Zelda Twilight Princess (GC) - Either offset-bloom or missing map?

[HorrorKid]

Hi there!

First of all: Thanks for your great work, devs. Dolphin is badass and so far easy to use!

Now to my problem (I'll try to make it short): Basically I just want to get rid of the nasty offset-bloom, which btw looks like it would be breathing (it contracts and then expands , weird...). Until now I haven't paid much attention to it, but when I reached THIS point, I started to search for a solution (it looks a lot worse when moving).

I tried the Zelda: Twilight Princess Custom Projection / Bloom Hack that is already included in Dolphin 3.5 (zFar Correction 0.1, +zNear ticked), but it didn't help (it just made the mini-map invisible). I then read in another forum that using the Custom Projection Hack that was made for Bleach Versus Crusade (zFar Correction 0.5, +zFar ticked) makes all bloom completely disappear. I tried that and it worked (click), looks so much better! Unfortunately it makes the mini-map become a black box and the big map is gone, too. And you need those for this game.

After reading some more threads that I found, more or less regarding this problem, I started to randomly change settings... That way I found out that it's the Scaled EFB Copy option what makes the already bad bloom so much worse. It does not just sharpen the textures, it also sharpens the bloom-effect, which is supposed to be blurry (see here , here and here). The bloom still does not look good at all, but a lot better than before (I guess it looks like that on the GC?), but as you probably know, disabling Scaled EFB Copy makes everything else look really bad.

So, is there possibly any way to have the bloom removed AND keeping the map intact? I would already be satisfied if the big map would work. Or is it somehow possible to remove the bloom from the effect of the Scaled EFB Copy?


Version of Dolphin used:



Any help appreciated =).

P.S. English is not my native language so sorry for any mistakes i may have made.

[neobrain]

Your English is fine, but please do everyone a favor and stop hurting everyone's eyes by using custom fonts :p

[HorrorKid]

Your English is fine, but please do everyone a favor and stop hurting everyone's eyes by using custom fonts :p

Sorry, changed to default size .

[neobrain]

... still wrong, normal size is when you just don't use any [size] tags at all.

[HorrorKid]

>.< Ah, well.. I used the buttons and was already confused that no tags appeared. I found the "source" editor now and deleted all unecessary tags.

Anyway, you don't happen to have an idea that could help me?

-edit: Do the above posts have to stay?

[NaturalViolence]

That way I found out that it's the Scaled EFB Copy option what makes the already bad bloom so much worse. It does not just sharpen the textures, it also sharpens the bloom-effect, which is supposed to be blurry (see here , here and here).

Yup. Already well known. The game was not designed to run at high resolutions. Certain games have bloom effects that don't scale properly to higher resolutions (this issue is even worse in Metroid Prime 3 for example). There may be a way to fix this issue in dolphin. We don't know since neobrain won't take a look at it. He doesn't consider it an "issue" since it works correctly at native resolution. Rendering at higher resolutions than native is a "hack" that's not supported by the original game and therefore isn't proper emulation anyway. Personally I think this is a legitimate bug since all other post-processing effects don't behave this way. They either scale properly if they are done on the GPU/texture side or get scaled to a crummy resolution if they are done via ram copies. This one effect doesn't seem to do either. It's clearly done on the gpu side since it works with efb copy to texture so it seems like some type of scaling offset bug. It's too bad because these games look amazing without the bloom effect (or with correct bloom) and horrible with this issue. So much so that is is debatable whether raising the IR improves or reduces image quality thanks to this issue.

The bloom still does not look good at all, but a lot better than before (I guess it looks like that on the GC?),

Indeed. That's what it looks like on the GC. If you turn off scaled efb copy or set your internal resolution to 1x the post-processing effects such as bloom will be rendered at 640 x 528, the native resolution of the GC/Wii. This will produce the correct appearance.

but as you probably know, disabling Scaled EFB Copy makes everything else look really bad.

Indeed. You're basically rendering all of the post-processing effects at a lower resolution. If any of them require ram copies they need to be scaled down to native resolution before/after the transfer.

So, is there possibly any way to have the bloom removed AND keeping the map intact? I would already be satisfied if the big map would work.

Yes. There is a branch out there that is broken in such a way where the bloom effect is not emulated but the minimap is. It is called the texture rewrite branch. Look it up please so I don't have to go digging for a link.

Or is it somehow possible to remove the bloom from the effect of the Scaled EFB Copy?

That sentence doesn't make any sense.

TL DR: Blame neobrain with me. Since he's made it perfectly clear that no matter how many people complain about it he's not going to even look at it it's pretty hopeless so you might as well give up. Or use the texture cache rewrite build.

[HorrorKid]

Hi!

Thanks a lot for the explenations =).

Yup. Already well known.

Well known within the community perhaps, but I just started using dolphin and it took me quite a while to gather the informations which I am aware of now .

There is a branch out there that is broken in such a way where the bloom effect is not emulated but the minimap is. It is called the texture rewrite branch. Look it up please so I don't have to go digging for a link.

Nice. Unfortunately that particular branch doesn't even appear in the branches list on this website. In THIS thread though someone was using the build 7692, which apparantly does not make use of bloom. I am guessing it belongs to that branch? The only download explicitly addressing to itself as a texture rewrite branch build I found was on Emucr.com, the newest version being Dolphin texcache-rewrite SVN r7624, all links offline, though... I'll try my luck with r7962 on the weekend, I found that one in the archive =).

That sentence doesn't make any sense.

That's just because I don't know what I'm actually talking about.

TL DR: Blame neobrain with me. Since he's made it perfectly clear that no matter how many people complain about it he's not going to even look at it it's pretty hopeless so you might as well give up. Or use the texture cache rewrite build.

Oh well for now I disabled Scaled EFB Copy and reduced the Internal Resolution from 2.5x to 2.0x in order to run the game at 9xSSAA. Bloom doesn't freak out and the pixelated image is fairly improved by the SSAA. Only when there is stuff like hot air the picture becomes really blocky and jagged again. Still it's an improvement to before =).

Thanks again for the reply, have a nice weekend! I'll report when I tried r7692.

[NaturalViolence]

Make sure it's a texture cache rewrite build. It could just be r7692 master.

Unfortunately that particular branch doesn't even appear in the branches list on this website.

That's because it was discontinued a long time ago. Which is why you can only find old builds of it.

In THIS thread though someone was using the build 7692, which apparently does not make use of bloom.

7692M (the M stands for modified) not 7692. It's build 7692 from the texture cache rewrite branch that he was using. Not build 7692 from the master branch.

I'll try my luck with r7962 on the weekend, I found that one in the archive =).

The archives on dolphin-emu.org? Those are all master builds.

[HorrorKid]

Well, I can't find any working download for a texture rewrite branch build, so I guess I'm stuck with what I have now, which is OK considering I am using an emulator. I'd be really happy if someone could provide the 7692M build though (or ANY build from the texture rewrite branch) =). Gotta be somewhere on someone's HardDrive .

[shidenggui]

Well, I can't find any working download for a texture rewrite branch build, so I guess I'm stuck with what I have now, which is OK considering I am using an emulator. I'd be really happy if someone could provide the 7692M build though (or ANY build from the texture rewrite branch) =). Gotta be somewhere on someone's HardDrive .

You can use r7719 master banch with texture rewrite,it removed bloom effect .Download it here：http://www. shall not be named/download.html?list=22。