NBA Hangtime propably fixed :)

[Iconoclast]

my opinion about your little "plugin-debate" is, that NO plugin which is out there can emulate everything perfect, so we have to choose the plugin, which works best for the games we play. in my case for example, i have to use the rice video plugin for nba hangtime and jabos direct3d for super smash brothers and super mario 64 /mario kart 64. also i have sometimes to switch between the audio plugins.

Well, I think we can all agree that there isn't a perfect graphics plugin. I don't think anyone was disagreeing with that.

The best graphics plugin for Super Smash Bros. is glN64.

For Super Mario 64, it's Glide64 I think. Direct64 puts up a good fight, but the screen's a little too fizzy and the star indicator images look slightly more crusty. At least for now; some plugin changes are being made to support the dissolve effect. If Rice's already supported it and didn't have that one sky texture issue, then it would be slightly better than Glide here, due to the way it processes the star and coin bitmaps.

The best plugin for Mario Kart 64 is I think Jabo's Direct3D 1.7, but damn Rice's Video Plugin sure comes in close. It fixes the glitchy bitmaps and how large images like the press start screen background are normally 'blinded' (the other kind), but the one screw-up is the race results screen, and it doesn't emulate the tunnel overhead in Luigi's Raceway and Wario's Stadium like Jabo's. Still, the textures do all look better in Rice's, so I think Jabo's should start collecting some of Rice's features to be perfect with these games.

 

[Gonetz]

Iconoclast, I've read your posts and was VERY surprised. You are not a novice here, but it looks like you absolutely don’t understand, what are you talking about. It seems that you just compared user interface of all plugins and collected different options to the list. Most of ‘unique’ plugin’s features you mentioned are present in other plugins, but either called differently or hidden from end-user. Many ‘features’ are just hacks, added by plugin’s author because he did not know how to make thing right. You will be surprised, but SSE is used by all top video plugins, Logging graphics commands for debugging purposes is the first thing every developers do, Rendering to texture is another name for Self-rendered textures and so on.
Your explanation of frame buffer emulation – it’s something! “the N64 did not do frame buffer effects. Frame buffer drawing is a DirectX and OpenGL feature.” You open my eyes!

As for NBA Hangtime itself – the game is mystery. I have no idea, why it so much faster with Voodoo5. Glide64 has no special fixes for this game.

 

[dada123]

because voodoo cards were the best

 

[Gonetz]

Hardly. As Legend said, it's very slow with Voodoo2.

 

[Iconoclast]

Iconoclast, I've read your posts and was VERY surprised. You are not a novice here, but it looks like you absolutely don’t understand, what are you talking about. It seems that you just compared user interface of all plugins and collected different options to the list. Most of ‘unique’ plugin’s features you mentioned are present in other plugins, but either called differently or hidden from end-user. Many ‘features’ are just hacks, added by plugin’s author because he did not know how to make thing right. You will be surprised, but SSE is used by all top video plugins, Logging graphics commands for debugging purposes is the first thing every developers do, Rendering to texture is another name for Self-rendered textures and so on.

Right...well, SSE was indeed an assumption, and an experimental setting such as logging graphics commands, maybe I missed an instance of this in other plugins, but as far as I can tell, a good deal of those settings aren't in any other plugin. I'll bet you're thinking also of Normal Blender and Combiner, too, when I mentioned those: They're in Jabo's Direct3D 6 as well. Well, not all games will work with Jabo's Direct3D 6, so that's why it's important that other plugins could have these features. The reason I conjured a list of Rice's unique features was to give Legend a different point of view.

Just because I overexaggurated a little does not outstand my point. Look the other features in the face and ask yourself if they're in any other plugin; the list of such features remaining is quite reasonable in my opinion.

Your explanation of frame buffer emulation – it’s something! “the N64 did not do frame buffer effects. Frame buffer drawing is a DirectX and OpenGL feature.” You open my eyes!

Is that an objection or not? I'm no plugin programmer, but the point was, though it may be other things, it certainly isn't something the actual N64 does. I read this from Project64's user manual, that the N64 had its own functions for processing the use of a screen as a texture, but I didn't have to in order to apply common sense. As I said, frame buffer drawings on the N64 would be slower there than on the PC.

