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AAE
#320691 - 01/21/14 11:23 PM
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Hi,
I know that AAE (Another Arcade Emulator) has been abandoned. However, I'm having two issues and I was wondering if anyone might know if it is a config issue or if code needs to be changed?
1. When I rotate my desktop to Portrait Mode AAE will not open in full screen mode. (NOTE: I'm working on a "virtual" cabinet and need to run in a Portrait orientation.)
2. It seems that AAE assumes a 60hz refresh rate. I’ve been messing around with a cheapo 4k monitor that only does 30hz at 4K and AAE seems to run at half speed the way it "locks" to the refresh rate.
I was able to find the source code, so I’ll take a look and see if I can figure anything out. Unfortunately, I’ve been out of "real" programming for a while as I’m primarily a DB guy. But, I thought I’d ask, as the Asteroid emulation in AAE is pretty sweet. If not, I'll just hope that the MAME devs decide to give a little more love to the vector games. 
Cheers!
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Re: AAE
[Re: lamprey]
#320693 - 01/21/14 11:49 PM
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> If not, I'll just hope that the MAME devs decide to give a little more
> love to the vector games.
And as the MAME dev who has been giving love to the vector games via the HLSL subsystem, I'd love to know what AAE offers that MAME currently doesn't, especially given the bloom effects that MAME has. Have you even tried MAME 0.152 or a similarly recent version, or did you just go immediately for AAE while assuming MAME doesn't offer similar post-processing?
Cheers!
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| gregf |
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Ramtek's Trivia promoter
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Re: AAE
[Re: lamprey]
#320697 - 01/22/14 12:24 AM
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>But, I thought I’d ask, as the Asteroid emulation in AAE is pretty sweet. If not, I'll
>just hope that the MAME devs decide to give a little more love to the vector games.
You missed the thread from last year?
http://www.mameworld.info/ubbthreads/sho...amp;o=&vc=1
The bug issues that were discussed then have already been fixed although there may be a little more finetuning on a minor issue or two with HLSL.
The only monitors that HLSL will have no part of is old black and white portable tv set monitors used with pong and other hardcore dedicated black/white only monitor systems (non-TV) used with such games as Ramtek Trivia or Ramtek Hit Me.
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Re: AAE
[Re: MooglyGuy]
#320699 - 01/22/14 12:38 AM
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Hi MooglyGuy,
Thanks for checking in. Yes, I have the latest version of MAME. And thanks for adding the HLSL affects for the vector games. They are a nice leap forward! I've been playing with the HLSL affects on and off for months. I really need to actually build my cabinet. Soon I hope..
I haven't spent too much time with all the vector games in AAE. But, specifically, for Asteroids and Asteroids Deluxe there a couple of things that AAE seems to have the upper hand in. Hopefully, these are not just subjective differences nor my ignorance of configuration.
- Besides the shot/explosion adjustability in AAE, the shots are larger, more easily seen and look more authentic to me. I'm not sure about others, but this seems to be one of the biggest "features" of AAE.
- Not specifically an HLSL affect, but the rotation of objects is not smooth. For example, the plays ship seems to jump when rotating in MAME. While AAE is smooth. This also translates to the other objects (asteroids).
- Color difference. It's possible I need to do some more tweaking in MAME. However, MAME appears to render everything the same color/intensity. Whereas with AAE the plays ship appears brighter than the asteroids. So, do some of the other ships.
- I was messing with several version of MAME as well as some custom MAME builds that I found so, my recollection might be off here, but I find that AAE either renders internally at a higher resolution or does something that helps the anti aliasing, thus producing smoother more vector-like lines. At least on my screen. Maybe there is a way to teak this in MAME, but I just don't know how.
Hopefully, you don't think this is bashing or anything; Just differences I've noticed. The first two being the things that jumped out at me the most.
Thanks again!
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Re: AAE
[Re: gregf]
#320700 - 01/22/14 12:46 AM
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> > But, I thought I’d ask, as the Asteroid emulation in AAE is pretty sweet. If not,
> I'll
> > just hope that the MAME devs decide to give a little more love to the vector games.
>
> You missed the thread from last year?
>
> http://www.mameworld.info/ubbthreads/sho...amp;o=&vc=1
>
> The bug issues that were discussed then have already been fixed although there may
> be a little more finetuning on a minor issue or two with HLSL.
>
> The only monitors that HLSL will have no part of is old black and white portable tv
> set monitors used with pong and other hardcore dedicated black/white only monitor
> systems (non-TV) used with such games as Ramtek Trivia or Ramtek Hit Me.
Yes, I've seen that. I agree that the addition of HLSL has made things different and, certainly, improved things visually. But, I have to, respectfully, disagree that things are "fixed." By fixed, I mean look more like the arcade version. However, they certainly look better than before!
