06794: rayforce: Screen flickering

ID	Category [?]	Severity [?]	Reproducibility	Date Submitted	Last Update
06794	Graphics	Major	Always	Dec 15, 2017, 22:18	Dec 17, 2017, 20:56

Tester	wuemura	View Status	Public	Platform	MAME (Official Binary)
Assigned To		Resolution	Unable to reproduce	OS	Windows 10 (64-bit)
Status [?]	Closed			Driver	taito/taito_f3.cpp
Version	0.192	Fixed in Version		Build	64-bit
		Fixed in Git Commit		Github Pull Request #

Summary	06794: rayforce: Screen flickering
Description	Some graphics are flickering, texts, grids, etc.
Steps To Reproduce	Run the game and see the demo
Additional Information
Github Commit

Flags
Regression Version
Affected Sets / Systems	rayforce

Attached Files	animation.gif (38,520 bytes) Dec 17, 2017, 15:08 Uploaded by Fujix

No.14533 Tafoid Administrator Dec 15, 2017, 22:46	I'm pretty sure this is expected behavior. I see similar periodically flashing parts of the scores, displays, etc in a PCB recording
No.14534 wuemura Viewer Dec 16, 2017, 00:20	The flashing parts looks like is a part of the game, it flashes at a specific rhythmic order like a heartbeat that you can count, watch the video again. The MAME emulation has none of that, the flash are out of rhythm, looks like it's more, aleatory.
No.14535 wuemura Viewer Dec 16, 2017, 00:33 edited on: Dec 16, 2017, 00:35	As we can see at this demo from another PCB in 1080p. The are no flickering at the wait screen, MAME screen is flickering all over the place, again, without control. At this another arcade PCB from Japan showing this pulses, notice that they are in a specific rhythm. The present emulation show no control of that, the flickering are all over the place. To me, the flickering at the second video looks like it is related with scanlines, if you pay close attention the lines goes from blur to sharp(deinterlaced <> interlaced). Maybe indicating how the video part of the hardware or the game works. I'll leave for the dev's to look it up.
No.14536 wuemura Viewer Dec 16, 2017, 02:01	At 36s, pay attention to the scan and the green grid at the bottom, at each scan pass that grid go on and off.
No.14541 Fujix Administrator Dec 17, 2017, 15:00	> it flashes at a specific rhythmic order like a heartbeat The game refresh rate is 58.97Hz. It doesn't make a lot of sense to reference those YouTube recordings. Those graphics are blinking alternatively per every frame, you can easily check it by proceeding by single frame, no intentional insertion of "blinking" that you pointed out.
No.14544 wuemura Viewer Dec 17, 2017, 17:46 edited on: Dec 17, 2017, 17:53	The thing is obvious as it is, the emulation is flickering all over the place as your gif show, as we see on real hardware, the image is not doing any of that on 3 different videos from real hardware. What looks obvious to me, is that the emulation screen is below some kind of a overlay or layer that is trying to emulate or the refresh rate or the scanlines, and as your gif show, is way too fast in comparison with the original hardware. The emulation do a Post-render scanline? If it does, it's obvious that the timing is off, maybe something is wrong with frame timing, NTSC timing, vertical/horizontal sync pulse, V/H Blanking? 58.97Hz / 60 = 0,98 This is about the same timing of that refresh on those 3 videos, your gif is another proof that something is off.
No.14545 Haze Senior Tester Dec 17, 2017, 17:49	this is just a mismatch between your monitor refresh rate and that of MAME. as YouTube video again are going to approximate this in a different way things won't look quite the same there either. if you run at the actual refresh rate using a gsync monitor or similar it will look correct. not a bug.
No.14548 wuemura Viewer Dec 17, 2017, 17:59	If it is a mismatch why it doesn't happen with every other machine, just this one? Doing the math 58.97Hz / 60 = 0,98, the emulation cycles are off. Back in the day there wasn't a gsync CRT, if we need a gsync to look right, the emulation would look wrong back in a standard CRT.
No.14549 Haze Senior Tester Dec 17, 2017, 20:03 edited on: Dec 17, 2017, 21:52	the emulation looks fine if you actually set the CRT to 58.97hz CRTs natively support a lot more refresh modes than a modern display anyway, that's why we have gsync monitors, to bring us back that level of flexibility / compatibility with the more obscure refresh rates we lost in the transition. I just verified this with a CRT for the hell of it and it looks perfect.
No.14550 B2K24 Senior Tester Dec 17, 2017, 20:56	Unable to reproduce running this on my G-Sync display. Closing...