 

[squall_leonhart]

Hardly. As Legend said, it's very slow with Voodoo2.

rotflmao, you obviously have no idea about Voodoo Cards then LOLZ

the power of a voodoo video card is directly related to the speed of the CPU in the system

the faster the cpu, the faster the voodoo card

why?

because the Voodoo card doesn't have T&L and Vertice rendering. those are supported on the CPU

if you whack a dual core 3gh cpu alongside a voodoo2 ... heh.. watch the cards power flow.

 

[squall_leonhart]

oh btw, Frame Buffer is Frame Buffer, no matter what system its running on, it has nothing to do with Dx or Opengl, or Glide, or Ddraw

its framebuffer effects, no matter what propietry name the rendering solution is called

 

[Gonetz]

Iconoclast
You don’t understand the difference between features and settings.
IMO, only these features are unique:
VRML geometry export (Lemmy's Direct3D) (not useful for emulation, but can be interesting for some people)
High-resolution texture support (RiceVideo and Jabo 1.7)
Software rendering (Jabo 1.7)
Low-level emulation (Jabo 1.7)
Depth buffer software rendering (Direct64 and Glide64)

Everything else are just handles for end-user to choose between speed/quality/compatibility. Different plugins have different handles, it’s normal.
Perfect (ideal) video plugin would have none of them – all settings should be chosen depending on game and user hardware.
For example, if you see Normal Blender in Jabo D3D6, and don’t see it in other plugins, it does not mean that Jabo D3D6 is more advanced. Rather conversely, Jabo’s plugin has an issue, which Jabo can’t fix automatically, so he left you a handle to fix it manually, when you meet it. Other plugins work fine without it (including new Jabo D3D8).
The only criteria of plugin’s advancement are:
image quality – it should have no noticeable glitches
compatibility – number of game and game’s features supported by the plugin
speed

As for your knowledge about frame buffer work – reading of Project64's user manual is not enough to feel yourself a guru. Read something more technical, for example N64 manuals
http://64dev.retroactive.be/allman50/
What did you say here about it is just a funny nonsense.

squall_leonhart, I hope you are just kiddin’. What you said is even more nonsense.

 

[squall_leonhart]

nope, its not nonsense,

i submit Uprising 2 @ full distance lod to prove my point

on a 500mhz cpu, it wasn't possible.

on a 1.8ghz processor i am able to use full graphics settings at 1024x768(SLI)

the faster the CPU, the faster a Voodoo card goes, because of it not having Hardware TnL and Hardware Geometry support ^^

 

[Gonetz]

Speed of every video card depends on CPU. Voodoo just needs a bit more CPU power because of lack of HW TnL. TnL takes not so much CPU time, especially in games, which voodoo can run. As soon as CPU became able to load video card with data on 100%, speed growth stops, because there is a limit of data, which video card can process. For voodoos this limit is quite low. Thus, for voodoo2 SLI there should be little or no difference between 1ghz CPU and your 1.8ghz processor. And of course, dual core 3gh would give nothing for voodoo2. Believe me, I have voodoo2 myself.

 

[squall_leonhart]

sorry, but NO

that contradicts everything that Graphics card designers have worked for.

a Fast Video card is more reliant on system ram then cpu, in most games these days only the AI is processed by the CPU, where the gpu renders all Graphics data.

if you want an example of thatm run the nvidia cascades demo on a Geforce 8800 on vista, and have a program max out both CPU cores while you are running Cascades (or dream scene)

you will find that there is almost a 0% performance hit as all the work is handled by the graphics card.. cpu's are barely handling any portion of 3d rendering these days.

i have 2 voodoo 2's and 2ghz definitely gives alot more grunt to Glide rendering. (it even let me use RGS AA on the voodoo)


anyhow, if your system is CPU Limited, you can fix that by enabling AA and AF and upping the resolution, this will shift it back to being GPU Limited

 

[cooliscool]

Funny.. neither one of you are in any position to question Gonetz.

And I must agree with him. Iconoclast, you're a moron if you believe the crap you're spitting out.

Edit: thanks for that link, Gonetz.. been looking for some good docs on F3DEX.

