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#535 GUI: graphics mode selection
There are a number of issues with the Graphics mode selection:
- To start with you are mixing scalers (1x, 2x, 3x) and algorithms to do the scaling (e.g SAI, AdvMAME, HQ) in a single selector. This is sometimes a bit confusing. For exemple when I look at the list of available modes, the first question that pops-up is what is the scaling for DotMatrix (or SuperEagle)?
- I am not convinced the Graphics modes are well sorted. Currently the graphics modes are sorted by algorithms, but I think the users will first want to select a scaler (i.e. the size of the window, while they might not see much difference with the selected algorithm).
I have two suggestions to improve this:
1) Use two selectors: you first select the scaler, and on the right you have another combo box to select the algorithm (listing only the ones relevant for the currently selected scaler).
2) Sort the graphic modes by scaler and then by increasing quality of algorithm (which is subjective but I suspect HQ2x is "better" than 2x for example). I would also rename the items so that the naming convention is coherent: scaling (e.g. 2x) should be present for all items, and should be either at the start or at the end for all items (and not sometimes as prefix - e.g. 2xSAI - sometimes as suffix - e.g. AdvMAME2x - and sometimes in the middle - e.g. Super2xSAI).
The list would look like:
Normal (no scaling)
2x
2x SAI
2x AdvMAME
..
3x
3x AdvMAME
...
Note: We list the *names* of the algorithm: AdvMAME2x, 2xSAI, HQ2x -- those are *names*. I am not so happy with the idea of just ignoring that; some people know and refer to those scalers by name.
Of course, they are not always unambigious; AdvMAME2x is also known as Scale2x and epx
Also, I don't think one sort the scalers by quality, because what "quality" means varies with every user, and in fact also varies for a single user based on the game. E.g. hq2x does a good job on newer games such as Full Throttle; but botches 16 color games using dithering. So, ordering by some random criterion is fine; but we shouldn't even try to pretend such an impossible thing as "ordering by quality", the only thing we could achieve by that is to start a flame war about it ;).
I understand the quality is very subjective and the sorting for a given scaling is not that important. But I would still sort the graphic modes by increasing scaling.
Also it is indeed maybe a good idea to keep the names of the algorithms if this is what the users are used to. But for those that do not contain the scaling I would add it at the end (e.g. "SuperEagle (x2)").