MiSTer FPGA Forum

Has anyone heard about adaptive scanlines? What are they and what would you use them for? There are like no mentions of this feature online just really on the recent changelog.

Scanlines that get thicker/thinner based on how bright the pixels around it are. Will look more authentic. But we need the cores to be updated--you can get betas in the Discord I believe.

Example:


See how there's basically no scanline at all between white pixels, medium scanlines on the lighter colored ground, and thicker scanlines on the left side/shadow of the pyramid? That's what these do.

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/fpgagaming/com ... &context=3

Sigismond0 wrote: ↑Fri Feb 11, 2022 5:45 pm Scanlines that get thicker/thinner based on how bright the pixels around it are. Will look more authentic. But we need the cores to be updated--you can get betas in the Discord I believe.

See how there's basically no scanline at all between white pixels, medium scanlines on the lighter colored ground, and thicker scanlines on the left side/shadow of the pyramid? That's what these do.

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/fpgagaming/com ... &context=3

Wow, so basically this plus the shadow masks and MiSTer gets a very convincing CRT emulation and all of this is done sub frame so minimal lag to achieve all of this. This community has been pushing things to the limit, the first damn that was extra but was awesome was the composite blending that then morphed into adaptive blending blending what needs to be blended and keeping the rest sharp. This is very interesting developments can't wait for the cores to adopt this.

This looks GREAT. I've been waiting for this, and making plans to do my self on my next break if it hadn't happened already. I'll find something else to do with my time. Whoever did this, thank you.

Yeah, with adaptive scanlines and shadowmasks, the only major thing I see missing is alternating scanline fields for 480i content. I've officially boxed up my PVM at this point and just play on my plasma set.

Sigismond0 wrote: ↑Fri Feb 11, 2022 7:04 pm Yeah, with adaptive scanlines and shadowmasks, the only major thing I see missing is alternating scanline fields for 480i content. I've officially boxed up my PVM at this point and just play on my plasma set.

Are you willing to sell it?

Maybe, but only to someone local (central IL). Do not want to ship it, and I want the buyer to see the dings and dents beforehand.

What we need next are scanlines emulated in shadow masks that way scanlines look great even on non integer scaling

Insert Disk Two wrote: ↑Fri Feb 11, 2022 10:58 pm What we need next are scanlines emulated in shadow masks that way scanlines look great even on non integer scaling

Have you tried scanline filters with non-integer scaling since the shadow mask update? They actually look pretty good to me at 1080p now, even on solid colors, when there was clear uneven beating in the past.

Sigismond0 wrote: ↑Fri Feb 11, 2022 7:04 pm Yeah, with adaptive scanlines and shadowmasks, the only major thing I see missing is alternating scanline fields for 480i content. I've officially boxed up my PVM at this point and just play on my plasma set.

What cores would use 480i wasn't that really not a big thing until the PS2 yes the PS1 uses it for some menus but pretty much all the gameplay was 240p. 480i based effects are an afterthought and you will run into the same problem that scalers have when the content switches quickly like on a menu between 240 and 480i. Pure 480i wasn't till PS2 era and that is beyond FPGAs.

Sigismond0 wrote: ↑Fri Feb 11, 2022 9:51 pm Maybe, but only to someone local (central IL). Do not want to ship it, and I want the buyer to see the dings and dents beforehand.

How far are you from Rt 66? Also cosmetics are not my thing does it work is the main concern.

Tekken 3 was thoroughly 480i but that was a rarity on PS1. It would make more sense for the handful of interlaced arcade cores like spy hunter.

It looks like these should be in the snes/nes/a0486 cores and some others, I tried them but I don't think I'm getting the adaptive scanlines(confirmed I have the 2/12/2022 versions of these cores). Are there certain filters you need to set to see them, or a separate setting? I see the same filter options as before for horizontal. vertical, gamma, etc.

Edit - I think I figured it out, I had integer scale on, I went up to full screen and I'm seeing the difference now. Now I'm seeing white text where the scanlines almost disappear, depending on the strength you set the scanlines to. On a 1600x1200 dell monitor for reference.

According to that link you need new filters to use adaptive scanlines. The filter controls the degree of difference for light vs. dark.

White scanlines vanishing is normal old behavior if you are using bright scanlines and low intensity. I.E. the white is clipping up against max brightness.

I was surprised by how much more the overall display looks like a CRT with adaptive scan-lines, not just when you actually look for the effect on the scan-lines.

redsteakraw wrote: ↑Fri Feb 11, 2022 11:35 pm

Sigismond0 wrote: ↑Fri Feb 11, 2022 7:04 pm Yeah, with adaptive scanlines and shadowmasks, the only major thing I see missing is alternating scanline fields for 480i content. I've officially boxed up my PVM at this point and just play on my plasma set.

What cores would use 480i wasn't that really not a big thing until the PS2 yes the PS1 uses it for some menus but pretty much all the gameplay was 240p. 480i based effects are an afterthought and you will run into the same problem that scalers have when the content switches quickly like on a menu between 240 and 480i. Pure 480i wasn't till PS2 era and that is beyond FPGAs.

On Mega Drive, Sonic 2 2-player mode used 480i.

Sonic 2's 480i is even wierder because its more like 240p being squished to the top and then the bottom, rather than alternating every line to create a blend. The closest dynamic look on an LCD would probably be to just alternate the top and bottom with black or darkened space. Currently the de-interlacer seems to treat it like standard interlacing so you get a lot of combing artifacts.

I have all the recent updates but do not see an option to enable adaptive scanlines. Should the new downloader install them or I need to download manually? I assume they should show as an option in the Video Processing menu?

Adaptive scanlines need their own filters. They go in the same place you would put any normal scanline filters. Currently the updater does not include any, but if you get them from elsewhere, it does work for the cores mentioned in the update.

I got them from the Mister discord, search the test builds channel for adaptive, the last post was I think 1/31 and it includes a bunch of adaptive filters.