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+--- Thread: Texture Dumping Enhancement (/Thread-texture-dumping-enhancement)
Texture Dumping Enhancement - Dilapidated - 01-05-2019
With the recent advancement of AI up-scaling techniques I figured I'd try to enhance some games from my childhood. I was successful in making dumps and re-textures with various Wii and GC games but I discovered the current texture dump method doesn't work so well with SNES/Genesis virtual console games. My hope was that Dolphin would dump all the sprites from these games so I could enhance them but what it appears to be dumping is regular screenshots of my gameplay. SNES dumped textures also have strange color pallette issues (attempted this with Super Mario RPG and Super Mario World: Screens below) Genesis seems to show the correct color however.
https://imgur.com/a/M3d3Uz8
With that said I would love to know if texture dumping could be extended to work with virtual console SNES/Genesis style games. If not is it even feasible to make a new feature that will allow for dumping the sprites, enhance them, and reinsert? I see there's been some study on this and some emulators for NES and Gameboy have it: http://emulation.gametechwiki.com/index.php/Texture_Packs
I would really love to upscale and enhance Super Mario RPG so I hope this is a feasible idea and something that could be made possible.
RE: Texture Dumping Enhancement - JosJuice - 01-05-2019
I'm guessing the Virtual Console emulators do the rendering in software, in case there isn't much we can do to improve texture dumping. You're better off using emulators that are specifically for those systems if you want to enhance the sprites.
RE: Texture Dumping Enhancement - Dilapidated - 01-05-2019
(01-05-2019, 06:32 AM)JosJuice Wrote: I'm guessing the Virtual Console emulators do the rendering in software, in case there isn't much we can do to improve texture dumping. You're better off using emulators that are specifically for those systems if you want to enhance the sprites.
Thank you for the quick response. That would make sense if it's being rendered via software, if only there was a work around.
As for the using other emulators sadly none for these allow for texture replacement like Dolphin does. I've used plenty of emulators with filters and shaders like xbrz and scalefx etc and while they do give amazing results it could be so much better with a direct spirte/texture replacement letting us upscale these individually without hard limits.
RE: Texture Dumping Enhancement - Invader - 01-05-2019
(01-05-2019, 06:49 AM)Dilapidated Wrote: Thank you for the quick response. That would make sense if it's being rendered via software, if only there was a work around.
As for the using other emulators sadly none for these allow for texture replacement like Dolphin does. I've used plenty of emulators with filters and shaders like xbrz and scalefx etc and while they do give amazing results it could be so much better with a direct spirte/texture replacement letting us upscale these individually without hard limits.
Mesen supports sprite replacement for NES games if you're interested: https://youtu.be/HAom8dBJ9Vg
RE: Texture Dumping Enhancement - Dilapidated - 01-05-2019
(01-05-2019, 12:20 PM)Invader Wrote: Mesen supports sprite replacement for NES games if your interested: https://youtu.be/HAom8dBJ9Vg
Good suggestion, Mesen is amazing for NES. I've played it with some hd packs and was very happy. It was actually what made me want this for SNES to be honest.
Because dolphin already has texture pack dumping/loading built in I was hopeful to utilize it via the virtual console. Hopefully someone familiar with the code can see if its feasible and if not perhaps there's a way to force this to be dumped some other way? Maybe via new method and optional 'Dump Sprites' / 'Load Sprites' box in options. I know its wishful thinking but perhaps it's not too far fetched?
RE: Texture Dumping Enhancement - Dilapidated - 01-08-2019
Just wanted to give an update for those who may also be interested in this. I'm unsure if this feature can be done properly via dolphin since its apparently emulated via software so I took JosJuice's suggestion and reached out to the snes9x team. You can find it here: https://github.com/snes9xgit/snes9x/issues/474