To the Screen with Hybrid XFB

[DrHouse64]

Metroid Prime: Trilogy - The last XFB copy sent to main RAM when loading any of the main games is never actually scanned out. Because we send it to the screen, you get to see it with some corruption.

Very interesting article, even more detailed than usual, great work :3 

Question : I guess it would be a very hacky solution, but can we buffer all CPU XFB writes into a transparent frame and then scale and apply it to the HD texture XFB ?

[Aleron Ives]

In the article, you mention that Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II requires Real XFB to render its videos, but this hasn't been the case in years. The opening FMVs in PSO have worked with XFB Disabled since the 4.0 era. IIRC Real XFB was no longer needed around the time the game started working with D3D, i.e. when the "giant white box covering the screen" bug got fixed. I am curious as to how this could have been fixed for so long without anybody else apparently knowing about it...

[MayImilae]

Question : I guess it would be a very hacky solution, but can we buffer all CPU XFB writes into a transparent frame and then scale and apply it to the HD texture XFB ?

Yes, but it would be really hacky. Besides, something upcoming means we don't really need to worry about this...

[StripTheSoul]

Very nice article, broken down perfectly for the average user

Also, of course, amazing work on this feature!
I'm mostly happy to see that the best Wii game out there, Rhythm Heaven Fever, doesn't need any user ini entries anymore (like XFBreal); although it surprises me that even EFBToTextureEnable = False is no longer needed. It doesn't have anything to do with XFB, does it? Maybe some little bug got fixed on the side here

[JMC47]

For the case of XFB Phantasy Star Online - I verified it just now. They've always needed XFB Real to play the videos. It's just that it started getting enforced by default. Let it idle on the main screen and it'll go black and stop rendering if you have XFB Disabled enabled.

[Aleron Ives]

How strange; I guess I really am the only person who has working videos. They work fine in both 4.0 and 5.0 builds when I idle on the title screen with XFB Disabled.

[fxgopher]

Silly question - does this have to be enabled in configuration options, or does it now operate by default?

If it does, can someone point out where I sort it

(Downloaded latest build of Dolphin from nightlies)

Frank

[Link_to_the_past]

This was one of the most anticipated features for me, still remember the initial conversation that started it all in an issue report about three years ago. Great article as well, loved the graphs. Dolphin has matured so much over the years, don't know when dolphin 6.0 will be released but it will definitely be a version that will be difficult to be surpassed substancially, whether you aim for compatibility or enhancements it is in a great state right now.

[Safirion]

Thank you so much to phire and iwubcode for this great work !

[Shadorino]

I've been following Dolphin's development closely for 5 years now, what has been accomplished is truly impressive. It is by far the most advanced emulator of any console, there's a lot to be proud of.
I'm especially glad that the GameCube logo startup animation can now be played without having to enable XFB manually beforehand ^^
"Immediately Present XFB" will distort the animation and screw up the sound though.

On on another note, I've fired up Mario Sunshine to see if something changed about the pixelated goo/depth of field problem.
Before Hybrid XFB, disabling Scaled EFB Copy made the goo render correctly, but the depth of filed at 1x IR, as explained here : https://wiki.dolphin-emu.org/index.php?t...o_Sunshine
So we had to choose to either have pixelated goo and high IR everywhere, or normal looking goo and about half the screen running in locked 1x IR.
Now disabling Scaled EFB Copy renders everything at 1x IR. We can't have normal looking goo anymore. Which can be a problem for some people, but personally, I preferred playing in high IR and have pixelated goo than the depth of field rendered at 1x and the rest at high IR. This gives an opportunity to look into this issue, which is I believe the last one for this game.