Pete's PSX GPUs 1.64

[3x3cUt0r]

this is just great...Pete has released a new version of his plugins:

changes in this version:

- While the last releases were mainly bug fixes and compatibility
stuff, 1.64 has only one purpose: to improve the graphics
(yeah, we all love that )

- Ok, the first change takes care about some unwanted texture
shaking that was happening in my hw/accel plugins. That
doesn't mean that now all psx texture wobbling is magically gone,
only some issues caused by the internal texture alignment has
been improved. Thanx to Shadow Lady for the 'shaking Lara'
save state

- And now for the real graphical boost (note: if you don't want to
read (maybe boring) background informations, you can skip this
part):
I was long time no friend to special texture filtering ideas. I always
did see big problems arise when the original psx texture data gets
changed by filters, and it's already hard enuff to render the original
unfiltered psx textures on hw/accel APIs without glitches.
Anyway, last week there was a small ngemu forum discussion
about filtering again, and to proove E}I{ wrong (who was telling
that 2xSaI filtering on textures should work well), I downloaded the
latest OpenGL plugin from NickK, to make some screenshots with
that texture filtering method.
NickK always is a pioneer when it comes to interesting new ideas
(like his full screen smoothing or... tada... 2xSaI texture caching),
but this time I wanted to use his plugin to show the various problems
which will occur with pre-filtered textures (shame on me )
Anyway, I've tried all kind of games with his plugin and 2xSaI textures,
and yeah, I did see glitches caused by the filtering, but strange enuff
not the problems I have expected to see (only some texture alignment
gaps and garbage, and big slowdowns, but not the expected texture
distortions... good work, NickK, btw .
So of course I had to do two things:
a) to apologize to E}I{ for prooving _me_ wrong (tststs, ehehe), and
b) to drop a mail to Derek Liauw, the creator and copyright holder
of the 2xSaI algorithm, asking him for permission to use his func
in my (not GPLd yet) hw/accel plugins.
And yeah, Derek happily allowed me to use the 2xSaI func (since
he is enjoying epsxe and my plugins, too ), and I have to admit it
wasn't difficult to add to my source... I had to change it somewhat
to handle my texture color depths and alpha values, and to avoid
problems at the texture area borders, but that was all...

- So, a new option in the gpu config is available, called "Hi-Res textures
(2xSaI)".
You can activate it with all available texture color modes, and
of course you can even combine it with filtering, smoothing,
whatever.
The option will improve the textures in many games, making small
fonts more readable, and most textures will look sharper. It even will
help the standard bilinear filtering, less 'blocky' look that way and not
much black borders. On the other hand some rendering techniques
(like multi-layered 2D backgrounds) will cause glitches (thin lines
appear, for example, or small gaps between textures), and that is
nothing I can fix!
So mailing me issues with FF7/8/9 or games using a similar rendering
style is useless and will get ignored (well, maybe I will flame a few
mailers, depends on my mood )... and if you don't believe me, feel
free to code your own psx gpu plugin and add 2xSaI textures... good
luck

And also be aware of the following:
a) your gfx card has to be able to handle 512x512 textures. Otherwise
you will get no textures at all. So, for example, no Hi-Res textures on
V2/V3 cards and prolly some other older brands as well.
b) Hi-Res 2xSaI textures need 4 times as much vram as the 'normal'
textures. That means for example that your 32 MB gfx card can handle
the same amount of 'hires' textures as an 8 (!!!) MB gfx card with
'normal' textures. And that's not very much, and prolly will cause
slowdowns... users with 64 and 128 MB cards will not encounter much
speed problems, though... runs great on my 64 MB GF3 with most
games

Finally some tips for using my Hi-Res texture option, if you are having
speed problems:
- use a lower display resolution, for example 640x480 in 16 bit color depth
- use a lower texture quality mode, for example 4-4-4-4 or 5-5-5-1 textures
- turn off the 'mask bit' emulation option, that saves some vram as well
- don't use the 'screen smoothing' option, and absolutely turn off FSAA
in your display properties.
- I have seen strange autodetected vram size values in the DX6 plugin
with my nVidia GF3 card (I am absolutely sure that I don't have over
80 MB vram, ehe). The exactly same func reports the correct size in the
DX7 plugin, though. So maybe a generic advise is to set the 'vram size'
value manually to the correct value in all plugins, just to be sure.
On the other hand, maybe it will help if you set the 'vram size' option
manually to an higher value (for example to '64 MB' even if your card
only has 32 MB). Will depend on the game, your hardware and the phase
of the moon, though

Have fun!

