Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

For every polygon to be scaled, the "EFB Scaled Copy" checkbox needs to be ticked. The difference can be seen in various games. e.g. the X-Wing flyby in the title screen of Rogue Leader.

Quote:Well. Go ahead, you won't convince me...

I choose to take that as a personal challenge.

The first pair of screenshots for each game will show the difference between high and low efb scale at a high resolution. The second pair will show the difference between a high and low resolution with a 1x efb scale. This was done with r6495 with these settings (in case you were wondering): http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n189/NaturalViolence/settings.png

Metroid Prime:

1024 x 768 (1366 x 768 with 4:3) fractional efb:
http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n189/NaturalViolence/MP_high_res_fract_efb.jpg

1024 x 768 (1366 x 768 with 4:3) 1x efb:
http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n189/NaturalViolence/MP_high_res_1x_efb.jpg

No difference betwen high and low efb scale at a high resolution.

1024 x 768 (1366 x 768 with 4:3) 1x efb:
http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n189/NaturalViolence/MP_high_res_1x_efb.jpg

640 x 480 (720 x 480 with 4:3) 1x efb:
http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n189/NaturalViolence/MP_low_res.jpg

HUGE difference between high and low resolution with no efb scale.

Notes for this game: Raising the efb scale makes the visors and minimap clearer since they are generated by efb effects. Everything else seems to be unaffected. You can especially see this if you set a high resolution and 1x efb scale and use the scan visor. The scan visor places a rectangle in the middle of your screen to show you where it is pointed at and everything inside the rectangle is zoomed in. The image inside that rectangle is generated by a fb effect. You will notice that everything outside the rectangle look super sharp while everything inside is super blurry. I will get a screenshot of this soon so you can see what I mean.

Twilight Princess:

1024 x 768 (1366 x 768 with 4:3) fractional efb:
http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n189/NaturalViolence/TP_high_res_fract_efb.jpg

1024 x 768 (1366 x 768 with 4:3) 1x efb:
http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n189/NaturalViolence/TP_high_res_1x_efb.jpg

Top left quadrant is clearer with a high efb scale. The rest of the image has no difference.

1024 x 768 (1366 x 768 with 4:3) 1x efb:
http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n189/NaturalViolence/TP_high_res_1x_efb.jpg

640 x 480 (720 x 480 with 4:3) 1x efb:
http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n189/NaturalViolence/TP_low_res.jpg

HUGE difference between high and low resolution with no efb scale

Notes for this game: Raising the efb scale makes the top left quadrant and underwater areas clearer. The top left quadrant I can't explain but the underwater areas obviously use a fb effect to create the "wavy" effect you get underwater. Unfortunately this is a really bad screenshot to demonstrate what I'm talking about but if you try it yourself you will see it. The top left quadrant is clearer/blurrier depending on efb scale while the rest of the image remains the same.

Wind Waker:

1024 x 768 (1366 x 768 with 4:3) fractional efb:
http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n189/NaturalViolence/WW_high_res_fract_efb.png

1024 x 768 (1366 x 768 with 4:3) 1x efb:
http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n189/NaturalViolence/WW_high_res_1x_efb.png

Distant areas are much clearer with a high efb scale but nearby areas are the same.

1024 x 768 (1366 x 768 with 4:3) 1x efb:
http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n189/NaturalViolence/WW_high_res_1x_efb.png

640 x 480 (720 x 480 with 4:3) 1x efb:
http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n189/NaturalViolence/WW_low_res.png

The entire image is blurry with a low resolution.

Notes for this game: WW uses the efb to create a DOF effect. Nearby objects are culled and an image is rendered to the efb with only distant objects. Then a new image is rendered with far away objects culled instead and the previous image (which is stored in the efb) is blurred and applied as a background texture. The result is a DOF effect. You will notice when you raise/lower the efb scale it will make distant areas clearer/blurrier while not affecting anything near the camera.

