"EFB to Texture" or "EFB to Ram"

[Dogway]

I would like to know what is the common accepted setting for this. Since today computers are very powerful and Dolphin has improved so much I defaulted to "EFB to RAM" for accuracy but some games run slow and had to change to texture...
So which one do you rely on as default?

[Shonumi]

I just use EFB2Texture. If a game needs EFB2RAM, I let Dolphin's per-game .ini settings automatically handle it.

[Dogway]

but isn't EFB2Texture a hack? Shouldn't be better to default to RAM?

[Shonumi]

EFB2TEX isn't as accurate as EFB2RAM (don't know if it is a "hack" or not) but the truth is that it works in a vast majority of games just fine. It's only in certain cases where you'll actually need EFB2RAM for particular effects, and even then it may not be something that affects the entire game.

Take the save-menu screenshots in Xenoblade Chronicles. That's the only noticeable place in that game where EFB2RAM makes a difference in giving users the correct visuals afaik (EFB2TEX gives garbled pixel data). But EFB2RAM isn't necessary for the rest of the game. Is EFB2TEX less accurate? Yes. Does it work well more than not? Also yes. Really, unless a game needs EFB2RAM for something, I see no reason not to use EFB2TEX.

[Dogway]

Well, the bundled Xenoblade ini doesn't come with the setting so I don't know how Dolphin is going to do something.
My question is not what you use or not but rather if EFBtoRAM is more accurate why is this not the default?

[Link_to_the_past]

(11-16-2014, 09:38 PM)Dogway Wrote: Well, the bundled Xenoblade ini doesn't come with the setting so I don't know how Dolphin is going to do something.
My question is not what you use or not but rather if EFBtoRAM is more accurate why is this not the default?

In cases that the speed hit was just too big (New super mario bros) and the gain was just too small (xenoblade chronicles), i decided not to change the gameini to avoid a backlash. Plus in Xenoblade Chronicles and some other games you get low resolution at certain places or scenes with efb to ram (Ether Mine if i remember correctly). Put all those together and it is debatable whether it is worth it to be enforced for everyone. I can do it but i am pretty sure that if not you a lot of other people will hate me out there. When i first did it for NSMB there was a big backlash for gameinis, with people even asking for their removal from dolphin so i reverted that change back.

[Shonumi]

You mean your question now is whether EFB2RAM should be the default (your OP clearly asked which one I used).

The answer is still much the same as what I already answered. EFB2TEX "just works" in most cases. It's only set when the .ini maintainers feel EFB2RAM has a significant advantage over EFB2TEX, ideally. Even though EFB2RAM is more accurate, EFB2TEX will give you the same results for less CPU resources more often than not. It's not as if using EFB2RAM in a game like Sonic Adventure 2 makes it anymore accurate than EFB2TEX; you'll be staring at the same set of images. It doesn't make sense to use it when it's just not necessary, unless you feel your PC isn't doing enough work with it's CPU-time or something...

So EFB2RAM is the default when Dolphin thinks it matters, but as a global setting enforced in every game? It's excessive since only certain games will see the difference. It's better to just change the .ini files of those games that do see a difference.

[darkrocket]

EFB to RAM it's very slow even with the cache enabled, i think that's why EFB to Texture it's the default option (same as HLE for audio).

Having the .ini settings and the wiki I recommend you to use EFB to Texture as default.

[Dogway]

I see I thought the the recent huge speed optimizations (August, September) allowed for a change a mind, maybe NSMB was (slow) then but not now? I mean you highlighted some of the EFB to RAM shortcomings, but being EFB to Texture a hack isn't this prone to more shortcomings?

Anyway, thanks for the help

[Link_to_the_past]

(11-16-2014, 10:42 PM)Dogway Wrote: I see I thought the the recent huge speed optimizations (August, September) allowed for a change a mind, maybe NSMB was (slow) then but not now? I mean you highlighted some of the EFB to RAM shortcomings, but being EFB to Texture a hack isn't this prone to more shortcomings?

Anyway, thanks for the help

Efb to Ram is still very slow with open gl and therefore any other dolphin platform besides windows plus the speed optimizations didn't help efb to ram much, only indirectly.