Is it possible....

[chp]

My daughter lives at 1500 Kms from me and I have often to do phone maintenance. Lately she had to reconfigure completelly her PC (Including ePSXe). I realized how hard is, for dummies, to configure ePSXe (and almost every free emu. except VGS) and I'm thinking...

Is possible, one day, to have an OpenGL & D3D plugins already configured for best quality (or best perfs.).... I mean something simple to configure for the newbies.... Just to define the resolution, color deeph, and off screen drawing?

I know that Pete's plugins allready include the Fast / Nice switches but the remaining options still confuse everyone...
I agree that all these options are made "to match" every GPU/CPU and are joy for some ppl (me) on the forums.

Could it be the next deal in the plugin developpement?

What do you think guys?

[Kane]

>Is possible, one day, to have an OpenGL & D3D plugins already configured for best quality (or best perfs.).... I mean something simple to configure for the newbies.... Just to define the resolution, color deeph, and off screen drawing?

As has been said many many many many many many many times before. No. There's simply too much that changes game to game.

[chp]

Easy reply.....

I agree with you Kane that right now, it's a bit dificult, but....
to be generalist:
1) Many GPU brands have evolved to a common OGL core (OGL 1.3) and DX has evolved to DX9.... the next step will be OGL 2 and programable GPUs.....
2) Many Plugins include "specific" code to do workaroud for (let'say) bugs in the emus. So with the upcoming and even better emus, these "specific" settings will disapear... No?
3) Look at the soft plugins, they are "simple" compared to hardware plugins (except for the quality settings).
4) VGS use software rendering but was so simple to configure (no game discrimination).

And then, even if it's not yet for tomorow, I prefer to beleve in that new chalenge some coders are able to do for our best pleasure....

[Kane]

>Many Plugins include "specific" code to do workaroud for (let'say) bugs in the emus. So with the upcoming and even better emus, these "specific" settings will disapear... No?

No.

>Examples:
- Resolution/Color: - Personal settings.
- Texture colour depth: Some cards are faster in lower bitdepth.
- Filtering: Personal setting
- Hi-Res textures: Personal setting
- Palettized tex windows: ATi's don't like this, and their drivers incorrectly report support.
- Garbage collection: I suppose this could be removed as it seems to causeno probs
- Offscreen drawing, Framebuffer texture, Framebuffer access: Owing to incompatibilities between PSX GPUs and PC GPU's/APIs, these setting is required.
- Alpha multipass: Slows some cards. Thus required.
- Mask bit: Some games don't like it. Some games need it.
- Scanlines, Line mode, Unfiltered FB, Dithering, Screen smoothing, Screen cushion: All are personal preferences for improving visual quality.

Software rendering doesn't have to do as many fast workarounds for incompatibilities between PC and PSX hardware.

[chp]

Originally posted by Kane
>- Resolution/Color: - Personal settings.
As I said in my 1st Post

- Texture colour depth: Some cards are faster in lower bitdepth.
>As I said in my 1st Post

- Filtering: Personal setting.
>As I said in my 1st Post

- Hi-Res textures: Personal setting
>You are doing references to Pete's plugin but others plugins don't include that option

- Palettized tex windows: ATi's don't like this, and their drivers incorrectly report support.
>you're right right now but Read Pete's post on NGEmu.

- Garbage collection: I suppose this could be removed as it seems to causeno probs
>Right

- Offscreen drawing, Framebuffer texture, Framebuffer access: Owing to incompatibilities between PSX GPUs and PC GPU's/APIs, these setting is required.
>As I said in my 1st Post

- Alpha multipass: Slows some cards. Thus required.
>Right

- Mask bit: Some games don't like it. Some games need it.
> that one is always checked since the begining for me, with no slowdown on ATI, NVidia. BTW: I'm still looking for a game that need it.

- Scanlines, Line mode, Unfiltered FB, Dithering, Screen smoothing, Screen cushion: All are personal preferences for improving visual quality.
>Are they necessary for a newbie?

Software rendering doesn't have to do as many fast workarounds for incompatibilities between PC and PSX hardware.
>...........

