MagicEngine

[Laahel]

Hello,

Congratulation for the new version, there are really usefull new options, especialy video ones that were lacking before, great thanks

I have however a "tiny" suggestion, I thing that "fullscreen" and aspect ratio (4/3, 3/2) options should be independant. Let me explain.

The new resolution option is great, because you can use native resolution for LCD/Plasma displays and you have a crisp image (its a little blurry on non native resolution). But the zoom option makes the image too small or to big for the display.
Then, comes the fullscreen option, that makes the image fill the whole screen, but modern displays have often 16/9 or 16/10 ratios. The 4/3 option is now usefull to keep the pc engine original ratio, but the image is no more full screen.
The solution would be to be able to choose to display fullscreen, and then select an aspect ratio (ie: 4/3) the have the image fill all the height of the screen, but keeping the aspect ratio of the pc engine (black borders on left and right)

I hope i was understandable...

Thanks for reading.

[michaeljamesjohnson]

What is the correct setting to properly emulate the native PC Engine aspect ratio? I was kinda thinking it was the OFF setting since some games seem to change resolutions multiple times. Plus, I dont think the most common resolutions that the PC Engine uses are true 4:3 aspect ratios. Any thoughts?

[dmichel]

I don't have my Duo plugged to test it but from what I remember the PC-Engine aspect ratio is close to 4:3.

It's an interesting suggestion. But separating the ratio and fullscreen options might be a bit difficult, I don't have much space in the video panel, may be I could add a 'fullscreen 4:3' option to the ratio menu. I will see what I can do.
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David Michel

[michaeljamesjohnson]

So what does the OFF position actually do? I just want to make sure the image is shown as intended (i.e. circles are circles and not ovals, etc.)


also, how would I setup the .ini file to show a fullscreen or a window with a 512x242 output area in the center? If the game is less than that resolution, then I want it to still stay centered with black outlines filling in the unused lines of resolution. Of course, I also want the native (correct) aspect ratio to display dynamically ...meaning that if the game changes resolution, so does the aspect ratio.

Bottom line is that I want magicengine to have a 1:1 pixel for pixel map on my LCD. No stretching, no compressing, no funky aspect ratios, etc. Just the image as intended.
Is this possible?

[Kaminari]

OFF simply displays the pixels as they are, which means one PCE pixel corresponds to one PC pixel (in other words, 1:1 ratio). Very useful with 1:1 custom resolutions like 512x448 or 672x448.

But if you use non-PCE native resolutions, say 640x480, the screen will of course look rather deformed (although it will still be 1:1). If you want the emulator to display the picture "as intended" but you don't have any real native resolution like 512x448 set under Windows, you will have no choice but to use a "funky" ratio like 4:3 or 3:2 (or simply fullscreen, unless you have a widescreen LCD which complicates the matter).
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[dmichel]

[michaeljamesjohnson]

Okay, I just removed my long pointless post. Just wanted to say thank you! I got it to work the way I want by using fullscreen mode at 1920x1200x32 for the GUI and v 1.1.1

I verified by taking a screenshot and copying into MS Paint.

The game now displays at 1:1 with aspect ratio set to OFF and: overscan_top=14
overscan_bottom=255

Keep in mind that I have a nvidia graphics card with scaling set to OFF, a monitor with HDCP set to OFF and my graphics card BIOS is flashed with a non-native panel control option set to ON.

So what games could I check for the theoretical PC Engine max res of 512x242?

[michaeljamesjohnson]

Would it be possible to have a resolution monitor in the GUI just like the FPS monitor that would tell us the current game output resolution?

So the FPS would say 60 and the Res Mon would say 256x240 or something similiar.

[Laahel]

[dmichel]

I like this idea too!

Zoom and fullscreen go well together I think, and these menus are new so if I change them now it should be ok.
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David Michel