- btw, I've decided to keep the D3D-DX6 plugin alive. The 1.63 DX7
changes did help a lotta cards (thanx to all users reporting their results),
so the DX6 plugin isn't that necessary anymore, but I've nearly forgotten
the poor WinNT 4 users, who can't use anything above DX6... thanx to
DarkWatcher for reminding me

- Ah, and a final note: I've added an extra FAQ file with this release, covering
many standard questions. Check it out if you are having problems.

wow pete... this is a big release... pete you are da man

[liquid]

oooh sweeeet! can't wait to go home and try it out

[OmniDistortion]

hmm where did pete post this exactly?
I want to know exactly why the background prob can't be fixed.... I am not a programmer but I will help the field someday (gimme a year or two) if it really is impossible I want pete to give a really long explanation that might take me few days to figure out but at least I will understand... (I got my random programmer buds floating around willing to help me)

[dn]

I need to learn C++.... like without reading and stuff...I need a tutor I bet....

lmao. thanks for the post 3x3cUt0r, but some guy on IRC told me about it before i got here. i am quite busy atm, but if i get a chance, i will add ur name to the post

[Raziel]

Originally posted by dixon
i am quite busy atm, but if i get a chance, i will add ur name to the post

Yeah,won't be before,say,2/3 days .

[Prafull]

Originally posted by dixon
i am quite busy atm, but if i get a chance, i will add ur name to the post

That can be done by any other administrator I think.

*edit* just checked out that it cant be done. News gets edited in News comments section only but not on main page.

[OmniDistortion]

2XSai... I need a better explanation of what this is exactly... but basically it's a high resolution texel render thingie? my TNT2 use to be able to do it fine in zSNESwin though and I know it doesnt have the same texel high resolution abilities that my Geforce2MX 400 or my Geforce 3 Ti 200 have... I think I need some info about it. I Also wish to know if only that one dude can allow you to use it, right? is he the creator? I am so confuzzled (pete/someone please give me a link or something to help me with my endevoir)

Texal Allignment is a smudge off however, yet it is strangly better in allignment than without in other scenes.... weird

Please regard that last note....I noticed pete fixed the sky in Megaman Legends in all modes Thanx Pete!

here are a few pix of the downsides and problems I had with 2X Sai..
(all of them are Megaman Legends because that is the first game I experianced and tested them on)

Also here are my stats for reference...

Plugin: Pete's OpenGL Driver 1.1.64
Author: Pete Bernert
Card vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
GFX card: GeForce3/AGP/SSE2

Resolution/Color:
- 1024x768 Fullscreen - Desktop changing [16 Bit]
- Keep psx aspect ratio: off

Textures:
- Default
- Filtering: 6
- Hi-Res textures: on
- Palettized tex windows: on
- Garbage collection: on
- VRam size: 0 MBytes

Framerate:
- FPS limitation: on
- Frame skipping: on
- FPS limit: Auto

Compatibility:
- Offscreen drawing: 3
- Framebuffer texture: 2
- Framebuffer access: 0
- Alpha multipass: on
- Mask bit: on
- Advanced blending: on

Misc:
- Scanlines: off
- Line mode: off
- Unfiltered FB: off
- Dithering: on
- Screen smoothing: on
- Game fixes: off [00000000]

hmm I didnt check for any other extra settings I will do that after this report...

It is okay to post a few pictures in here right? Only to show results... and only 2-3
I'll wait for admin permission...

[OmniDistortion]

I guess I will post somewhere else but.... I wish to say the same stuff I said here

[3x3cUt0r]

Originally posted by OmniDistortion
2XSai... I need a better explanation of what this is exactly... but basically it's a high resolution texel render thingie? my TNT2 use to be able to do it fine in zSNESwin though and I know it doesnt have the same texel high resolution abilities that my Geforce2MX 400 or my Geforce 3 Ti 200 have... I think I need some info about it. I Also wish to know if only that one dude can allow you to use it, right? is he the creator? I am so confuzzled (pete/someone please give me a link or something to help me with my endevoir)

afaik the last web site of Derek Liauw was http://members.xoom.com/derek_liauw/index.html
but the web is down.... but Derek have a email derek-liauw@usa.net

[Kane]

Filtering a 2D picture all rendered in software will be much easier than extracting a texture, resamping it using 2xSai, then rendering it.

BTW, Pete: I was wondering if it were possible for you to make 2 options: 1 for 2xSai sprites, and 1 for 2xSai Textures...
Not asking if you will implement it, just wondering if it were poss.