Finally what remains?

We are talking of future emus and plugins.... Actually the HW plugins try to correct deficient drivers or GPU capabilities but more & more users own a GeForce (at least model 2MX) or an ATI (at least Radeon 7xxx). PC Power is growing everyday and most of us has at least a 850Mhz CPU...... allowing us to set most of the switches to "Best viewing"...

[Kane]

- Palettized tex windows: ATi's don't like this, and their drivers incorrectly report support.
>you're right right now but Read Pete's post on NGEmu.

In that particular case he was referring to the reverse subtractive blending. I also think that some other cards have issues with this settign anyway.

- Mask bit: Some games don't like it. Some games need it.
> that one is always checked since the begining for me, with no slowdown on ATI, NVidia. BTW: I'm still looking for a game that need it.

IIR Silent Hl needs it. I found that Final Fantasy 8 has problems with it. I'm sure there are more games, but I have a limited software library.

- Scanlines, Line mode, Unfiltered FB, Dithering, Screen smoothing, Screen cushion: All are personal preferences for improving visual quality.
>Are they necessary for a newbie?

Nope, but what do you suppose he do? Make a seperate window for them? Maybe, but you know what newbs are like for fiddling with settings they know nothing about and then complaining about the results.

- Offscreen drawing, Framebuffer texture, Framebuffer access: Owing to incompatibilities between PSX GPUs and PC GPU's/APIs, these setting is required.
>As I said in my 1st Post

What, that they are still required? You've just demonstrated that few if any options can be stripped out from the plugins.
Yes some could be placed elsewhere, but they aren't.

We are talking of future emus and plugins.... Actually the HW plugins try to correct deficient drivers or GPU capabilities but more & more users own a GeForce (at least model 2MX) or an ATI (at least Radeon 7xxx). PC Power is growing everyday and most of us has at least a 850Mhz CPU...... allowing us to set most of the switches to "Best viewing"...

And our survey said *buzzes*. What about all those with Intel and SiS on board chipsets who know no better. Not to mention the amount of people who thinkthat they can happily run ePSXe on the P90 they've just been handed down from their parents. Nothing is as clear cut as anyone would like.

[chp]

Oh yeah..... I still have my good old 486 with Trident VGA.... LOL

Seriusly.... me and you are enjoying to play with switches in Pete's Lewpy's or Nick's plugins. And we can still use the actual ones (I'll do).

But the reality is also lot of people who doesn't understand the need of so many options and requires simplicity.... In plugins.

The only thing they understand is to play Crash Bandicot on PC because the PS1 is broken and is no more sold in theyr country.... and because her mom is not enough "Technician" to see the diffs between VGA, SIS, ATI, NVIDIA, Matrox, VIA, Intel, AMD, Scoobidoo.....

You're (I'm) lucky for that purpose.

[Kane]

I've had a couple of ideas on this which I may discuss with Pete, but for the most part not much can really be done.

[chp]

You're great....

[jegHegy]

well, with some hardware and game auto-detection, it would be possible to set some settings that might make the game work reasonably good, IMHO, but i'm no GPU or emu programmer, so i don't know. i'm sure Pete and the others have been thinking about this a lot.

nyaa

[Gismo]

Originally posted by chp
Oh yeah..... I still have my good old 486 with Trident VGA.... LOL

Seriusly.... me and you are enjoying to play with switches in Pete's Lewpy's or Nick's plugins. And we can still use the actual ones (I'll do).

But the reality is also lot of people who doesn't understand the need of so many options and requires simplicity.... In plugins.

The only thing they understand is to play Crash Bandicot on PC because the PS1 is broken and is no more sold in theyr country.... and because her mom is not enough "Technician" to see the diffs between VGA, SIS, ATI, NVIDIA, Matrox, VIA, Intel, AMD, Scoobidoo.....

You're (I'm) lucky for that purpose.

why not P.E.Op.S. soft gpu and "Fast" button? It should be a good solution, right? The same as on a PSX, lol

Thx, bye