Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

Dolphin uses something like linear filter to stretch image above it's native resolution? It blurs image considerably even with copy filter disabled and I wonder if there's any way to extract this extra sharpness on Dolphin...

Hardware capture (480p):




Dolphin with disabled copy filter (native res):

What are you using to capture the hardware 480p output?

This is not my capture. I don't know what was used to capture, but it seems upscaling was done with Framemeister at 2x with forced 480p.

Here's the video source:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWeD5A_3aww

If you increase the IR option in Dolphin's Graphics settings from 1x (Native) to 2x or higher, does it give you the image you're trying to achieve?

Just FYI, you can't compare footage from an upscaler in someone else's video on YouTube to what Dolphin @ native resolution looks like on your computer in pixel for pixel measurements.

(09-04-2020, 10:47 AM)KHg8m3r Wrote: [ -> ]If you increase the IR option in Dolphin's Graphics settings from 1x (Native) to 2x or higher, does it give you the image you're trying to achieve?

Just FYI, you can't compare footage from an upscaler in someone else's video on YouTube to what Dolphin @ native resolution looks like on your computer in pixel for pixel measurements.

No. It's not about internal resolution.

The closest effect that I saw was in other emulators. If you disable Linear Filtering in Demul, for example...

Linear Filtering on:



Linear Filtering off:



Other emulators also frequently use some kind of filtering to even pixels if upscaled or smoothen edges (or both). Usually toggle-able.

Wii and GameCube games were designed to be played on blurry CRTs or run through the linear scaling early HD LCD TVs had, so there aren't going to be many that look closer to the creator's intention with nearest-neighbour scaling like in your second screenshot. Dolphin might benefit from a cleverer filter, like Lanczos or some kind of CAS algorithm, but hard pixel edges aren't a good thing.

You can do this in Retroarch's Dolphin core pretty easily. It's a matter of taste but I agree that integer nearest neighbor scaling can make for a good looking game at internal native res. A cohesive one at least when a high internal res exposes how blurry everything is.

(09-04-2020, 09:43 PM)AnyOldName3 Wrote: [ -> ]Wii and GameCube games were designed to be played on blurry CRTs or run through the linear scaling early HD LCD TVs had, so there aren't going to be many that look closer to the creator's intention with nearest-neighbour scaling like in your second screenshot. Dolphin might benefit from a cleverer filter, like Lanczos or some kind of CAS algorithm, but hard pixel edges aren't a good thing.

I realize they were designed for CRT and early LCD. Good or not - it's subjective. Hence all those optional graphics enhancement options in Dolphin. People chase high quality upscalers because they want the clearest signal possible on their modern screens, I think. I wish there was an option for hard edge pixels on Dolphin too.

(09-04-2020, 11:07 PM)ewzzy Wrote: [ -> ]You can do this in Retroarch's Dolphin core pretty easily. It's a matter of taste but I agree that integer nearest neighbor scaling can make for a good looking game at internal native res. A cohesive one at least when a high internal res exposes how blurry everything is.

God, Retroarch is so cumbersome and buggy. I love integer scaling at native res and hard edge pixels. Not a fan of high internal res on oldies or various blurry filters. But right now it's choose your poison. Either stand alone emus which are easy to use and manage (especially when they have portable mode), but no complex filters most of the time or RetroArch and endless headache.

Actually, can't you just set Dolphin's fullscreen resolution to the game's native resolution and get your graphics driver to do nearest neighbour scaling? I know AMD's drivers can do that and I'm pretty sure Nvidia's can, too.