Pocket Heaven

[JLsoft]

Would having a scaling flicker option that changes the skipped line offset (like when you press L + Select) as fast as possible take away any noticable CPU time?

(...or instead, might just toggling the starting line of the screen display between the normal setting and 'normal setting+1' every frame (or as fast as possible) be doable without any large performance hit?)


-
The reason I ask this is that I have the 2nd version of the GBA SP, with the actual backlit screen, and while the screen is incredibly bright and clear, it has a lower refresh than the other screens, and pixels that flicker in a scaled mode seem to get 'overpowered' by dark colors.

When pixels flicker between bright and dark (white text on a black background, or single-pixel stars on a black space background for example), instead of looking like a blend between the 2 colors, the pixels end up -really- dark and almost invisible at times. Sometimes, when the 'bright' color isn't very bright to begin with, it can make them pretty much not show up at all. This is especially a problem with games that use lots of single-pixel-thick lines (the text used in most ColecoVision and MSX games for example)
-


I thought about this after trying "(The) Guardian Legend" in PocketNES.
During the opening stage of the game, the game does something that causes the emulator to shift the bottom status area up and down rapidly...and while the actual flickering was visible on my screen, it made the text/etc in that area -way- more readable and clear, and I could easily make out each individual pixel (as opposed to the too-dark effect I described above)



Anyway, if this option is something simple and possible to add, I'd be glad to try out and report on any sort of emulator test build you'd want to bother adding this added flicker option to :)

[FluBBa]

I have thought about it before and I think I even tried it in one of the emulators but it looked too distracting for my taste.
Hmmm, I may try it again if I get some time over, sholdn't be hard to do.
_________________
0x5AB07A6E

[JLsoft]

I can see how it'd be distracting on the other screens, where you can actually see the lines flicker to a varying degree normally.

The backlit GBA SP's screen seems to be a special case though, and the extra screen/line shaking would probably be bearable most of the time

Thanks