Ignore Palette writes -> more speed (@devs!!!)

[amigamul8r]

Hi!

A user at the DCEmu Board posted that he gets more speed by turning on Ignore Palette Writes in the hack and debug menu.

I tested it and it is really fast - i think nearly realtime!!! But there are some color effects missing (gradient sky-color).

@the dev's:
Isn't it possible to optimize this part? It seems to have a great influence on the speed.
One idea: Wouldn't it be possible to ignore some palette writes in order to get some kind of "scan lines"? (Something like a "frameskip for palette writes"). Since it is often used for gradient skies there would not be a real problem if the gradient is not perfect. Do you know what i mean?

Greetings

Tobi

[laxer3a]

Hi

Done it already... Thats the whole point about "ignore palette write" mode :-)
When you ignore the color we can draw a bunch of lines at the same time.

But ignoring RANDOMLY the write would seems to be quite silly to me...
So : or you accept ALL or NONE. (or setup a value : support 24 changes per frame max ?)

We also optimized the "same value" setup...
In FF6 for example, it setup the color at EACH LINE. But actually the color really changes only every n line.
This has been optimized.

[amigamul8r]

Hi!
Thanks for reply. I was sure you already had a solution

I realised that there is a really big speed up when then palette writes are off. And i got the idea to find a solution with a compromise between both: "nice sky-gradients" and speed. I thought something like: allow the 1st palette write, ignore the 2nd (and keep the previous color), allow the 3rd, ignore the 4th(keep color).

I tried the game super turrican 2. The speed ist good but a black sky at the desert at day!?

You are the coder and you (the whole team of snes9x TYL) do really a great work. I like programming, too. I wrote TobiDrummer on the GP32 some time ago. It was ok, but its a joke compared to what you do with snes and emulation at all. But i have an idea what is possible to do in coding and what problems can appear...

Keep up the great work.

Greetings

Tobi