My primary focus was on Asteroids/Deluxe. So, Please see my reply MooglyGuy about the differences I noticed in that game.
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| Dullaron |
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Diablo III - Dunard #1884
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Re: AAE
[Re: lamprey]
#320708 - 01/22/14 02:49 AM
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> Whereas with AAE the plays ship appears brighter than the asteroids. So, do some of the other ships.
You wasn't the only one notice this. All the same color on MAME. 
Asteroids on the Asteroids Deluxe brightness should be darker than the rest. Which haven't been done on MAME.
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W11 Home 64-bit + Nobara OS / AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT / AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 8-Core 3.59 GHz / RAM 64 GB
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Re: AAE
[Re: lamprey]
#320819 - 01/23/14 08:32 PM
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Some things on AAE look better - the enlarged shots in Asteroids and Asteroids Deluxe, for example and in general AAE has a better look for black and white vectors than it does for color ones.
The smooth rotation in Asteroids, however, is not one of those things. The actual hardware runs like MAME does. AAE adds the smoothness and it's incorrect. The "skipping" you see (especially in fast moving asteroids) is due to the "refresh" rate of those games not matching your monitor. Take a look here for a good explanation: http://mametesters.org/view.php?id=04398
Now the HLSL effects in MAME are phenomenal compared to what we had before, but I'm having a hard time adjusting the settings so everything looks correct. Vector intensity in black and white games is especially difficult and I find that high intensity vectors (like the shots in asteroids) aren't bright/big enough to see. Adjusting the vector widths makes them easier to see, but then I lose the variations in intensity (i.e. asteroids and saucers same color/intensity, can't see the star castle shield levels, etc). You'll never get a perfect image on a raster display, but I think there's some room for improvement.
Color games look great though, and MooglyGuy has really done an amazing job overall.
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> Color games look great though, and MooglyGuy has really done an amazing job overall.
Indeed....though Astdelux on AAE is the bee's knees. I don't know what people are talking about with the asteroid movement. It's correct.
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Scifi frauds. SF illuminates.
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Re: AAE
[Re: lamprey]
#320873 - 01/24/14 10:57 AM
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> Hopefully, you don't think this is bashing or anything; Just differences I've
> noticed.
Not at all, you're the first person who's been able to specifically quantify what it is about AAE that looks better. Your post will be a good reference for the next time I get a chance to look into the HLSL system, hopefully I can take care of some of these things. Nightbringer is correct about the extra interpolation that AAE adds, but your other points are definitely things I want to look into. Thanks!
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> The smooth rotation in Asteroids, however, is not one of those things. The actual
> hardware runs like MAME does. AAE adds the smoothness and it's incorrect. The
> "skipping" you see (especially in fast moving asteroids) is due to the "refresh" rate
> of those games not matching your monitor. Take a look here for a good explanation:
> http://mametesters.org/view.php?id=04398
>
Interesting. Not that I don't believe you, but I swear when I was playing asteroids/deluxe at the arcade a couple a weeks ago it was smooth. However, it is possible that they don't have a real/authentic version of the game. I guess that'll give me an excuse to pop in again this weekend.
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Re: AAE
[Re: lamprey]
#320893 - 01/24/14 07:39 PM
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> Interesting. Not that I don't believe you, but I swear when I was playing
> asteroids/deluxe at the arcade a couple a weeks ago it was smooth. However, it is
> possible that they don't have a real/authentic version of the game. I guess that'll
> give me an excuse to pop in again this weekend.
It's much more of an issue with Asteroids Deluxe than it is with Asteroids. I have an AD cocktail so I can verify that board does not rotate the ship or the asteroids smoothly in circles. AAE looks better than MAME, but it's still wrong The Asteroids hardware does a little better but it's still a bit jumpy. When you play the real hardware try rotating the ship without thrusting and you should see it better.
Keep in mind too that a vector monitor is a lot brighter than your PCs monitor so the phosphor glow can make it look smoother.
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The rocks in AAE 'crick'......
[Re: Nightbringer]
#321061 - 01/28/14 09:43 PM
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Scifi frauds. SF illuminates.
_________________
Culture General Contact Unit (Eccentric)
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Re: AAE
[Re: lamprey]
#321088 - 01/29/14 09:11 AM
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Not sure if this will help anyone else, but I finally figured out that if you disable the V-Sync in the video card controls it will allow AAE to run at full speed.
In my case, using an nVidia card go to the nVidia Control panel:
Manage 3D Settings
- Vertical Sync - OFF
Also, note that you can set this per game/exe so you don't need to disable it for all programs.
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