MiSTer FPGA Forum

Hi!

Is there no Flickerblend option in the Neo Geo Core? The Monitor I use with Mister is really sensetive to static flickering (the Life Bar in Samurai Shodown IV for example). I might just be missing it.

If there are none. Are there other options to mitigate this problem? Maybe by using a different filter.

All the help/guidance I can get is much appreciated.

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Gameboy ... 5c219737d9 - This is how it was done in the Game Boy core for reference.

However it would have to be done somewhat significantly differently in the Neo Geo core, and it would consume more logic because there are much more pixels being drawn on the screen, and it might stress the timing a bit more. Just posting this here for perspective however. It would be more involved than in the cores with frameblend/flickerblend currently.

The Lynx core also has flickerblend, blending up to three frames.

Does using a patched 60Hz Neo Geo core alleviate the problem?

lufeig wrote: ↑Wed Apr 20, 2022 5:10 pm Does using a patched 60Hz Neo Geo core alleviate the problem?

The mother of late replies. Sadly, no. The status/life bars in Samurai Shodown IV is still flickering like crazy.

The flickering is an interlacing effect, to simulate transparency with other 'layers' in the game. It's a relatively cheap effect which works well on crt monitors, less on lcd screens. Flickerblend would get rid of those transparency effects as well.

Samura showdown does not have an interlacing effect, it's just flashing within 240p, and it's even more noticable/distracting on a CRT because of the lack of motion blur to soften the contrast between on and off. Although devs did use this trick often in spite of that, if for no other reason than being computationally cheap.

IPS screens can also have problems with image persistence triggered by flashing effects, especially when you take into account overdrive that compensates for their inherent motion blur. Heck I have one monitor that can keep flickering for hours after using the 240p test suite shadow test. So that's one issue that CRT didn't have to worry about at least, and can be a problem for playing on modern displays.

Still the biggest challenge here, is that flickerblend is usually for handhelds, which did have horrendously blurry screens and some games took good advantage of that. But that's not how Neo Geo was ever experienced back in the day, so it might be a bit weird to see the effort put in to that feature.

Maybe this is something that could be implemented universally at the scaler level and enabled with ini? LCDs are the main place where you would want this anyway on most cores, and there's already some kind of framebuffer when using vsync_adjust=0 or 1.

Was just remembering this thread, as I`ve recently encountered some annoying image persistence after a 1-2 mins of Samurai Shodown IV on my Samsung Odyssey G4 (IPS 240hz).

Was there ever a "solution" or some sort of workaround for this?

pac wrote: ↑Mon Jul 10, 2023 8:02 am

Was just remembering this thread, as I`ve recently encountered some annoying image persistence after a 1-2 mins of Samurai Shodown IV on my Samsung Odyssey G4 (IPS 240hz).

Was there ever a "solution" or some sort of workaround for this?

Sadly not. Or at least non that I know of. I really wish there was.

I'm not sure it has been said but if you load the games using the UniBIOS, generally you can turn off this flicker effect in the games' soft-DIP settings. Generally the setting is called "FLASH" in the settings.

You can select the UniBIOS, load your game, hold A+B+C on controller 1, and then go into the games settings and change this effect. I can't vouch for all games having it, but I know that Last Blade 2 definitely does.

Also if you open the core menu while playing the game, it'll save the DIP switch settings so you won't have to do it again for that game... but you will have to do it for each where it exists.

mcj wrote: ↑Tue Jul 25, 2023 2:01 pm

I'm not sure it has been said but if you load the games using the UniBIOS, generally you can turn off this flicker effect in the games' soft-DIP settings. Generally the setting is called "FLASH" in the settings.

You can select the UniBIOS, load your game, hold A+B+C on controller 1, and then go into the games settings and change this effect. I can't vouch for all games having it, but I know that Last Blade 2 definitely does.

Also if you open the core menu while playing the game, it'll save the DIP switch settings so you won't have to do it again for that game... but you will have to do it for each where it exists.

I did not know that. Just tried it out and so far I've only seen that feature in Last Blade 2. That said, the only other games I've checked are Samurai Shodown IV and V. And they did not have it. Also I think turning flash off only removes the flashing effect that happens when you hit someone and not the flickering shadows underneath your fighter or the flashing health bars (which I think Last Blade 2 does not have anyway).

But thanks for the info! I'll definitely be checking out other games and see if they have it.