 

[squall_leonhart]

i can question anyone i god damn like.... got that?

he obviously has no idea about Graphics accelarators... so should stick to his precious glide64

 

[Legend]

Squall, I can say from personal experience, I've migrated my V2's through 3 computers each one better than the last and had no gain. And I saw and (measured) ZERO performance increase in all my PC games using voodoo and all my N64 games using Glide64.

There's no need to get nasty with Gonetz. He is a respected person in the community and contributes alot. Insulting him is not going to get you any fans. We can all be civil and disagree. arty:

 

[cooliscool]

i can question anyone i god damn like.... got that?

he obviously has no idea about Graphics accelarators... so should stick to his precious glide64

Unfortunately there's a huge difference between raising a question with legitimate knowledge and raising a question just because you want to sound like you know what you're talking about.

 

[squall_leonhart]

theres a big different to joining a thread just to be an ass, and joining a thread because you are negating anothers post.. in this case.. your just being an ass.

 

[Iconoclast]

[...]Everything else are just handles for end-user to choose between speed/quality/compatibility. Different plugins have different handles, it’s normal.
Perfect (ideal) video plugin would have none of them – all settings should be chosen depending on game and user hardware.
For example, if you see Normal Blender in Jabo D3D6, and don’t see it in other plugins, it does not mean that Jabo D3D6 is more advanced. Rather conversely, Jabo’s plugin has an issue, which Jabo can’t fix automatically, so he left you a handle to fix it manually, when you meet it. Other plugins work fine without it (including new Jabo D3D8).
The only criteria of plugin’s advancement are:
image quality – it should have no noticeable glitches
compatibility – number of game and game’s features supported by the plugin
speed

As for your knowledge about frame buffer work – reading of Project64's user manual is not enough to feel yourself a guru. Read something more technical, for example N64 manuals
http://64dev.retroactive.be/allman50/
What did you say here about it is just a funny nonsense.

I didn't say Rice's was more advanced because of just one option. I said it's more advanced because it supports games that no other plugin does and likewise fixes such issues using a wider range of INI configuration options. Glide64 obviously has some unique features in turn; I didn't deny that. I'm only saying to Legend, Glide64 is not the best graphics plugin, and no plugin is. They are all unique from each other and fix things the others don't. That's why I gave him a list of unique plugin options/features.

Speed? Quality? Compatibility? Don't you agree that those are all good things to have settings based upon for effect? If the speed is slow, some people will get impatient. Texture quality improvement was only a couple of settings I mentioned there, but some textures have considerably issues with smoothing effects. Compatibility...well, if no plugin had that, where would N64 emulation be at today?

Also, you're missing some criteria. What about polyhedron clipping effects?? Some games have this issue where you can just walk right through objects, which is gfx plugin-related in these instances. So, geometry emulation is a facter, too. And object alpha levels? And proper resolution (Gauntlet Legends screwed in Glide64 plugin there)? And proper depth? And being able to see the damn screen without it flickering or just being black for some reason? And many many other things.

And frame buffer is a form of emulation used to simulate the N64 console's screen-texture copying, right? Well, unless you're trying to say the N64 executes exactly like PC rendering software, the N64 does not do frame buffer drawings; it has its own unique instructions. The N64 doesn't emulate itself. And I'll repeat this same paragraph over and over again until you start telling me why it's wrong, and I'm not losing five hours of my important daily time on reading the site you linked. I have very little free time to spare; post a quote here from it, otherwise, I don't see why you think this is such nonsense without giving a disproof of my conjecture.

I also do not care, simply put, if you think I'm a guru, novice, or some retard who knows nothing about emulation. I'm here to explain a point, and you will either just walk away from it, disproove it, or continue arguing senselessly like this only in futile criticization of everything I say.

Look, I'm in no position to question your programming, but this is English, not C++.

Funny.. neither one of you are in any position to question Gonetz.

And I must agree with him. Iconoclast, you're a moron if you believe the crap you're spitting out.

