A question and thought for pete...

TastEPlasma · December 7th, 2001

Greetings,

Just wanted to ask a quick question. I was wondering if it would be possible, in some future version of your soft plug-in, to include the 'easter-egg' blurring effect available in your hardware plug-ins. My (highly limited) understanding is that with this enabled, first the software draws all polys (ie FVP), passes it to the 3D card buffer, then back to the RAM for a blur/anti-aliase pass, then back to the 3D card for display. Obviously, this takes up quite a few cycles, but I aint *****in, it works very nice. :-) It just seems to me that it ought to be possible (and faster?) to alias the image before it ever hits the GFX cards buffer. Just a thought.

Anyways, can you maybe think about including some kind of blurring/anti-aliasing effect in your soft plug in the future? I was thinking that maybe just the blurring effect itself could be hardware accelerated. Or, I was thinking, maybe you could render the entire screen via software, take each frame and turn it into a large 32-bit bitmap texture and then (using hardware) place it on a single flat polygon to be displayed on screen. I was also positively thinking I dont know the first thing about DirectX or plug-ins or anything else, so feel free to put me in my place. :-p

Lastly, I would like to add the usual thanks and gratitude for your plug-ins. They are, simply put, IMO, the best around. Im glad you took this up as a hobby...though I look foward one day to seeing your name on a commercial product (maybe that house control thingy?).

Sincerely,
TastEPlasma

1Ghz Athlon-C, ABITKT7A-RAID MoBo, 512MB PC150 RAM, AiW Radeon, Hercules GameTheaterXP, IBM 307030 HD, 4-pt. Surround Sound w/Sub, 19" flatscreen monitor, Gravis GamePad Pro USB X2

**Pete Bernert** · December 7th, 2001

Yes, it would be possible to make all kind of fullscreen blur/filter effects with
the soft plugin.

No, I will not do it myself (I don't use it myself for playing games, only to make
compatibility checks, and for the offscreen drawing stuff in the hw/accel plugins,
so I am not motivated enuff, sorry).

But hey, it's open source now, so I think that soon somebody else will add some nice
fullscreen effects, don't worry

TastEPlasma · December 10th, 2001

Greetings,

Hey, thanks for responding! :-) Yea, now that I recall you did mention on your main page that you got into this game to create a non-glide hardware accelerated pug in the first place. I am very glad to see you made it open source though, I look foward to somebody doing some cool stuff with the soft plug. (Though, in all honesty, Kazzuyas Soft plug wins in terms of features...and both plugs seem to be equally compatable.)

If anybody is planning to do something with the open source codes, I would love to hear about it! Or beta test! :-)

Well, I am gonna send you an email Pete, about a somewhat non-emulation related topic.

Sincerely,
TastEPlasma

December 7th, 2001	#1 (permalink)
TastEPlasma Effulgent Plasma Chemist Join Date: Jul 2001 Posts: 193	A question and thought for pete... Greetings, Just wanted to ask a quick question. I was wondering if it would be possible, in some future version of your soft plug-in, to include the 'easter-egg' blurring effect available in your hardware plug-ins. My (highly limited) understanding is that with this enabled, first the software draws all polys (ie FVP), passes it to the 3D card buffer, then back to the RAM for a blur/anti-aliase pass, then back to the 3D card for display. Obviously, this takes up quite a few cycles, but I aint *****in, it works very nice. :-) It just seems to me that it ought to be possible (and faster?) to alias the image before it ever hits the GFX cards buffer. Just a thought. Anyways, can you maybe think about including some kind of blurring/anti-aliasing effect in your soft plug in the future? I was thinking that maybe just the blurring effect itself could be hardware accelerated. Or, I was thinking, maybe you could render the entire screen via software, take each frame and turn it into a large 32-bit bitmap texture and then (using hardware) place it on a single flat polygon to be displayed on screen. I was also positively thinking I dont know the first thing about DirectX or plug-ins or anything else, so feel free to put me in my place. :-p Lastly, I would like to add the usual thanks and gratitude for your plug-ins. They are, simply put, IMO, the best around. Im glad you took this up as a hobby...though I look foward one day to seeing your name on a commercial product (maybe that house control thingy?). Sincerely, TastEPlasma 1Ghz Athlon-C, ABITKT7A-RAID MoBo, 512MB PC150 RAM, AiW Radeon, Hercules GameTheaterXP, IBM 307030 HD, 4-pt. Surround Sound w/Sub, 19" flatscreen monitor, Gravis GamePad Pro USB X2

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December 7th, 2001	#2 (permalink)
Pete Bernert FREAK Join Date: Apr 2001 Location: Germany Posts: 874	Yes, it would be possible to make all kind of fullscreen blur/filter effects with the soft plugin. No, I will not do it myself (I don't use it myself for playing games, only to make compatibility checks, and for the offscreen drawing stuff in the hw/accel plugins, so I am not motivated enuff, sorry). But hey, it's open source now, so I think that soon somebody else will add some nice fullscreen effects, don't worry

December 10th, 2001	#3 (permalink)
TastEPlasma Effulgent Plasma Chemist Join Date: Jul 2001 Posts: 193	Greetings, Hey, thanks for responding! :-) Yea, now that I recall you did mention on your main page that you got into this game to create a non-glide hardware accelerated pug in the first place. I am very glad to see you made it open source though, I look foward to somebody doing some cool stuff with the soft plug. (Though, in all honesty, Kazzuyas Soft plug wins in terms of features...and both plugs seem to be equally compatable.) If anybody is planning to do something with the open source codes, I would love to hear about it! Or beta test! :-) Well, I am gonna send you an email Pete, about a somewhat non-emulation related topic. Sincerely, TastEPlasma