GlideHQ - texture enhancements module for Glide64

[Gonetz]

Hello everybody,

I am glad to introduce you new Glide64-related project – GlideHQ.
This project dedicated to bring you, Glide64 users, various advanced texture enhancements. The author of GlideHQ is famous Hiroshi ‘KoolSmoky’ Morii, well known as an author of 3dfx drivers and tools. I also must thank Rice for his indirect help – most of texture enhancement algorithms were taken from RiceVideo sources.

GlideHQ is a separate optional module. That is, Glide64 can work without it, if you don’t need texture enhancements. GlideHQ can apply various filters (smooth, sharp), enhancements (X2SAI, HQ4X etc) and compressions to input texture. Resulted texture is used instead of the original one.

To install and test GlideHQ, download GideHQ distributive and unpack it into Plugin folder. In Glide64 configuration dialog, open “Texture enhancement” tab and select options you like.

Wrapper users must download latest version from this thread:
http://www.emuxhaven.net/forums/show...t=6123&page=92
to use texture compression, since old wrapper versions do not support compressed textures.

Current version is a prototype, based on Glide64 “WonderPlus”. That is, for end-users this is Glide64 “WonderPlus” with texture enhancements. Since it is a prototype, it can be buggy, slow, inconvenient and so on. Thus, we need your feedback to make it better.

Our next goal is to add hi-res textures packs support. It is almost done, and will be released soon. Check this thread often

Download files from KoolSmoky post below.

Gonetz.

[mudlord]

In the GlideHQ module, I noticed some superfluous code, that really shouldn't be in TextureFilters.cpp, due to its non-usage atm. Just wondering, since some code in there is specific to Rice Video, like the hi res texture loading code, etc....Other than that, the library looks quite nice. Though, I can imagine hi-res tex loading being a pain, since theres the issues of image file format, how the texture CRCs are calculated etc....

[gab]

super excellent news!!!

i will test it ! yeah!

there is a HUGE greats news! Thanks Gonetz & Koolsmoky

PS1: Koolsmoky also release a new glide3x & driver for Voodoo 2 and 4&5!!!
link: www.3dfxzone.it/news/puntatore.php?uid=5280

PPS: have a look at this nice Texture Pack support retrospective written by Jabo
Part I: http://www.pj64-emu.com/blog/2007/3/...11-part-i.html
Part II: http://www.pj64-emu.com/blog/2007/4/...-ii-fight.html

in Jabo video (1.7) 32-bit RGBA PNG files are supported … as well as the preferred format of DXT compressed textures since they are significantly smaller and load fast....

well, we will continue with this

THANKS

[koolsmoky]

Hi guys,

Hope you enjoy the new filtering module that Gonetz and I have been working on. I really appreciate Gonetz for making this happen in his busy time. Please bear with us as we had sparse time to get everything in working order. The source code is there for you to play with. I know the coding is not on par after so much late night caffeine boosts. So if you have suggestions or modifications, please feel free to post them. Yes, I'm relying on you, mudlord.

I must also thank a great friend of mine, Daniel Borca, for providing the texture compression sources, Rice, Maxim Stepin (hq2x, hq4x), and Derek Liauw Kie Fa (2xSaI) for the filtering sources. The filtering code in GlideHQ is a modified version largely based on Rice's.

And yes, there is a new Glide3x avialable. Thanks for the tip, gab.

Edit: As suggested I've included all the files needed in GideHQ_bin_02.zip. Just unzip it to the Plugin folder and you are set to go.

Edit: Posting GideHQ_bin_03.zip and GideHQ_src_03.zip. Unzip GideHQ_bin_03.zip to the Plugin folder and you are set to go. I've added memory cache to cache filtered textures. Once a texture is filtered it will stay in the cache and be used until you exit emulation. For now only memory cache. In the Glide64 configuration dialog, open “Texture enhancement” and tick "Cache texture to system memory".

Edit: Posting GlideHQ_bin_04.zip and GlideHQ_src_04.zip. I've restricted memory cache to 128Mbytes. It will grow till it reaches 128mb and swap out old texture cache. The memory cache will be dumped to disk when you stop emulation and loaded when started. A "*.dat" file will be created for each game under .\Plugin\cache\. For now they will be saved uncompressed.

Thanks for all the feedbacks. Please keep them coming in.

Cheers,
KoolSmoky

[mudlord]

in Jabo video (1.7) 32-bit RGBA PNG files are supported … as well as the preferred format of DXT compressed textures since they are significantly smaller and load fast....

well, we will continue with this

That is the simplest approach. He also uses MD5, to make texture identification super easy and simple. Trick is tho, how to calculate them?

[Federelli]

Feel free to try out my Zelda retexture mod found at Emutalk.net, i hope it's supported.

[Legend]

This is very exciting news and I'm very happy there's so much activity around Glide64 as of late. A couple notes:

1. Koolsmokey, you might want to include all the files in your bin as others, like me, might see that's yours is an update, download just that and obviously be confused when it does'nt work.

2. When comparing screenshots of Yoshi Story and with the option "Apply only to sprites" checked, I saw no difference between NO Filter and HQ4X with Smoothing4. I mean Yoshi IS a sprite right? I then unchecked "Apply to sprites" and Yoshi's edges got really smoothed out. So maybe this option isn't working properly?

3. Tracking bug: I'm assuming the Tooltips are simply placeholders and that's why to contain wrong info.

4. How are these "Texture enhancement filters" different than the filters in the wrapper config. Are the filters in the wrapper config. simply screen filters and the HQ filters the actual textures themselves or something? If so, are the filters in the wrapper config. going to be removed cause as it stands now, there are 3 places for Filtering options, that's gonna be confusing.

5. Speaking of, how is this going to work with the "Filtering mode" option in the main Glide64 config window? What if that's set to Bilinear and then HQ4X is on?

6. Well, I believe that the wrapper still has some speed issues AND stuttering issues (albeit minor ones). The "stutters" are indeed amplified when using filters. You see it in the MarioKart menus or when accessing the MarioParty2 main menu. There are stutters everywhere. Again, the wrapper already does a slight stutter at certain spots but when a filter is applied, these become longer in duration.

Also, the "slowdowns" are identical between the HQ "enhancement" filters and the wrapper's filters - I don't notice a speed difference. A good example is a speed drop is a mini game in Mario Party 2. It's fullspeed with no filtering but apply a "texture enhancement" or a wrapper filter and see how slow it actually gets. I attached PJ savestate right at that minigame. Throw this in your saves, boot MP2(U) and press F7 and compare what the filters do to this mini game.

Note: The Smoothing and Sharpening filters cause no slowdowns, so that's nice.

But maybe when compression is supported in the wrapper, we'll see less stutters and slowdown issues. Fingers crossed. I'm sure the bottleneck is the wrapper but I think that these filters simply make these speed problems more noticable and show how evident they are in the first place, just how FB effects show that the wrapper can't quite compete with the likes of Jabo's FB effects in the speed department.

7. I'm really looking foward to Highres. pack loading, that's gonna be a fun night when that comes out. Keep up the great work everybody!!

[Legend]

Originally Posted by Federelli

Feel free to try out my Zelda retexture mod found at Emutalk.net, i hope it's supported.

Only when the time comes that texture pack loading is supported.