In none of these three games that I have does the efb scale make the entire image blurry like you suggested by saying that the whole scene is rendered at a lower resolution with a lower efb scale. I believe what I see with my eyes, and hopefully now you do too. All of the low resolution images were resized by viewing them fullscreen and print screening however I can guarantee it looks like that in game and if you try it yourself you will see that I am right. Now I would like to see you try it yourself and provide screenshots of these games looking "low-res" with a high resolution and low efb scale. And don't tell me it's because they are resized to the backbuffer because you know just as well as I do that you can't add detail just by resizing. I may not understand the code on the same level as you but I know what I see. For all I know this could just be a simple problem that you haven't fixed yet or are unaware of so maybe this post will help you correct it. But I do know that the entire final image is not being rendered at a higher resolution with a higher efb scale that is very obvious from these screenshots and from playing the games. Sorry if this sounds rantish I just can't get over how someone as smart as you could completely miss something like this. Now if you have anything to say about what I could have done wrong to invalidate these screenshots tell me and I'll retake them with whatever changes are necessary.

Sorry for the late answer, missed your new post.

Quote:In none of these three games that I have does the efb scale make the entire image blurry like you suggested by saying that the whole scene is rendered at a lower resolution with a lower efb scale.

Blurry is the wrong expression, I meant blocky/pixeled/aliased.

About your results:
1. There sure is a huge difference between native efb size and fractionally scaled efb: whereas your second MP screenshot has some obvious aliasing (esp. in the HUD) and also is quite blurred in the background (as you said), the first screenshot is much more detailed and "smoother" in terms of aliasing. Let's rephrase my EFB scale description to "makes distand objects much more detailed and reduces aliasing" then
2. Your comparision of the two display resolutions is flawed I think, the image is just blurred to due downscaling the 640x528 EFB to a 640x480 render target with linear filtering enabled.. Try using a window resolution of 640x528 and it should be fine. I'm right now investigating why we're using an aspect ratio of 4:3 anyway...
Fwiw, was that using NTSC or PAL?

EDIT: To make that clear: The fourth screenshot just looks so much worth than the third due to 1024x768 suffering much less from the bilinear filtering blurryness than 640x480.
EDIT: Apart from using a resolution of 640x528 you could also try enabling virtual XFB. Try both please

Quote:2. Your comparision of the two display resolutions is flawed I think, the image is just blurred to due downscaling the 640x528 EFB to a 640x480 render target with linear filtering enabled.. Try using a window resolution of 640x528 and it should be fine. I'm right now investigating why we're using an aspect ratio of 4:3 anyway...

Because these games run at 4:3? You of all people should know that. All GC/Wii games either run at 4:3 only or 16:9 or 4:3. All three of these games are 4:3 only. So it doesn't matter what resolution you select it will run in 4:3 unless you either stretch it or use widescreen hack. For example on my 1920 x 1200 monitor they would run at 1600 x 1200 with black bars on the sides.

Quote:Fwiw, was that using NTSC or PAL?

NTSC

Quote:EDIT: To make that clear: The fourth screenshot just looks so much worth than the third due to 1024x768 suffering much less from the bilinear filtering blurryness than 640x480.

Try it yourself if you don't believe me.

Quote:EDIT: Apart from using a resolution of 640x528 you could also try enabling virtual XFB. Try both please

That is flawed for two reasons. 640 x 528 is not a selectable fullscreen resolution. And I can't use windowed since that defeats the point (the blurriness that comes from upscaling a low res image). Second these are GC games so why would I use virtual XFB?

Quote:EDIT: To make that clear: The fourth screenshot just looks so much worth than the third due to 1024x768 suffering much less from the bilinear filtering blurryness than 640x480.

BS. Prove it. Try it yourself.

Quote:Blurry is the wrong expression, I meant blocky/pixeled/aliased.

Fine. You're still wrong. The whole image looks good with or without a high efb scale on a high resolution. The whole image looks bad on a low resolution regardless of efb scale (using MP as the ultimate example of this since it only seems to use fb effects for visors and maps).

