PSX4ALL Screenshots and videos

Strapping Scherzo · Post by **Strapping Scherzo** » Wed May 10, 2006 2:49 pm

Hawq wrote:not for fist of the north star though

Ha! Fist of the Northstar for Playstation is pretty good, don't you think? I was surprised. I always shudder when I think about the NES version. "You was shocked!!!"

Gav-X · Post by **Gav-X** » Wed May 10, 2006 3:33 pm

I wish either this emulator or PCSXBOX included support for ATI's TruForm (which would look great on very low poly games like Silent Hill) and HQ2X texture filtering. No complaints with the current versions though, they already look amazing.

Ex-Cyber · Post by **Ex-Cyber** » Wed May 10, 2006 3:48 pm

Gav-X wrote:I wish either this emulator or PCSXBOX included support for ATI's TruForm

How do you expect that to happen on platforms that have nothing to do with ATI?

edit: actually now that I think about it some more, I don't think it would be feasible at all to do this in a generic way on PSX.

Sonic-NKT · Post by **Sonic-NKT** » Thu May 11, 2006 5:02 am

every graphicard can do trueform with the right software, ati cards have special hardware for it.

Ex-Cyber · Post by **Ex-Cyber** » Thu May 11, 2006 7:42 am

I realize that the basic technique could be applied elsewhere, I was just trying to point out that ATI is the only company that supports the actual TruForm construct. The problem with doing this on PCSXDC/PSX4ALL is twofold:

1) PVR2 doesn't have anything that could really accelerate it (i.e. programmable transformation engine)

2) The TruForm technique requires 3D data, which doesn't get sent to the PSX GPU. To the extent that this data exists in the game, it's not necessarily in any standard format or location for an emulator to snoop. Game-specific analysis should be possible, but I'm not holding my breath waiting for PSX programming experts to volunteer their time for this.

Hawq · Post by **Hawq** » Thu May 11, 2006 12:53 pm

Strapping Scherzo wrote:
Hawq wrote:not for fist of the north star though
Ha! Fist of the Northstar for Playstation is pretty good, don't you think? I was surprised. I always shudder when I think about the NES version. "You was shocked!!!"

Indeed, it surprised me when I got it the other month, having only tried the megadrive, snes, nes & master system versions I wasnt too hopefull for the psx one but it turned out great. Having said that those other versions werent too bad either, though avoid the last battle version on the megadrive though no exploding enemies they just fly off the screen.

Gav-X · Post by **Gav-X** » Fri May 12, 2006 7:32 am

n-patches (or TruForm) is no longer a hardware-based method as it was very seldom supported. It's now a software-based method and as such could be ported. I know nothing about the inner workings of it , but from my (extremely limited, I'll admit) knowledge it doesn't need 3D data, it just works on the triangles (vertices) generated by the 3D graphics card on your computer, so it doesn't really depend on how the PSX hardware generates its data, only on how the 3D hardware in the emulator machine displays it. I think the actual problem would be to actually make the PVR2 use it. In any case, it was just wishful thinking, and like I already said a couple of posts above, the XBOX and Dreamcast emulators are already very impressive.

Anandtech article on TruForm.

Ex-Cyber · Post by **Ex-Cyber** » Fri May 12, 2006 9:34 am

I'm not a DirectX expert myself, but leaving aside the issue of 2D vs. 3D vertices, ATI's developer FAQ clearly says that normals have to be sent to the API for TruForm to work (which makes sense).

Gav-X · Post by **Gav-X** » Fri May 12, 2006 1:04 pm

Why would that pose a problem on either the XBOX's or Dreamcast's API and GPU?

Ex-Cyber · Post by **Ex-Cyber** » Fri May 12, 2006 1:10 pm

That's not the issue. The issue is that PSX code isn't going to give you normals to send.

Post by **Christuserloeser** » Fri May 12, 2006 8:27 pm

Strapping Scherzo wrote:When I watched that Ridge Racer video I could practically count the number of frames per second. It didn't seem like 13 fps at all. That's just my observation.

Hm, that's your opinion. I strongly recommend everyone to see the video. I was very impressed!

Gav-X · Post by **Gav-X** » Fri May 12, 2006 10:36 pm

Ex-Cyber wrote:That's not the issue. The issue is that PSX code isn't going to give you normals to send.

I think I understand you now and I'm sorry if I come across as too ignorant, but this:

Code: Select all

It works like this. When a triangle is passed to the graphics chip to be rendered, it sends six "pieces" of information. It sends the vertices of the triangle (3 of them to make the triangle) and the normals at these vertices (3 of them, one for each vertex). Using this information, all graphics cards in use now create the triangle (connect the dots) and use the information stored at the normals to shade and light the triangle (the normals indicate how light should reflect off the triangle). TRUFORM uses a different approach.

Once the triangle information is passed to the processor (including the vertex and normal information), TRUFORM begins to work by creating N-Patches to form an N-Patch mesh.

Makes me think you're wrong. Since the PSX uses polygons, it must send that info to its graphics chipset. Since emulators have to emulate the graphics chipset in some way, it receives the triangle information and can use TruForm as well, right?