> If you take a magnifying glass to a real CRT and look at what it's displaying, it > simply isn't the same as what's being outputted on an LCD using HLSL, and I was under > the impression that the whole point of HLSL was to be able to make LCDs look like > CRTs (?).
Just repeating what has already been said:
You're supposed to fiddle with the settings until it does. I agree the default settings don't look very good, I wouldn't be surprised if that's by design. It's basically begging you to tweak it. HLSL is one of the best things to happen to MAME in years.
If you don't like it, or if you don't have the patience to adjust it, then turn it off and use the good old .png overlays.