MagicEngine

[Aruseman]

Hi,

I tried searching everywhere but nothing could explain the problem I have with both my MACs (Air and Mini, different monitors).

Basically the scanlines have some kind of alternate "pattern" while in 640x480 fullscreen (both 16 and 32).

I couldn't take a proper screenshot (I'm away from home now), but here a example of what I'm talking about:



the result is that you can see this "pattern" during the game, especially when the screen has a single color background image.

(switching to monitor native resolution change this, but with a poor result, as the scanlines are even, but so thin and innatural)

I checked the pcengine.ini file and the only clue is this:

#########################
;
; scanline patterns:
; --
;

scanlines_pattern_2=0,255
scanlines_pattern_3=0,0,255
scanlines_pattern_4=0,0,255,255
scanlines_pattern_5=0,0,0,255,255
scanlines_pattern_6=0,0,0,255,255,255

###########################

tried to remove/change but no luck.... any explanation for this values??


Thanks a lot for any hint!

[Rockman]

I don't have a mac but I'll share what I know!

scanlines_pattern_? controls the pattern of the scanlines at different zoom levels (2-6, no scanlines at zoom x1). Zero shows the color of the pixel and 255 shows black. You could tweak these but it probably won't help.

From your little picture it appears that the image is being upscaled (stretched) after MagicEngine is done with it. If it were me I'd look at my computer's video settings to see it's doing any scaling. If you're using an external monitor check the setting in the monitor to see how it's handling the image. Some (mostly widescreen) monitors/LCD TVs have settings for how fit an image to screen if it's not in the native resolution. If you have the problem on a laptop screen try an external monitor to see if you have the same problem.

Lots of luck!

[Aruseman]

Hi!

thanks for sharing, I think I now better understand what scanlines pattern stands for.

I agree with you, seems to me an upscaling issue, but unfortunately is happening with multiple Mac (mini and laptop) over different monitors, so I would understand if this could be something related to OSX...

Anyone else noticed that!?
Tried to grab a screenshot but it has no scanlines, so if you want to try, just run a game (on a Mac) at 640x480 with full scanlines, it will clearly reveal the pattern!


Thanks!

[Kaminari]

It won't probably fix your specific issue, as I think like Rockman that it's related to the rescaling done by your monitor -- but nevertheless, here are some alternative values for Magic Engine which generate better and sharper scanlines (the default ones are very blurry):

[Aruseman]

Thanks, I'm trying tweaking to find best result.

Just a thought, can we add custom scanlines png in a similar way to MAME? (overlay?)

I think I could use native resolution if only I could apply a scanline pattern on top of it!

Thanks!