New GlideHQ - Now with hi-resolution texture pack support!

[Gonetz]

Hello everybody,

The second major version of GlideHQ, the texture enhancements module for Glide64, is ready for public release. Project description, taken from GlideHQ readme file by KoolSmoky:
"This is a realtime texture enhancer library with hi-resolution texture
pack support for Glide64 (http://glide64.emuxhaven.net). Traditional and
non-traditional techniques have been used to achieve speed and high image
quality even on a 9 year old 3Dfx Voodoo2.
Although the 3Dfx Glide3x texture format naming conventions are used, the
library can be expanded for generic use.
Supported:
Enhancers: Hq4x, Hq2x, Lq2x, Super2xSai, x2
Filters: Smooth (1,2,3,4), Sharp (1,2)
Compressors: FXT1, S3TC
Input formats: GR_TEXFMT_ALPHA_8,
GR_TEXFMT_RGB_565,
GR_TEXFMT_ARGB_1555,
GR_TEXFMT_ARGB_4444,
GR_TEXFMT_ARGB_8888,
GR_TEXFMT_ALPHA_INTENSITY_44,
GR_TEXFMT_ALPHA_INTENSITY_88
Output formats: Same as input unless compression or hires packs are used.
Hires texture packs: Rice format (Jabo and GlideHQ format coming later)
Acknowledgments:
I hope you enjoy GlideHQ (texture enhancer library for Glide64). Greatest
thanks to Gonetz for making this happen in his busy time. We've rushed
everything to share the eye-candy with all of you N64 emulation fans. I
would also like to thank a great friend of mine, Daniel Borca for providing
the texture compression code, Maxim Stepin (hq2x 4x), and Derek Liauw Kie Fa
(2xSaI) for the filtering engines, and Rice for his N64 graphics plugin
source code. GlideHQ also uses the boost C++ libraries, zlib general purpose
compression library, and the Portable Network Graphics library. Thanks to
all the developers for making them available.
The source code for GlideHQ is released in hopes that it will be improved.
I know the coding is not on par after so much late night caffeine boosts.
If you have suggestions or modifications, please feel free to post them on
the Glide64 forum at emuxhaven.
...
-KoolSmoky"

To install and test GlideHQ:
1. If you used previous version of GlideHQ, remove all its files and texture caches.
2. Download GideHQ distributive (GlideHQ_bin.zip ) and unpack it I somewhere.
3. Run included gltest.exe ((c) mudlord) to learn about capabilities of your video card.
3. Copy contents of Plugin folder into Plugin folder of your N64 emulator.
4. For OpenGL, copy glide3x.dll from Wrapper folder into your emulator's folder. This is important, because older version of the wrapper do not support texture compression.
5. Run your emulator, select 'Glide64 Wonder Plus HQ' as your video plugin
6. In Glide64 configuration dialog, open "Texture enhancement" tab and select options you like. If you are not sure, which option to use, press presets buttons below. Presets do not affect your choices for texture filtering and enhancement, so pick them manually, according to your preference. If you want to use hires textures (I'm sure you want), select "Rice format" as format.
7. GlideHQ has the same requirements for hires packs, as Rice Video. If you already used hires packs with Rice Video, you know what to do. If not, there are tutorials for you:
http://www.emutalk.net/showthread.php?t=29577
http://www.emutalk.net/showthread.php?t=26329
http://www.freewebs.com/jantarctica/texturepacks.htm
8. Run your game and enjoy.

Note: 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.


