Raziel
February 16th, 2002, 15:50
Pete released version 1.58 of his plugins(Windows and Linux ones).
Here's what's new:
16. February, 2002 Version 1.58
- Damn, since the release of 1.57 I couldn't stop gpu coding...
so it took only two weeks for a new release this time.
Well, enjoy :)
- To help gfx cards with slow texture uploading speed and/or
a very limited vram size, I've coded additional functions which
will optimize the texture usage even more. Of course that will
mean a little bit more work for the cpu, but hey, somebody has
to do the job...
Ok, so, if you have encountered irritating slowdowns in your
game (caused by the gpu, NOT by cdrom accessing ;), you
should give the new "Smart texture garbage collection" option
a try... even my GF3 does like it in some games (well... it
doesn't matter much for me if a game runs with 100 or with
300 fps, but if it does help my system, it should help slower ones
even more).
Oh, and one more hint about the texture caching: some users
reported a big speed up by selecting "64" Mbytes vram on their 8
MB cards...
- Hurray, hurray... one "special game fix" has been removed:
The "no sprite transparency" one for the Oddworld games.
Those formerly "special fixed" glitches are now confirmed main emu
bugs, so the option will be useless with the next epsxe release
anyway.
And since that fix did cost a lotta additional testing in the
soft funcs, I've decided to remove it as soon as possible... and
that's now :)
- Hurray, hurrraaarrrggg: Oddworld fix is gone, and a new fix
has taken its place instead (in the OGL plugin).
nVidia is well-known for their good and fast OGL ICDs, but there
is a stupid bug (at least) in the W9X 23.51 drivers: if you are using
FSAA with OGL, the driver will reset the alpha testing state each
frame, causing black areas and other glitches in my OGL plugin.
Well, the 21.xx WinXP driver is doing FSAA fine, as far as I could
see, but if you want to use FSAA in W9x you should enable the
new special game fix... or pray to nVidia to release drivers without
that bug.
- Improved psx vram moves, that will fix glitches with a few special
effects in FF9 and BOF4 (seen in certain magic effects during
battles). Mmm... and most times "full vram prims" and/or a certain
framebuffer setting is needed to get such effects right.
- Wrapped sprites will work perfectly again (they were broken
in 1.57), so the glitches in (for example) Tales of Destiny 2 are gone
(thanx to expert464 for the save state).
- Oh my... some optimization I've done in version 1.20 (or so) of the
OGL plugin caused missing tires in "Driver", screwed hair in
"Blaze&Blade" and prolly it was responsible for some more screwed
textured polys. That issue is fixed as well.
- Improved the Offscreen-Drawing detections. Much cleaner now,
and as far as I remember the FF8 "distant hill flickering" will be
fixed by that... mmm... and the FF7 swirls should be visible
with hw/accel. FB textures, using the highest OD settings.
- And finally: screen smoothing. This new option will blur the
whole screen, so especially 2D games will look less pixelated.
It will need a good gfx card, though (something in the Geforce
class should do the job), and the higher the used resolution, the
bigger the slowdown with screen smoothing.
Activated smoothing will cost around 1.5 - 3 MByte vram (no big issue
with my 64 MB GF3, ehehe), and your gfx card must be able to use
textures bigger than 256x256 pixels (well, that means for example
no smoothing with 3dfx V2/V3 cards).
Anyway, if the option does work fast enuff on your system, and you
like the smoothed look, use it... if I did everything right, there will be
no emulation compatibility issues at all.
Oh, a small hint: of course you can combine the old texture filtering
with the new screen smoothing, the results are really nice most
times.
Oh, and another remark: yes, motion blur would be also possible.
But, no, I will not include it in my gpu plugins. I will leave that
effect to NickK's NextGL/Next3D plugins, his gpus are getting
better and better with every release, so go and check them out :)
Download them here. (http://home.t-online.de/home/PeteBernert/)
Here's what's new:
16. February, 2002 Version 1.58
- Damn, since the release of 1.57 I couldn't stop gpu coding...
so it took only two weeks for a new release this time.
Well, enjoy :)
- To help gfx cards with slow texture uploading speed and/or
a very limited vram size, I've coded additional functions which
will optimize the texture usage even more. Of course that will
mean a little bit more work for the cpu, but hey, somebody has
to do the job...
Ok, so, if you have encountered irritating slowdowns in your
game (caused by the gpu, NOT by cdrom accessing ;), you
should give the new "Smart texture garbage collection" option
a try... even my GF3 does like it in some games (well... it
doesn't matter much for me if a game runs with 100 or with
300 fps, but if it does help my system, it should help slower ones
even more).
Oh, and one more hint about the texture caching: some users
reported a big speed up by selecting "64" Mbytes vram on their 8
MB cards...
- Hurray, hurray... one "special game fix" has been removed:
The "no sprite transparency" one for the Oddworld games.
Those formerly "special fixed" glitches are now confirmed main emu
bugs, so the option will be useless with the next epsxe release
anyway.
And since that fix did cost a lotta additional testing in the
soft funcs, I've decided to remove it as soon as possible... and
that's now :)
- Hurray, hurrraaarrrggg: Oddworld fix is gone, and a new fix
has taken its place instead (in the OGL plugin).
nVidia is well-known for their good and fast OGL ICDs, but there
is a stupid bug (at least) in the W9X 23.51 drivers: if you are using
FSAA with OGL, the driver will reset the alpha testing state each
frame, causing black areas and other glitches in my OGL plugin.
Well, the 21.xx WinXP driver is doing FSAA fine, as far as I could
see, but if you want to use FSAA in W9x you should enable the
new special game fix... or pray to nVidia to release drivers without
that bug.
- Improved psx vram moves, that will fix glitches with a few special
effects in FF9 and BOF4 (seen in certain magic effects during
battles). Mmm... and most times "full vram prims" and/or a certain
framebuffer setting is needed to get such effects right.
- Wrapped sprites will work perfectly again (they were broken
in 1.57), so the glitches in (for example) Tales of Destiny 2 are gone
(thanx to expert464 for the save state).
- Oh my... some optimization I've done in version 1.20 (or so) of the
OGL plugin caused missing tires in "Driver", screwed hair in
"Blaze&Blade" and prolly it was responsible for some more screwed
textured polys. That issue is fixed as well.
- Improved the Offscreen-Drawing detections. Much cleaner now,
and as far as I remember the FF8 "distant hill flickering" will be
fixed by that... mmm... and the FF7 swirls should be visible
with hw/accel. FB textures, using the highest OD settings.
- And finally: screen smoothing. This new option will blur the
whole screen, so especially 2D games will look less pixelated.
It will need a good gfx card, though (something in the Geforce
class should do the job), and the higher the used resolution, the
bigger the slowdown with screen smoothing.
Activated smoothing will cost around 1.5 - 3 MByte vram (no big issue
with my 64 MB GF3, ehehe), and your gfx card must be able to use
textures bigger than 256x256 pixels (well, that means for example
no smoothing with 3dfx V2/V3 cards).
Anyway, if the option does work fast enuff on your system, and you
like the smoothed look, use it... if I did everything right, there will be
no emulation compatibility issues at all.
Oh, a small hint: of course you can combine the old texture filtering
with the new screen smoothing, the results are really nice most
times.
Oh, and another remark: yes, motion blur would be also possible.
But, no, I will not include it in my gpu plugins. I will leave that
effect to NickK's NextGL/Next3D plugins, his gpus are getting
better and better with every release, so go and check them out :)
Download them here. (http://home.t-online.de/home/PeteBernert/)