Bilenear Filtering off Vs. Y's SNES emulator

[isotropy]

Hey all,

I finally got some time to spend with the latest release of Yoyo's SNES emulator. It's absolutely fantastic! There's only one thing that's nagging me that I liked better in y's emulator...

It seems like Yoyo and Y are using different interpolation methods for creating 4X3full non smoothed.

In Y's emulator, I always would play in 4:3 mode, with no smoothing. It looked nice and crisp, but in Yoyo's emulator, with smoothing off, everything looks really pixelated and chunky. I'm guessing that Yoyo is using a different method of interpolation than Y is. I find that turning on Smoothing makes the image way too soft, and I'd rather have the crispness/sharpness of the non smoothed mode.

Would Yoyo be able to look at Y's code and make another interpolation method that more matches Y's 4:3 method?

Thanks!

Any input would be appreciated

[laxer3a]

Hi,

We never took a look to the Y code for the rendering.

Anyway our emu is using the hardware bilinear filtering from the PSP, so it is most likely to do not change (else it would cost a lot of useless power to do the filtering by the CPU).

Also, the PSP bilinear is likely the most accurate in hardware for the cost/performance (I will not go into the technical details of the theory of sampling here) compare to the filter used in Y emu.

Of course there is more accurate filter like S-Spline, Lanczos and so on... But they are VERY expensive in software (not really for real time, but it could be possible with some tuning).

Also don't even try bilinear off, it is just plain dirty I think.

But I noticed on the forum other people saying the same thing.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilinear_filtering

Anyway thanks for passing by,
Laxer3A

[isotropy]

Hi laxer3a,

I agree with what you're saying about the filtering methods. I totally agree that Bilinear is the only way to go for a smoothing effect, since it's hardware accelerated. There's no way that you'd want to try doing anything else in software, since it would be just too slow.

What I'm looking for though is a mode that is unfiltered. Personally, I don't really like the smoothing effect of Y's or your emulator... I find them too soft, and like the more raw look of double sized pixels. (It's just my personal preference, some may say I'm nuts

The issue I have is that there seems to be a difference between the way that Y's and your emulator is handling the unsmoothed 4:3 mode. Try running both emulators with a game in unsmoothed mode, and the difference is very visible. Y's has a better method of handling this, and persoanlly, I think it's worth a look to see if it's possible to port whatever he's doing into your emulator.

Dont' get me wrong, I think your emulator is great, and is the best thing out there. I'll continue to use it even if this doesn't get in there I'd just like to see one of the nice features I like in Y's emulator in yours so I can dump Y's SNES off my memory stick forever

Thanks again!

[yoyofr]

hey, we never said Y's work is totally useless
I personnaly think he's doing great things, it's just to bad he doesn't want to be part of a team...
but we have to respect his decision

anyway, I've had a look at the latest available sourcecode, that means uo_snes9x pd by andon, based on uo_snes9x y28. some optimizations can be imported in snes9xTYL, and the 4:3 mode without smoothing seems simple to adapt. It's part of the pg lib (primitive graphics lib)..
So I guess we'll add all of this in next release!

[isotropy]

That's fantastic! Thanks a bunch guys! I really appreciate all the work that everyone is putting into this emulator. I look forward to your next release!

[laxer3a]

Hi everybody,

Yoyo, are you sure you really want to do this ?
I mean you will have to stretch the screen buffer like 60 frame per second using the main CPU, sounds to me like a big waste of ressources...

Well, we can add it to the emu but then, more setup options (No Filter PSP, Bilinear PSP, xxxx Software Filter)

Personnally, as you want. I respect your decision.
More options means more flexibility and more people happy.

Well I agree also that if people put a software filter and say after that it is going slower... After all, it is their OWN choice of setup

But I would be pretty pissed off by people everywhere around saying that our emu is crap and slow like hell when it is a problem with their OWN SETUP. :-)

Time to go to work...

Laxer3A

[paulmolive]

SWEET. I see the difference too iso. If you could do this yoyofr, I would be very happy.