A few questions about arcade emulation

[TheRedKnight]

I'm restricted to only emulation for the next three months or so and I want to do it properly but on a budget. Can someone point out if my setup could do a bit of tweaking?

I have a 40" 4:3 plasma with a circa 2007 Toshiba laptop (Intel 945GM Express graphics, Intel Core 2 Duo @ 1.60GHz processor, 1GB RAM - Windows Vista) hooked up to it via VGA. I don't want to upgrade the PC hardware except maybe double the RAM.

Right now I have Final Burn Alpha and Fightcade installed to play SF2. Is there a better alternative to FBA when playing offline? I'm currently using FBA because the DirectX9 Alternative blitter fixes the tearing issue I've had with other emulators. I was also told by one of the developers that triple buffering would help, but I want 100% accurate emulation. Would triple buffering have an affect to that?

System16.com and Wikipedia claim that CPS and CPS-2 have the same resolution, but when scaling SF2 and SSF2X to fullscreen I can tell that SF2 looks much crisper even with bilinear filtering on. Any idea what's up with that? I asked the devs and didn't get an answer. Am I also correct to assume that this ever so slight pause/stutter in intervals I can see in scrolling scenes is caused by the difference between the game's framerate and the 60Hz framerate of the emulation setup?

Maybe I'm asking a lot of dumb questions but I don't want to pull out theories out of my **** to justify the little things that annoy me in my setup.

[cools]

GroovyMAME.

You don't need to use it with CRT_Emudriver. Treat the plasma as an LCD when following any instructions.

[TheRedKnight]

GroovyMAME.

You don't need to use it with CRT_Emudriver. Treat the plasma as an LCD when following any instructions.

What kind of filtering options does it offer? I don't want any silly filters, but I need some softening applied to the image as I'm sitting pretty close to the screen.

[cools]

GroovyMAME.

You don't need to use it with CRT_Emudriver. Treat the plasma as an LCD when following any instructions.

What kind of filtering options does it offer? I don't want any silly filters, but I need some softening applied to the image as I'm sitting pretty close to the screen.

I'm making the assumption it's a 640x480 panel. With that, the best possible image you're going to get is by setting cleanstretch 2 in the options (integer scaling vertical, fractional scaling horizontal) and enabling fake scanlines (effect scanlines in the options). Bilinear filtering on or off is personal preference then, I'd probably have it on.

This will give you black borders top and bottom (and I have a feeling you'll have them on the sides as well to an extent if you maintain a 4:3 aspect ratio). It should look bloody good though, and you shouldn't have any problems with jittery scrolling etc.

It's that or simply scale to the full screen and forget about scanlines.

Is it 640x480 native or higher? Unless it's a particularly high resolution the above is what I'd do with what you've got. The other options require CRT_Emudriver and running the display In 15khz, knowing you can do so...

[TheRedKnight]

Yeah, it's 640x480. Thanks for the instructions, I'll be giving them a shot.

[AeroCityMayor]

The 1.6 C2D may be a little underpowered for more recent versions of MAME. I'd be looking at a setup based on .106 for that hardware combi.

HTH

Cheers,

Ralph.

[TheRedKnight]

The 1.6 C2D may be a little underpowered for more recent versions of MAME. I'd be looking at a setup based on .106 for that hardware combi.

HTH

Cheers,

Ralph.

Alright. Thanks.