Oh, I came by for a brief moment before my major IT exams today, and I see this....:angry:
Okay....from the top:
Skies are fun, but booting games and loading graphics that other plugins don't is even funner. So while you're busy attracting attention over real plugin news, just keep in mind that Rice's already loads the sky for like everything once configured properly.
There's more to emulation than just the sky, unless you're just trying to hypnotize/**** everyone here with some ad that the other plugins don't show off. While Jabo's busy privately fixing things like the MK64 tunnel header, you're busy making even more public notices about things like the sky taking away end user sight from all the other issues in the other games. "Woo, GL is unplayable, but just look at the sky in PD!"
Part of emulation is
discovering new things. You might not be aware, but that sky is a microcode issue. Gonetz has made a important discovery here, no matter how small. Its actions like his that should be applauded, and not debated over. You are not thinking of the ramifications of this. AFAIK, Gonetz has been kind in giving out the code. With this, other authors can improve thier plugins too, since they can see how things work and make thier own solutions to thier own plugin's problems.
This IS a big achievement, albeit a small thing. How many times have people asked about the sky in those 2 games? Now we have a plugin that does the sky perfect and with perfect speed AND emulates the rest of the game perfect as well. I don't know, I think this is neat and I'm just glad that N64 emulation is still so active!
As far as I've heard, Rice's still does'nt do the sky completely accurately, but I may be wrong. And not even Jabo has accomplished this feat yet. Ziggy's done a good job with this but obviously the game is slow with the LLE plugin.
Indeed, any discovery, no matter how small, is important. This issue has been a major issue in the past, and I am very happy it has been put to bed how it exactly works. I'm sure other plugin authors might feel the same way, so Gonetz deserves a hell of a lot of kudos for his discoveries in N64 HLE emulation.
You seem to consider things like, "higher texture quality", and, more frame buffer emulation, blue skies, and not even look at playability, except when you consider quality and playability the same thing, and the other missing textures and slower speeds in say Banjo-Tooie and Gauntlet Legends. You want to see the jigsaw effect in Jiggywiggy's challenges done perfectly? Use glN64, not Glide64, and you see HWFBE done at 60 VI/s, jigsaw pieces textured perfectly. Every other plugin fails at this area of the game. And Gauntlet Legends? Where's the GUI, huh? Talk about "Playable" for those two games, that compat list, and I can list more games with issues with Glide64 not occuring in Rice's or Jabo's, but I won't in this thread. You should've replied to me in private.
Isnt emulation accuracy a part of playability? I do not want to side with the MAME crowd here too much, but accuracy is a important part of playability. Generally, the more accurate emulation is, the better the gameplay experience, and the more playable the game is. However, sometimes accuracy comes at a cost and sometimes its not true that accuracy in all cases = slow execution speed.
Case in point: Kega Fusion.
thats all I'm gonna say.
Ciao.