How to make Dolphin render in 8K internal resolution?

[GoldenSun3DS]

First off, my PC specs:
https://pcpartpicker.com/user/GoldenSun3DS/saved/F76KZL

i3 8350K overclocked to 4.6GHz with 200MHz AVX offset
16GB dual channel DDR4 3600MHz RAM (XMP profile)
GTX 1070 Ti Founder's Edition overclocked to +170MHz on core and +950MHz on the memory

I can play Mario 3D World at 8K internal resolution at 60FPS, so I definitely have a powerful enough GPU for 8K Dolphin. Dolphin only utilizes about 30-40% of my GPU at 5K internal resolution in Mario Galaxy 2.

But Dolphin doesn't have an option for setting internal resolution to 8K. Is there any modification I can use to force it to allow higher custom internal resolutions?

And, yes, I have a 4K 49" TV. I want to downsample from 8K to 4K for the AA effect without actually using normal AA.

[ExtremeDude2]

Is there a reason you don't want to use AA? afaik SSAA is going to give you the same thing as increasing your IR.

[GoldenSun3DS]

(02-16-2018, 01:22 AM)ExtremeDude2 Wrote: Is there a reason you don't want to use AA? afaik SSAA is going to give you the same thing as increasing your IR.

AA is just artificially smoothing out the edges. It's not adding extra detail/quality. Supersampling (rendering at 8K when you have a 4K display) actually runs it at higher detail and then uses that info to smooth out the edges/jaggies.
It's a higher quality form of AA, albeit super intensive on performance.


It's really the principle of it.
I'd just simply like to run it at 8K internal resolution like I can on the Wii U emulator. And maybe use DSR and try to record 8K/5K footage if I can without performance loss.

[ExtremeDude2]

Oh wait, I just remembered that you can use custom IR values via the .ini:

https://forums.dolphin-emu.org/Thread-unofficial-howto-using-gameini-settings-per-game

[JosJuice]

(02-16-2018, 01:33 AM)GoldenSun3DS Wrote: AA is just artificially smoothing out the edges. It's not adding extra detail/quality. Supersampling (rendering at 8K when you have a 4K display) actually runs it at higher detail and then uses that info to smooth out the edges/jaggies.

While most forms of AA aren't supersampling, SSAA is. In fact, that's what the acronym stands for: Super Sampling Anti-Aliasing.

Anyway, to expand on what ExtremeDude2 said: If you want to set a higher internal resolution, you can do it by editing the GFX.ini file manually or by creating game INIs.

[AnyOldName3]

Bear in mind that if you render an IR above your monitor's native resolution, Dolphin applies a pretty poor scaling filter to make it the right size to display. I'm pretty sure the one we use for SSAA is better, though. That should mean that you end up with better image quality with an IR that matches you monitor and Dolphin's SSAA turned up high.

Also, I don't think any games Dolphin emulates have detailed enough textures for SSAA to be needed at high IRs, so you can probably get away with MSAA in compatible games. MSAA is like SSAA in that it renders at a higher resolution when considering which triangles occupy which pixels, but it only colours things in at the output resolution (it generates one colour per pixel per triangle, but considers the colours of multiple triangles in pixels with multiple triangles). The result is that pixels with edges get anti-aliased, but those that don't have edges don't get anti-aliased. Those pixels shouldn't have aliasing anyway under most situations.

[Helios]

It's worth noting that SSAA is vastly better in terms of anti aliasing the image than using a higher IR and letting Dolphin scale down.

Dolphin only applies a billinear filter to downscale using IR. Nobody has bothered to improve that.

SSAA uses whatever the driver does.

[GoldenSun3DS]

(02-16-2018, 03:30 AM)Helios Wrote: It's worth noting that SSAA is vastly better in terms of anti aliasing the image than using a higher IR and letting Dolphin scale down.

Dolphin only applies a billinear filter to downscale using IR. Nobody has bothered to improve that.

SSAA uses whatever the driver does.

Actually, I didn't think about Dolphin's scaling possibly being poor when rendered above native resolution.

I took some screenshots at various resolutions and AA:
https://imgur.com/a/6pDkh

I sorted it by which ones I thought looked better on that wall (next to the chimney) on the left side of that building in the center of the screen, going from worst to best.


I think 6X Native (4K) with 8X MSAA looks the best. So I guess it's best to have your native resolution to 6X with AA if you only have a 4K screen (mine is 4096x2160). Also, more than 7X internal resolution with AA caused performance drops under 60FPS on my system.




All screenshots have:

Dolphin version 5.0-6327

16X Anisotropic
Hybrid Ubershaders
Scaled EFB Copy
Per-Pixel Lighting
Force Texture Filtering
Disabled Fog
Force 24-Bit Color
No post processing effects
Widescreen hack disabled
No Post Processing Effects

Unchecked Skip EFB Access From CPU
Unchecked Ignore Format Changes
Unchecked Store EFB Copies to  Texture Only
Texture Cache Accuracy slider all the way to Safe
Unchecked GPU Texture Decoding
Checked Store EFB Copies to Texture Only
Unchecked Immediately Present XFB
Checked Fast Depth Calculation
Checked Disable Bounding Box
Checked Vertex Roundin

[GoldenSun3DS]

I still think it would be a good idea to have in settings the option for higher than 8X internal resolution to future-proof for when 8K displays start becoming feasible to purchase.

[AnyOldName3]

I'm pretty sure there aren't consumer 8K displays yet, so there's not much point having it yet. Once they're available, it won't be super complicated to add the option to the GUI, and someone will probably point it out.