VisualBoyAdvance-M

Well whilst hq4x looks a lot better in your comparison than it does in mine. I would still pick either bilenear or 2XPM HQ over it. Things tend to get distorted and lose their original shape and texture with hq4x. Whilst I do want to play on a larger screen I want it to stay as true to the original as possible and hq4x simply distorts too much. If I do find things too blurry then I would use X2PM HQ or hq2x. I understand it's matter of taste, I just simply wanted to point out why I prefer the smaller filters.

If you use the additional TV scanlines or Bilenear Plus filters then the blur is a lot less noticeable, although the colours take a hit due to them and their darkening of the screen.

For Warioland4 I must admit it looks better...but then again that screen shown is not exactly very complex, there are lots of simple shapes which are easy to smooth, like squares and triangles there...if however you try it on a much more detailed screen...say something like Golden Sun or a fight in a Final Fantasy game things would not look anywhere near as good. Costumes would get messed up, swords would lose their shape and various other distortions would occur.

Things tend to get distorted and lose their original shape and texture with hq4x.

well, I believe you are underestimating filters... In fact the word "filter" can be misleading , because for instance hq4x, is a true interpolation , not an effect applied to an already enlarged picture. I don't see how keeping jaggies, or loosing sharpness could be considered more accurate. Off course, if you are playing at 2x size, this is not enough, to see advantage of hq4x filter. In the case of "Wario Land 4" , the WHOLE game look better with this filter, I can't imagine not using it.

 

Whilst I do want to play on a larger screen I want it to stay as true to the original as possible and hq4x simply distorts too much

If you want to stick to original, then play at 1x, with interpolation disabled :angel:

 

If you use the additional TV scanlines or Bilenear Plus filters then the blur is a lot less noticeable

Scanlines or bilienear plus are just for the fun, I don't see how filling half of the screen with fake informations could be considered more accurate.

 

Costumes would get messed up, swords would lose their shape and various other distortions would occur

Well, I just played ff6 on SNES9X, and don't have lot of savestates for gba version. However, here's a comparison for the first fight:

 

bilinear

[attachment=58]

 

hq4xS(mudlord)

[attachment=59]

 

I prefer the hq4x version :gfdrin:

 

EDIT:

At least I agree for textures, they look sometimes just worse with hq4x, but edges are better handled than with bilinear. That's why hq4x might be better for games with simplistic textures, like wario land 4.

Interpolation causes a hit to quality due to ineffective blending it leaves texture artifacts on the edges of textures, which can be clearly seen on 2xSaI on a LCD panel.

 

a better method would be to scale with the graphics hardware and use hardware sharpening and filtering to improve texture quality, this will also bring about the ability for lesser cpu's to power high scaling settings.

a better method would be to scale with the graphics hardware and use hardware sharpening and filtering to improve texture quality

If it's done in two steps, i.e enlarge, then sharpen, then it's not a true interpolation. Aim of "true" interpolation is to minimize loss of detail,

and you can't recover efficiently lost details in a second step.

Interpolation CAUSES a loss of detail, which is the problem, it simply does not respect colour and alpha blending, so you end up with either small coloured artifacts, or in the case of the HQ filters, blocky textures.

 

besides, the benefit of hardware scaling is it is more accurate then software.

Interpolation CAUSES a loss of detail,

Hence the word MINIMIZE . A good interpolation should have a MINIMAL loss.

You'll obviously have more loss in two steps, than in a single one.

 

it simply does not respect colour and alpha blending,

perhaps each sprites should be scaled separately, in order to improve the blending ?

 

besides, the benefit of hardware scaling is it is more accurate then software.

I don't see why result would have a better quality with hardware than software. There should be only a difference of speed.

Interpolation CAUSES a loss of detail, which is the problem, it simply does not respect colour and alpha blending, so you end up with either small coloured artifacts, or in the case of the HQ filters, blocky textures.

 

besides, the benefit of hardware scaling is it is more accurate then software.

 

Why would it cause a loss? Interpolation is an educated guess of what data should go in the in-between pixels after scaling up an image. The idea is to add information. The original pixels should not be touched.

 

After much fiddling, I decided I don't like any of the 4x filters. I prefer a few of the 2x filters on 4x magnification, with D3D filtering taking it the rest of the way. I settled on Super Eagle, though I prefer HQ2xS. The problem is that HQ2xS uses up almost all my CPU. I hope to see some optimizations here.

 

Being a VBA-M n00b, I have a basic question. When I first fired up the emulator, I was treated to a simulation of the LCD-screen look. After messing with the filters, I could not figure out how to get that LCD filter back. Help? Thanks.

LCD filter is broken completely. I dunno what was originally on when you turned it on, but LCD filter did nothing.

setting Colours to Gameboy, rather then real....