The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker

[mstreurman]

So, I was trying to find the best looking set up for my computer in this game and I found some strange behavior?

First my specs:
Pentium G4560
16GB RAM
GTX780
4K Samsung TV
---------------------
So I started out by setting up Shader compilation to Synchronized (Ubershaders), 6x IR + 2x SSAA + 16x AF and all enhancements turned on except for the Widescreen Hack and I installed Hypathia's Texture pack and prefetched it turned on Crop and also set up a Widescreen AR code, this of course gives a very very crisp game with full speed at all times (at least at the starting island, haven't looked any further yet)

Then I thought to see what happens when I turned off Scaled EFB copies -> This made the front part of the game look very crisp but the back part of the game look like 1x IR with enourmous jaggies (aliasing), this made me realize the game does some sort of Depth of Field.

So I decided to go all the way back to 1x IR, but I turned on 8xSSAA, this indeed makes the front part of the game very crisp again, and gives a nice DoF effect without the aliasing even with scaled EFB on, which is completely gone at Higher IR's. And the texture pack still shows a huge improvement over the original textures.


In short:
The imo "best" Gamecube version of the game (so you don't miss any effects afaik) uses the following settings:

-Hypathia's Texture pack prefetched
-16x9 aspect ratio cheatcode + Crop turned on
-All enhancements on except for Widescreen Hack and Disable fog.
-1x (or Native) IR (Internal Resolution)
-16x Anisotropic Filtering
-8xSSAA
-Synchronous (Ubershader) Shader compilation

This even runs 100% speed on my GTX750

Now my question would be: is this something that can be fixed so that the DoF effect is still visible at higher IR's but at a higher quality compared to 1x IR (it still is quite jaggy at the back, but made to look a lot better) by maybe changing the scaled EFB by a Cheatcode to 3xIR or so?

[Shadorino]

To be honest as long as having the DoF not emulated doesn't bring up other graphical issues, it's a blessing really. DoF kinda sucks in general in games.

 
The DOF in Mario Kart Wii when not emulated creates this problem :
 
Correct emulation with DoF

 
Wrong emulation without DoF, and colors are not the same on the right and on the left of the screen

 

Super Mario Sunshine appears to have the same issue as Wind Waker, but with the downside of having the goo blocky :
 
8x IR – 4 MSAA – 16x AF – Scaled EFB Copy On

 
8x IR – 4 MSAA – 16x AF – Scaled EFB Copy Off

 
8x IR – 4 MSAA – 16x AF – Scaled EFB Copy Off

 
8x IR – 4 MSAA – 16x AF – Scaled EFB Copy Off

[Kurausukun]

The issue with Sunshine isn't DoF, it's that the heatwave effect uses EFB copies, so when they aren't scaled, they just get rendered at native resolution.

[Shadorino]

But the heatwaves have a subtle DoF effect that accompanies them.

[Kurausukun]

I'm saying that if they do, it's a side-effect, not an intentional DoF effect that the game is performing like in some other games.

[Shadorino]

Perhaps. It's hard to tell anyway, because it's gone with "Scaled EFB Copy On" at high IR, and when at 1x IR, everything's blurry.

[linkdude64]

Thanks for the tip. Without the texture pack, but with the 1xIR and widescreen AR code, I did see how the DoF could be appealing in this particular title. Having never used AR codes before though, I'm experiencing what I'm guessing is a configuration mishap where the AR will frequently switch between 4:3 and 16:9 in a glitchy way in-game. I like that with the AR code vs the Widescreen hack+forcing AR I don't have the "pop-in", but it's definitely not worth this really disruptive glitching. Any ideas? Seems to happen whether I'm using Vulkan or DX11.

Edit: Nevermind, the glitching goes away completely if I force 16:9 Aspect Ratio in the settings, so the AR code just saves the pop-in. Thanks!