Alone in the dark 4 on various GPU plugins (problem and solution)

[spajdr]

I nearly write here that ingame scenes (where two main character speak to each other thru communicator) are not shown correctly but i changed in pete plugin frame buffer texture to 2 and its fine now ! (it gets little dark though and graphics get somewhat blurred,not sure why) no other GPU plugins show it correctly,not even in software plugins.Thats my report

[E}I{]

Well, If you care about making it work in my plugin(are you tried to on/off FB sync and reguce lag options?), you can send a savestate

[spajdr]

wow .. problem is completely fixed now !
look at this,ive had this problem (you see picture is blurry)

[spajdr]

here you can see this problem too

[spajdr]

and here is it ... without problem ! and how i fix it ? i used special game fixes .. fix for FF7 !

[spajdr]

E}I{ : tried everything .. nothing helps ... still want savestate ? i have here one,before this ingame scene appear,not sure if it will help you.

[Shadow Lady]

have u tried setting fb to gfxcard+software? it works the best for me

[spajdr]

Shadow Lady : sure,but still i needed to use FF7 fix now i have problem to finish this game

[E}I{]

If so, please check it with my last release. It will not fix this problem, but contents of log will give me a plenty of information in this case.

[spajdr]

ok E}I{
Here is the savestate (just in time when there is ingame scene) + TW log

http://mujweb.cz/www/psx02/sles_0.28.01.part1.rar (Winrar 3.0)
http://mujweb.cz/www/psx02/sles_0.28.01.part2.rar
http://mujweb.cz/www/psx02/gpuEZHsoft.log

[E}I{]

Hmm, how FF7 texture window fix could help if there is no texture windows used?
You checked that if savestate is loaded in pete plugin, everything work?
Hey ,and are you sure that on your page "All versions are newest"? ?)

[E}I{]

Well, have something to report. I not quite sure how much long this savestate must work, but on my temporary build it looks OK for several seconds. And it is really not worked with last release. Game uses method of rendering similar to FF7 blurred swirls here, and I already fixed them yesterday(oh,still partially fixed).

[spajdr]

im lazy to update my page,but i tried AOTD 4 on 0.981 and its still looks bad,on pete plugins its fine

[E}I{]

When i said "not working with last release" I actually meant 0.981 BTW blur in Pete's plugin disappears because of alpha multipass? Am i right? See, I not quite sure if looks ok on my gfx card(I use Kyro2 now). And how much after loading savestate it actually will work on your machine without CD?

[Pete Bernert]

actually my hw/accel. plugins FF7 fix does three things:

1. it corrects the text box TW borders (well, that will not be needed in future versions )
2. it corrects that stupid battle hand cursor, which is hard to do in hw/accel plugins
3. it changes the detection of framebuffer access somewhat, so the battle swirls appear...

if that fix helps AITD4 as well, then it will be because of the 3. correction... but as far as I remember AITD4 doesn't really need the FF7 fix, just the right "Framebuffer texture"/"Framebuffer access" settings... and "Alpha multipass" shouldn't affect such blur effects at all.

[Pete Bernert]

On a side-note: prolly my hw/accel FF7 fix just disables the blurring in AITD4, that's why spajdr is thinking that the picture is fine (but of course the blurred pictures are the 'right' ones).

Anyway: I think it would be better to compare the blur effect in the peops soft gpu, there it should be 100% OK without any special settings.

[spajdr]

but as far as I remember AITD4 doesn't really need the FF7 fix, just the right "Framebuffer texture"/"Framebuffer access" settings... and "Alpha multipass" shouldn't affect such blur effects at all.

Well i tried to change framebuffer texture/access and it didnt worked right,it has been blurry as on pictures i post here (or too dark or didnt show anything at all,just like other gpu plugins)

Anyway: I think it would be better to compare the blur effect in the peops soft gpu, there it should be 100% OK without any special settings.

No,peops didnt show ingame scenes.

[E}I{]

Well, alpha multipass makes "transparency bit" work , and if image really had to be not completely blurry, it could fix it.
Yeah, and blurry images are right ones. This method of doing something blurry used in many games. FF series, Ghost in the Shell, Tales of Destiny 2, etc. Only problem I discovered is that transparency bit is getting eaten by my plugin sometimes. Because of that several effects are incorrect. But when i just disable transparency bit usage(same result as alpha multipass "off" in your hw plugins) everything looks right.
Peops, you say . It is not working. Your 3rd fix not exists there, so picture gets not updated. Some work for you
BTW, Pete, I have a question for you: If mask bit is set to off, any pixels, actually drawn by gpu, will be MSB=0? and if set=on, MSB=1? Thats exactly how mask setting works or i actually need to know something else?

[spajdr]

Alpha Multipass didnt have effect in ingame scenes.

[Pete Bernert]

Originally posted by E}I{
It is not working. Your 3rd fix not exists there, so picture gets not updated. Some work for you

Ehehe, yes, but the work is already done in my peops 1.8 build
Of course it's not related to some framebuffer access detection (the peops soft plugin doesn't need such a detection at all), but it's related to your second question:

BTW, Pete, I have a question for you: If mask bit is set to off, any pixels, actually drawn by gpu, will be MSB=0? and if set=on, MSB=1? Thats exactly how mask setting works or i actually need to know something else?

My basic rule for setting the MSB (as worked out in many Silent Hill debugging sessions):

On non-textured polys and sprites:
set MSB, if mask bit is on

On textured polygons:
set MSB, if mask bit is on OR if the semi-transparency mode is enabled

Well, funny enuff the missing AITD4 scene is also caused by mask bit handling: if I set the MSB with sprites (even if there is _no_ mask bit set, so not exactly following the above rules), everything works fine in the peops soft plugin with AITD4... some more investigations are needed, I think