Update 1: Fixed CRC calculation for 4bit textures.
Update 2. This update is a major one. Changes:
- Fixed a lot of problems with texture CRC calculation. Now most of hires textures are loaded.
- Instant load from saved texture cache. You have to wait while hires textures are loaded only on the first run. Game will be loaded in a blink on subsequent runs.
- Various fixes in texture coordinates calculations.
- Various attempts to increase plugin’s stability. Not all problems are fixed here. Plugin may crash on exit if texture cache is not saved yet (on the first run of a game). Temporal workaround:
On the first run, close game/emulator right after all hires textures are loaded and the game is started to run. Texture cache will be saved, and you should not have problems on subsequent runs.
Two new options:
Texture enhancement – Ignore backgrounds. It is used to skip enhancement for wide narrow textures, usually used for backgrounds. This may save texture memory greatly and increase performance. Default value: On.
Hi-resolution textures – Alternative CRC calculation. This option enables emulation of palette CRC calculation bug in RiceVideo. Default value: On.
Update 3.
- Fixed crash in Zelda OOT
- Fixed an issue with alpha channel of hires textures, which become apparent as a black boarder around texture. Added new option, related to this issue:
Use alpha channel fully. When this option is off, 16bit rgba textures will be loaded using RiceVideo style – with 1bit for alpha channel. When it is on, GlideHQ will check, how alpha channel is used by the hires texture, and select most appropriate format for it. This gives texture designers freedom to play with alpha, as they need, regardless of format of original N64 texture. For older and badly designed texture packs it can cause unwanted black boarders. Default value: Off.
Update 4.
- Fixed many problems with texture/palette CRC calculation. Almost all hires textures are loaded now.
Note: GlideHQ does not support textures in jpeg format. If your hires pack has textures in jpeg, you must convert them all to png.
- Fixed texrects alignment issue.
Note: There is an issue with texrects size in Mario Kart, which causes black lines in many menu textures. Thus, I use old texrects size calculation method for this game, which causes fewer artifacts.
Update 4b.
- quick fix for Diddy Kong Racing pause menu.
Update 5.
- Fixed various issues with enhanced textures
- Fixed text issues with hires pack for Zelda MM
WARNING: format of texture cache is changed. You must remove all files in pligin\cache folder before use of this version.
Update 5b.
- MarioKart works the same, as with Update 4.
Update 5c.
- Fixed backgrounds in Zelda OOT in texture enhancement mode.
Update 6
- Various fixes.
Update 7
- Optimizations in asm code (KoolSmoky)
- AMD 3DNow support (KoolSmoky)
Update 7b
- fixes in SSE and 3dNow code (KoolSmoky)
Update 8
This update contains few major changes and a lot of minor ones made by KoolSmoky.
Glitch64: arbitrary resolutions support, including wide screen resolutions. The first version was already released here: http://www.emuxhaven.net/forums/showthread.php?t=6824. In this version several bugs were fixed.
GlideHQ: Added texture dumping. This is on alpha stage yet; many textures are dumped incorrectly. It will be fixed lately. Also, added support for multi core processors – texture compression now can use all power of your CPU.
Glide64: Textures dumping option added to the user interface.
I have no time to add required modification to Glide64 ‘Napalm’, so new Glitch64 and GlideHQ features are available for this version of Glide64 only.
Update 9
New set of fixes by KoolSmoky
Glitch64: fixed status bar issue with 1964 in full screen mode
GlideHQ: More muli-core utilization with GlideHQ. The x2Sai, Smooth, etc enhancers and filters, color quantizers have been modified, so realtime texture enhancements and filters are faster on a multi-core CPU.
Update 10
New set of modifications by KoolSmoky
Glide64: Fixed hi-res control panel presets.
GlideHQ. Fixes: Fixed texture dumping. Restrict texture compression to kick in only for realtime enhancers and hi-res texture packs. Paving way to support Linux.
Changes: string in config panel. "Texture dump" -> "Texture editing mode"
Addtions: hotkeys when in "Texture editing mode", "R" reloads hires textures from texture packs, "D" toggles texture dumps on/off.
Update 11
New set of modifications by KoolSmoky
Glide64: Fixes texture dumps for textures that are split internally in Glide64.
GlideHQ: Refactor rice hires texture loading routines. Added "Test" to perform standalone tests with the GlideHQ module. The Linux build also seems to work OK.

[mudlord]

Nice release, thanks!

Also Gonetz, my updated tester is here

[Gonetz]

Thanks, Brad! It looks cool

[mudlord]

No problem! I did a fair amount of Photoshop CS2 work doing just the graphics.I'm glad it all paid off in the end. It was also quite a learning experience with graphics design, too

The sound system is a custom modification of MiniFMOD, with reverb based off the Freeverb sources, as well as the song loading routines done with custom NASM based assembler to load directly from memory. It was fun recoding the app as it allowed me to refine the original design a lot as well as adding a lot extra functionality. It was a good 3 days work, I think.

[Benjamin Siskoo]

Typo's problem with some tooltips.
In Special fixes (Config) :
- Wrap textures too big for TMEM : recommended (reccomended)
- Zelda : corona fix : recommended (reccomended)
In Frame buffer emulation (Config) :
- Motion blur : recommended (reccomended)
- Hardware frame buffer emulation : recommended (reccomended)
- Read every frame (slow) : recommended (reccomended)
In depth buffer emulation (Config) :
- Depth buffer render : recommended (reccomended)
In other (Config) :
- Custom ini settings : recommended (reccomended)
- Hotkeys : recommended (reccomended)
In speed (on screen info) :
- FPS transparent : recommended (reccomended)
In Time (on screen info) :
- Clock enabled : recommended (reccomended)

There is no tooltips on :
- LOD calculation.
- Texture filter.
- Texture enhancement.
- Texture compression.
- Apply enhancement to sprites only.
- Cache textures to system memory.

[mudlord]

Those typos are very easy to fix. All it is is some nice and simple GUI programming. (You gave me a idea for my tester app, which I haven't thought of before )

I checked out the code, and so far it looks really nice. I gotta compliment Koolsmoky for all the nice comments in GlideHQ's sources. They made it a pleasure to read . Maybe I should do the same for Glitch64 in some spots.

My only niggling issue is lack of JPG support. But I guess that I can take support of it out of Rice Video, since Glide64HQ uses the same tex format. Also, I might take a look in weeding out _rgb.bmp support, since PNG is a more than adequate replacement. And plus, it helps to keep the format standard among plugins. Although, all Jabo's format is, is just plain RGBA PNGs with a MD5 thrown on the top, while being packaged in ZIPs....Yeah, to support Jabo's pack format, archive reading might need to be implemented, since textures in Jabo's plugin are all done via ZIP loading, with a XML file for identification of the individual pack (MD5's, of course, are imprinted in the filename of the PNG, like Rice's custom format).

[Gonetz]

Please do not forget that this is the old good Glide64 Wonder Plus.
It is used as a prototype for GlideHQ testing, not as a new version of Glide64.
Tooltips, JPG support, bugfixes etc will be in the new version of the plugin.

[Gonetz]

Ok, the problem with 1964 and 1080 Snowboarding confirmed.