Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

What's the recommended setting to get the best possible picture quality in dolphin 4.0?
Which backend should I use: OpengL or direct3d9 or direct3d11?

After long hours of researching and testing by myself,I ended up setting as follows:
OpenGL / 1920x1200 / 1x Native IR / 16xQ CSAA / 16x AF
I also checked Vertex Streamig Hack, but all the other options remain untouched.

Should I modify anything to improve PQ?
Quality and accuracy are more important for me than speed (as long as it's not unplayable)

My specs:
Windows 7 Pro 64bit / Intel Xeon E3-1230 V2 @ 3.30GHz (3.7GHz) / GTX660 OC 2Gb / 16GB RAM

It depends on what you're looking for and what your GPU can handle. You're still only using a form of MSAA with CSAA. That only deals with geometry aliasing (e.g. the edges of polygons for example) but things like shadows are unaffected. You can use other types of AA such as FXAA or SSAA to deal with more forms of aliasing. OpenGL has 4xSSAA, and it does a pretty good job of providing a clean image if you set your Internal Resolution high enough. Be warned that as you increase your Internal Resolution, SSAA gets more and more demanding. FXAA provides less IQ improvement than SSAA, but it's very light on GPU resources, although some people find FXAA to be "fuzzy" or "blurry". If your eyes find it acceptable, then you can use that if SSAA is too taxing for the Internal Resolution you want to play at. Also note that FXAA was added recently, so use the latest development builds if you want to try it as a post-processing shader in Dolphin (your drivers can probably force it in any application anyway though). I see you also have your Internal Resolution set up to 1x. You should increase it to 3x or 4x if your GPU can handle those resolutions when you apply whatever AA you want.

I found that 9x SSAA of D3D9 provides the best image quality. You should use more than 1x IR.

With the game i am trying now,"Just Dance 3", 1x IR looks more washed out but less pixelated than 3x or even 4x .With higher IR, I notice that the image is crisper,has more definition overall but in some areas it gets pixelated,especially around the outlines of the figures, where colours are in contrast.This does not happen with 1x.

Of course I want to use 3x or 4x but is there any way to ge rid of these fuzzy outlines??
I know that in real console this did not happen, and the outlines were well defined and clean.
Am I doing something wrong or is this some bug on the part of Dolphin?

(11-04-2013, 05:39 PM)Shonumi Wrote: [ -> ]It depends on what you're looking for and what your GPU can handle. You're still only using a form of MSAA with CSAA. That only deals with geometry aliasing (e.g. the edges of polygons for example) but things like shadows are unaffected. You can use other types of AA such as FXAA or SSAA to deal with more forms of aliasing. OpenGL has 4xSSAA, and it does a pretty good job of providing a clean image if you set your Internal Resolution high enough. Be warned that as you increase your Internal Resolution, SSAA gets more and more demanding. FXAA provides less IQ improvement than SSAA, but it's very light on GPU resources, although some people find FXAA to be "fuzzy" or "blurry". If your eyes find it acceptable, then you can use that if SSAA is too taxing for the Internal Resolution you want to play at. Also note that FXAA was added recently, so use the latest development builds if you want to try it as a post-processing shader in Dolphin (your drivers can probably force it in any application anyway though). I see you also have your Internal Resolution set up to 1x. You should increase it to 3x or 4x if your GPU can handle those resolutions when you apply whatever AA you want.

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Do you recommend me to use D3D9 even though I have an Nvidia card?
Isn't OpenGL a better option for nvidia?

(11-05-2013, 12:54 AM)xemnas Wrote: [ -> ]I found that 9x SSAA of D3D9 provides the best image quality. You should use more than 1x IR.

I have upload some images to show what I mean.please take a close look at the outline of the dancer.

All the screeshots below are from Just Dance 3, running on Dolphin 4.0 in full screen(1920 x 1200)
*I have set AF at 1x since that was the recommendation for this game if usng opengl, according to Dolphin Wiki.

OPENGL / 4X IR / 4X SSAA / 1X AF




OPENGL / 1X IR / 4X SSAA / 1X AF




With D3D9 the issue remains the same,it always looks jagged around the outline of the character:
D3D9 / 3X IR / 9X SSAA / 1X AF

That would probably need a retexturing with a HD texture most likely to fix the blurryness/pixels for the dancer, if it's even possible to retexture the dancer. Could just be like Resident Evil games where the backgrounds can't be changed.

2D graphics don't upscale as well as 3D graphics, they need filtering which can create artifacts and in the case of Just dance will break it's videos. Just dance is a clear 2D game, most of the games out there are made using 3D graphics though.

(11-05-2013, 05:33 PM)macky Wrote: [ -> ]Do you recommend me to use D3D9 even though I have an Nvidia card?
Isn't OpenGL a better option for nvidia?

You can try and see for yourself. I'm using an AMD card and D3D 9x SSAA gives me a lot better image quality than OpenGL 4x SSAA. You should also try to select Force Texture Filtering.

looking at that picture it looks like its a pre made animation which would not be affected by how high the res is. so your out of luck increasing the quality

please stop bumping threads, shadow.