Being an experienced plugin programmer is irrelevant to knowing the advantages of using other plugins; even a newb who just tests every plugin out there like me for many games can still make very good conjectures with backup. His position as a programmer means nothing as to his use of plugins other than his own. If I'm in no position to point out things that actually don't exist in other plugins, to someone who uses the difference in definition of a setting and a feature as an excuse, why don't you tell me the reason I'm wrong? If you can't, that's just prejudice, because you don't know he's right just because he's a programmer.

It's not in your place to tell us, regular users like you, who may question who around here, your 'high'ness, so mind your own business, kid.

oh btw, Frame Buffer is Frame Buffer, no matter what system its running on, it has nothing to do with Dx or Opengl, or Glide, or Ddraw

its framebuffer effects, no matter what propietry name the rendering solution is called

Ah. Thank you, squall. Alright, then. See, Gonetz, that's all you had to say: Frame buffer is defined by seeing it happening on the screen, not the way it is being processed, what method or whatever.

See? I can admit it when I stereotyped something; we've all prejudged before.

 

[Gonetz]

I'm only saying to Legend, Glide64 is not the best graphics plugin, and no plugin is.

As I remember, Legend just said that Glide64 is the best for most games he have, is not it? Looking at his list I may agree with him

Speed? Quality? Compatibility? Don't you agree that those are all good things to have settings based upon for effect?

Exactly. As I said, options are given for end user to choose between speed quality and compatibility, because it's not always possible to get them all. At the same time, the less such options you should care about, the better.

Also, you're missing some criteria. What about polyhedron clipping effects?? Some games have this issue where you can just walk right through objects, which is gfx plugin-related in these instances. So, geometry emulation is a facter, too. And object alpha levels? And proper resolution (Gauntlet Legends screwed in Glide64 plugin there)? And proper depth? And being able to see the damn screen without it flickering or just being black for some reason? And many many other things.

It's all about quality/compatibility, imo.

And frame buffer is a form of emulation used to simulate the N64 console's screen-texture copying, right? Well, unless you're trying to say the N64 executes exactly like PC rendering software, the N64 does not do frame buffer drawings; it has its own unique instructions.

Ok, I'll do short likbez here.
1. N64 rendering process is generally the same as on PC - a special chip performs special graphics commands to render polygons onto special area in video memory, which is called frame buffer. Thus, frame buffer is not an abstraction - its a place, where current rendering frame is stored. No one graphic system can work without it. Thus "the N64 does not do frame buffer drawings" is nonsense.
2. Graphics system can allocate several frame buffers. The number depends on actual hardware. For N64 this number is limited only by amount of RAM.
3. As frame buffer is stored in video memory, it can be used as texture in another (or even the same!) frame buffer. It's usually called "frame-buffer effect". Both N64 and PC can do it, but for PC it's generally more complicated.
4. The main difference between rendering on N64 and PC, which causes most problems with emulation is that in N64 CPU and graphic chip share the same memory, thus CPU can directly read/modify frame buffer content, and it often do so. For example, it can read current frame, apply blur to it and write back - thus we have blurred pause screens in Rare games. On PC CPU does not have direct access to video memory. It's possible to read/write from/to video cards frame buffer, but it's slow. But if we want to see that blurred pause screen, we must read data from video card's frame buffer into special place in PC system RAM, which is used to emulate N64 RAM. If we will do it each frame, it will be very slow. There are other problems too.
I hope these explanations will help you to understand my points.

See? I can admit it when I stereotyped something; we've all prejudged before.

I should admit that you are very sane opponent. Not all people here can be polite during discussion.

 

[cooliscool]

It's not in your place to tell us, regular users like you, who may question who around here, your 'high'ness, so mind your own business, kid.Ah. Thank you, squall. Alright, then. See, Gonetz, that's all you had to say: Frame buffer is defined by seeing it happening on the screen, not the way it is being processed, what method or whatever.

A 15 year old kid is calling me a kid? Hehe. Regular user - perhaps, you just don't know who I am.

Gonetz, I'm on your side. The info you've provided is 100% correct.

For you other two, try programming a plugin that is intended for a simulation of said hardware, of any caliber, and see exactly what Gonetz is trying to say.

 

[HellsBound]

I have no problems with the game mabey because my computer if super fast. Read nt sig to find out what i got.