Do you suppose it has to do with using the HDMI cable vs. say a DVI 2 HDMI cable ?

KB305158
DirectDraw are known to be problematic with full-screen on multi monitor.
Probably because the emus were writen for win9x and without any intention to work on multi-monitors to begin with.

BigBodZod wrote:

Do you suppose it has to do with using the HDMI cable vs. say a DVI 2 HDMI cable ?

wasn't able to rule that out, but I don't see how the output interface should have such an effect (only screws with DirectDraw, only in fullscreen, and only above a certain resolution)... that's what's got me beat.

Joey_sw wrote:

KB305158
DirectDraw are known to be problematic with full-screen on multi monitor.
Probably because the emus were writen for win9x and without any intention to work on multi-monitors to begin with.

thanks, but that seems to be about a completely different/much older problem - in this case, as I wrote, it cannot go fullscreen at all over a certain resolution, and primary/secondary doesn't matter (it happens even when only the TV is enabled, without any secondary display). Anyway, those emulators certainly aren't that old.

Dunno how related this is, but on my brother-in-law's TV, which he exclusively uses for his computer (no other monitor), when I tried to run the public alpha of the game I'm working on with his system, the TV went into 1920x1080 @ 24hz mode for some ridiculous reason. The framerate was obviously terrible. x_x;

VileRancour wrote:

* Jnes 0.6: says "DirectDraw: Unable to set full screen mode"; reverts to windowed mode

JNes 1.1 has been out for a while...maybe try that one.

VileRancour wrote:

The obvious first test would be to plug in the TV directly, without going through the receiver, just to eliminate that variable. But in this case, that would mean moving a mountain of furniture and untangling a forest of cables (and him being visually impaired doesn't help with that). So I thought I'd ask here first, maybe there's something else we're missing.

You'll eventually have to do that, probably...maybe cable length is also a factor in this (granted DVI or HDMI are more lenient than VGA cables...but length and quality are still a factor).

I keep thinking of that weird problem I had with some PopCap games, whereby the program was affected by the desktop resolution when the game was launched. Can you set the emulators to run at a different resolution than the desktop resolution?

VileRancour wrote:

and him being visually impaired doesn't help with that

...I immediately have to wonder how he can tell the difference of 1080p vs something lower.

bloodbat wrote:

JNes 1.1 has been out for a while...maybe try that one.

Thanks for the heads up - yep, 1.1 works fine. The changelog lists lots of other graphics fixes, so I guess Jnes has finally dumped the deprecated DirectDraw stuff.

Jorpho wrote:

Can you set the emulators to run at a different resolution than the desktop resolution?

Didn't get the chance to fiddle much, but it didn't look like it... better do some testing later with newer versions (or alternative emulators).

Jorpho wrote:

...I immediately have to wonder how he can tell the difference of 1080p vs something lower.

He says he can live with it, but the lower-res smearing is made worse by the TV's so-called "sharpening" filter which cannot be disabled, and that makes it less easy for him to look at. (It's a condition of the optic nerve - affects the ability to resolve detail, among other things... he cannot visually digest games with very busy or "messy" graphics either, or most 3D games.)

Does the HDMI receiver show up in Device Manager as the connected device? Maybe you can force it to use a generic driver instead? Or perhaps there are updated drivers for the receiver itself?

Gemini000 wrote:

Dunno how related this is, but on my brother-in-law's TV, which he exclusively uses for his computer (no other monitor), when I tried to run the public alpha of the game I'm working on with his system, the TV went into 1920x1080 @ 24hz mode for some ridiculous reason. The framerate was obviously terrible. x_x;

Most frequently 1920x1080 @ 24hz is associated with 3d output via HDMI 1.4 (or fancy blue-ray players that want to avoid 3:2 pull-down for 24hz content). I believe the issue would be that it's really sent as a 3840x1080 image to capture each of the 3d views, and apparently the HDMI 1.4 spec doesn't have the bandwidth needed for that. To be corrected in the 1.5 spec I believe.