looked right but with direct draw there was no filter, so it sounds like Vista is the problem.

There probably won't be a Vista patch to change this behavior either.

I don't suppose theres a way of getting Zsnes to use direct 3d is there?, I don't think there is from what I've seen but thought I'll ask.

It has to be coded with Direct3D. It isn't a "toggle" to enable/disable as I said earlier.

[Nightcrawler]

This is not a ZSNES bug.

There is auto-filtering done in the older versions of Windows (9x, 2K, XP), but not in Vista.

Interpolation is a software filter, which is not the same as the auto-filtering that older Windows OSes perform.

Do you have any links to any documentation that talks about this? I've been interested in trying to get things straight as far as the 'nvidia blur' and this direct draw filter effect as far as what conditions they occur under and why.

The whole thing seems really stupid to me. Video card drivers and OSs should allow you to run something unfiltered or filtered upon program specification and not doing anything automatically that apparently in some cases cannot be shut off.

At the very least behavior should be consistent regardless of card and OS, but it's not. It's certainly frustrating from a development standpoint.

[Deathlike2]

This is not a ZSNES bug.

There is auto-filtering done in the older versions of Windows (9x, 2K, XP), but not in Vista.

Interpolation is a software filter, which is not the same as the auto-filtering that older Windows OSes perform.

Do you have any links to any documentation that talks about this? I've been interested in trying to get things straight as far as the 'nvidia blur' and this direct draw filter effect as far as what conditions they occur under and why.

The whole thing seems really stupid to me. Video card drivers and OSs should allow you to run something unfiltered or filtered upon program specification and not doing anything automatically that apparently in some cases cannot be shut off.

At the very least behavior should be consistent regardless of card and OS, but it's not. It's certainly frustrating from a development standpoint.

I wish I had links. The blur is not NVidia specific. It it automatically enabled when Video Memory is in use... you can technically disable said blur by disabling DDraw acceleration (or in some emu DDraw options, to use "System Memory" (Nestopia) or "DDraw emulation" (VBA)).

This behavior is consistant among all Windows prior to Vista. Vista does not do such autofiltering under DDraw at all (probably because DDraw is to be phased out anyways).