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[Sketcz]

Thanks for the advice.

QUOTE(madmab @ Feb 17 2012, 04:31 AM)

3) I did not get involved with MednafenX_NES until after version 11.

I did not realise this! Apologies for the wrong assumption.

Regarding the points:
1) The problem doesn't appear to be regarding where the scanlines start or stop when the emulator displays it on my TV. What I am seeing on my TV appears to be in perfect alignment - I get the entire image, including the bottom of the screen. It seems to be that when I hit the "screengrab" button, it starts the grab at the wrong place. Whatever imagery it's reading from the memory buffer, or whatever, and placing it as a PNG on my HDD, it's grabbing the wrong part.

2/4/5) Well, it's not that subjective. Mednafenx_NES V9 had a perfect palette which is identical to all the other NES emulators I have.

Fair enough about comparing V9 to a different emulator (FCEU), they might have different standards. But I only mentioned it because both FCEU and V9 of Mednafen produced the exact same colour palette. They're identical. I'm curious as to how and why someone, anyone, would want to change what was already perfect, and replace it with a muddy brown filtered palette. Maybe I'll root through the older V10-V13 topics to find mention of this.


I tried playing with the palette options in V15, but couldn't find anything which allowed it to look like V9. I will have another look to see what I missed.

For comparison, note the colour of the building. V9 at the top, V15 at the bottom:

[madmab]

Well a quick glance at ther game screen rendering code does show that it displays the screen slightly different than how the screenshots are taken.  Whether I'd be able to fix that.. it's hard to say I'd have to dig a little deeper..

As far as palette changes go that is ultimately the makers of the core that do this.  You could always get Version 10 thru 13 and see if the palette looks any different.

And yes palettes are VERY subjective.  Just read any topic discussing it... different people have different perceptions on how they remember their NES looking.  Also there would not be ten million different palettes to choose from if this was not the case.

Use the palette selector and try loading "old_palette.pal" and see if this makes you happy..

[Sketcz]

Thank you!  That’s fixed the colour problem perfectly. I know this will sound stupid, but the extension “.pal” made me think it was related to emulation of PAL games, so my brain ignored it. Yes, that’s perfect now.

As for the screengrab problem, I found a workaround.

I reinstalled my old copy of FCEUltra for Xbox (I forget which version... 17?), and that screengrabs the entire screen without cutting anything off..

Curiously it displays the screen as being 232 pixels tall now (an excess of 8 pixels for an NTSC game), with a little bit of excess at the bottom. But I can always trim the excess.

I actually switched to Mednafenx a few years back because it had an option to disable the 8-sprites on a line limitation of the NES, which FCEU didn't offer (I checked all the options and didn't notice it). But I guess I can live with flickering sprites if it means a full screengrab.

If you feel like tinkering though, by all means feel free. But don't feel obliged on my account.

And thanks for the replies.

[Movax]

QUOTE(Sketcz @ Feb 18 2012, 12:32 PM)

 it had an option to disable the 8-sprites on a line limitation of the NES,

I thought that didn't really work except in rare instances, since most games that suffered heavily from that problem were programmed to rotate sprites anyway. Are there any hacked versions of Super Dodgeball that remove the active sprite rotation code?

[Sketcz]

QUOTE(madmab @ Feb 20 2012, 04:40 PM)

I noticed that you are over at emuxtras... but did not know if you posted anything over there.  So I'm replying here.

I am? I'm pretty sure I'm not. I've got an account here, on RHDN, HG101, and a few other forums, but I don't recall signing up at Emuextras. Got a link to the forum profile? I know there's a guy with my username on some Mac forums, but I don't even own a Mac!

Otherwise no problem, I'm just really pedantic when it comes to... well everything. Thanks.

[bigby]

Well, on closer inspection of the emuxtras members we find...

Skell
skid
skietuwillie
skilla
Skurvy_Pirate
skylerinman
skyline21
SkyNIC
skywaulker
skyzyourguy

No Sketcz though  

[DarthMingus]

QUOTE(Sketcz @ Feb 16 2012, 11:53 AM)

I write for Hardcore Gaming 101, where screen fidelity is of the utmost importance. Emulated screens must be 1x1, in perfect ratio, with no filters or other such gimmickry.

What have you written?

Also, as you know, colors are very subjective. Check out the difference between RGB and composite on a real NES system:

http://www.chrismcov...gb_compare.html

It looks like the newer versions of the emulator more closely resembles the actual NES (composite) output. Enjoy!

[Sketcz]

The colours might resemble composite, but for that true effect you need the jagged vertical lines you get with the original hardware. My Xbox outputs at RGB and the pixels are too crisp to appreciate the more earthy colours. I might as well go the whole hog and have them crisp and colourful. I mean, if someone coded a graphics filter which replicated the jaggy vertical lines, then maybe I'd argue for the earthier tones. What can I say? I'm an all or nothing kind of guy.

QUOTE(DarthMingus @ Feb 22 2012, 05:38 AM)

What have you written?

Dozens of articles for print magazines and other websites, but here's my current portfolio on HG101. Enjoy!