cools wrote:Elaphe wrote:cools wrote:You want perfect, use a CRT.
I have a computer with a 15khz graphic card and a TV (Scart) just for MAME, but I also like testing this kind of simulations. We have to be prepared: sadly, CRTs will not live forever.
Same as me. But you have to realise that current consumer displays are not capable of simulating a CRT accurately, it's still just a best effort attempt.
However, it's exciting to see how many improvements have been made in recent years. The new screens with led technology are brighter and have better contrast and the software is getting more and more configurable. Remember the old days, when we just had scanlines, 50% and 75% and the image was either blocky or blurred.
Answering the question, SweetFX is a post-processing tool, like the hlsl that MAME now includes, or the old enbseries. As far as I know it uses the graphic card capabilities to adjust, tweak, add things, etc to the image you seen in direct3D games. You can play a game with scanlines, with screen perspective, in black and white, with film grain, sepia color, with inverted colors, darkening the edges of the screen, with cartoon look, with a blury image, with hdr effects, etc.