HUD elements do indeed have aliasing with a low efb scale. However 3D objects do not. The only reason samus has a tiny bit more aliasing in the second image is because she moved her arm slightly. Try it yourself. The amount of aliasing is the same. No noticeable difference at all between 3x and 1x scale. What you suggested is that the whole image is rendered at a lower resolution with a low efb scale. This would make the whole image look terrible regardless of screen resolution if true since you can't add back detail just by stretching. Yet the image quality is amazing in MP with a high resolution and no efb scale, how do you explain that? I think I'm about ready to give up on you. You see it with your own two eyes yet continue to refuse to believe it. Either that or you are simply wording your statement wrong. I mean look at how clear samus's gun looks with a 1x efb scale! You're telling me that is rendered at a low resolution? Sorry but I just can't believe that.

Quote:

Quote:2. Your comparision of the two display resolutions is flawed I think, the image is just blurred to due downscaling the 640x528 EFB to a 640x480 render target with linear filtering enabled.. Try using a window resolution of 640x528 and it should be fine. I'm right now investigating why we're using an aspect ratio of 4:3 anyway...

Because these games run at 4:3? You of all people should know that. All GC/Wii games either run at 4:3 only or 16:9 or 4:3. All three of these games are 4:3 only. So it doesn't matter what resolution you select it will run in 4:3 unless you either stretch it or use widescreen hack. For example on my 1920 x 1200 monitor they would run at 1600 x 1200 with black bars on the sides.

The games run at 4:3, yes. However, the internal resolution used for the EFB is 640x528. When displaying stuff to screen, the EFB gets converted to YUV, copied and stretched to an XFB. Then the XFB gets displayed on the screen.
However, if the XFB is disabled, we directly stretch the 640x528 EFB to the 640x480 rect. I don't know whether this is the correct behavior, yet, but that should be the reason for the blurryness.

Quote:

Quote:EDIT: Apart from using a resolution of 640x528 you could also try enabling virtual XFB. Try both please

That is flawed for two reasons. 640 x 528 is not a selectable fullscreen resolution. And I can't use windowed since that defeats the point (the blurriness that comes from upscaling a low res image). Second these are GC games so why would I use virtual XFB?

What does the fact that we're talking about the GC instead of the Wii here? both of them use XFBs internally.
Due to what I said above, enabling XFB should properly emulate the stretching step (or it makes it even worse if we enable linear filtering here as well...)
Also I don't get your contra-argument... so you're basically agreeing that the blurriness is caused by scaling from 528 to 480? What are we discussing then anyway?

Quote:

Quote:EDIT: To make that clear: The fourth screenshot just looks so much worth than the third due to 1024x768 suffering much less from the bilinear filtering blurryness than 640x480.

BS. Prove it. Try it yourself.

Are you even reading what I wrote oO
What I said was a fact which you can't deny unless you try again with a windowed mode of 640x528.

Even IF that was true it still wouln't explain why changing the efb scale does not affect overall image quality the way you say it should. Play twilight princess with no efb scale and with fractional scaling. You would think that if the scene really is being rendered at 2.4 times the resolution internally like you suggest that the difference in overall IQ would be massive. Instead all I see is clearer underwater regions, top left quadrant, and minimap. In MP HUD elements, the minimap, and scan/thermal/x-ray visors look clearer but overall IQ is unaffected. In WW it makes distant areas clearer/blurrier but nearby areas remain the same. Not to mention you suggested that because the efb scale is the real resolution that the scene is rendered at that raising the scale will have a natural AA affect due to being rendered at a higher resolution than your screen resolution then scaled down. This is also not true. No matter how high you set the scale in WW the amount of aliasing on link remains the same (since he is close to the camera). Turn on 4xSSAA and poof! It's gone. Same with TP and MP. So clearly raising the efb scale is not raising the resolution that the scene is rendered at internally like you suggest.

I think dolphin checks for modifications to efb copies and if it finds none rerenders it at the screen resolution straight to the backbuffer. This would explain why regions with fb effects applied are effected by efb scale while everything else is not.