Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

(02-05-2011, 03:48 PM)NaturalViolence Wrote: [ -> ]Don't listen to ayami. He's a resident troll in these parts

Hey now! Dont make me start talking like an internet tough guy on you!

(02-05-2011, 06:34 PM)dubydoo Wrote: [ -> ]

(02-05-2011, 11:58 AM)artantaaa Wrote: [ -> ]If I was buying a new card right now, I think it would be the 460gtx.

I tihink Iĺl get this one, but first iĺl inform myself about differences between
gtx460, gtx460se and gtx560

(02-05-2011, 11:58 AM)artantaaa Wrote: [ -> ]SSAA means anti aliasing

for those who want more information about Super Sampling Anti-Aliasin:
SSAA

just to make it clear, wii's native resolution is 480p

the ATSC digital television standards define 480p with 640 × 480 (4:3) or
horizontal resolution of pixels for an approximate 16:9 aspect ratio.
since a pixel must be a whole number, in wide VGA displays it is generally rounded up to 854 (480 × 16⁄9 = 853.333…).

it means:
native@16:9: 854 x 480
2x scale@16:9:1707 x 960
3x scale@16:9:2560 x 1440

A newbie to the forums that looked something up on wikipedia for himself instead of asking us....I think I could cry.


Please keep in mind that the output resolution is not the same as the internal resolution. The GC/Wii render at 640 x 528 for fullscreen games (nearly all GC games) and 720 x 528 for widescreen games (nearly all wii games, unless they are outputting fullscreen, then they will still render at 640 x 528 even if they support widescreen). The image is then scaled to the appropriate pal or ntsc resolution in the xfb (or in dolphin if xfb is disabled bilinear scaling is used in the frontbuffer instead).

So in a fullscreen/widescreen game running in fullscreen mode:
1x (native) = 640 x 528
2x = 1280 x 1056
3x = 1920 x 1584
fractional = the 4:3 space of your screen resolution (dolphin doesn't care about maintaining the weird native internal aspect ratio when you're using fractional)

In a widescreen game running in widescreen mode:
1x = 720 x 528
2x = 1440 x 1056
3x = 2160 x 1584
fractional = the 16:9 space of your screen resolution

(02-05-2011, 03:48 PM)NaturalViolence Wrote: [ -> ]I swear I would hug you right now if I could. Not many people here have the patience to look up threads like that.

I had just read one of your less thorough EFB explanations right before dubydoo asked about it. This one:

http://forums.dolphin-emu.org/showthread.php?tid=14635

When I tried to find it again, I came across the other one. I don't know how anyone can ignore the search function when they want to learn something from a forum.

I do have a resolution question though. I'm currently using a 16:10 lcd that only supports certain resolutions. I was recently using a huge 22" crt that would let me set custom resolutions. Would setting the screen resolution to 1280x1056 and using EFBx2 make things any easier on my old gpu by eliminating one of the scaling steps? I know I can set the screen to 1280x1056, but would the option for that resolution show up in the dolphin menu? I would just plug it in and see, but I would have to carry it down two flights of stairs and then back up again if it didn't work.

Quote:Would setting the screen resolution to 1280x1056 and using EFBx2 make things any easier on my old gpu by eliminating one of the scaling steps?

Scaling doesn't eat up a significant amount of processing power. And as long as you set the efb scale to 1x, 2,x or 3x manually instead of leaving it on one of the automatic options (integral or fractional) changing your display resolution or screen resolution in dolphin won't make any difference in gpu load. If you set the efb scale to 2x it renders the frames at 1280 x 1056 regardless of what your screen resolution/physical display resolution is.

I really feel they should rename the efb scales to 4x and 9x to coincide with the resolution rather than the X and Y scale. 4xSSAA = double width, double height, 4 times the resolution. 2x efb scale = double width, double height, 4 times the resolution. See how that can cause confusion?

Quote:I know I can set the screen to 1280x1056, but would the option for that resolution show up in the dolphin menu?

Probably not but I can't say for sure.

Quote:I would just plug it in and see, but I would have to carry it down two flights of stairs and then back up again if it didn't work.

Ah yes, the wonderful days of crt monitors .

Let me go ahead and elaborate since I feel like it.

1. Scene is rendered at (native resolution x efb scale x SSAA scale) to frontbuffer

2. Contents of frontbuffer are scaled down by a custom SSAA downscaling filter to (native resolution x efb scale), output to efb

3. When the game is finished doing whatever it needs to do to the efb (copy it as a texture and rerender the scene using it as a texture, apply fb effects with the gpu, add hud elements, copy it to ram as a fbo and have the cpu apply effects, these are some examples of what the game might do with it) it copies the efb contents into the xfb. If xfb is disabled in dolphin (it usually is) then it copies it straight into the backbuffer and skips step 4.

4. The xfb contents are transformed into the form they neeed to be in for an ntsc or pal video signal. Resolution is scaled, frames are merged, deinterlacing is sometimes applied, color depth is changed, format is changed. If xfb is enabled in dolphin step 5 is skipped.

5. The image is downscaled/upscaled using a bilinear filter to the backbuffer resolution. If you selected 4:3 output it's scaled to the 4:3 area of the backbuffer resolution and black bars are added. Likewise with 16:9.

6. Backbuffer or xfb contents are sent to the monitor depending on whether xfb was enabled.

(02-06-2011, 03:12 AM)NaturalViolence Wrote: [ -> ]A newbie to the forums that looked something up on wikipedia for himself instead of asking us....I think I could cry.

I can send you a hanky from vienna if you want to

(02-06-2011, 03:12 AM)NaturalViolence Wrote: [ -> ]Please keep in mind that the output resolution is not the same as the internal resolution.

it makes more sense to me now!

I actually totally screwed up that list. SSAA downscaling is done later on, should be more along the lines of:

If efb copy is disabled skip step 2
If xfb is disabled in dolphin (it usually is) then skip steps 3 and 4.
If xfb is enabled in dolphin then skip step 5.

1. Scene is rendered at (native resolution x efb scale x SSAA scale) to the frontbuffer

2. The frontbuffer contents are copied into either the texture buffer (efb to texture) or into system ram as a fbo (framebuffer object, efb to ram). Whenever the game updates the contents of the efb by making changes to it the contents of the efb are copied into the frontbuffer

3. When the game is finished doing whatever it needs to do to the efb copy(rerender the scene using it as a texture, apply fb effects with the gpu, add hud elements, copy it to ram as a fbo and have the cpu apply effects, these are some examples of what the game might do with it) it copies the efb contents into the xfb. If efb copy is disabled the frontbuffer contents are copied into the xfb instead.

4. The xfb contents are transformed into the form they neeed to be in for an ntsc or pal video signal. Resolution is scaled, frames are merged, deinterlacing is sometimes applied, color depth is changed, format is changed, etc.

5. Contents of the frontbuffer are scaled down by a custom SSAA downscaling filter to (native resolution x efb scale).

6. Contents of the frontbuffer or xfb are downscaled/upscaled using a bilinear filter to the backbuffer resolution. If you selected 4:3 output it's scaled to the 4:3 area of the backbuffer resolution and black bars are added. Likewise with 16:9.

7. The frontbuffer or xfb contents are copied into the backbuffer depending on whether xfb was enabled.

8. Backbuffer contents are sent to the monitor.