Star Fox 64 Very Dark

[blazekun]

I searched up on this and found but one thread that had been locked. Have no idea why it was locked, this problem still exists in PJ64 1.6 and every emu/plugin combo I tried.

It's a really big issue IMO. In some stages you can't see anything until it is on top of you. Such as the asteroid field stage. You can't even see the asteroids. A better example would be the Hollowed asteroids, you can't see the enemies on the walls until they shoot you.

My only ideas on what this issue might be (and I don't know much of anything about the N64 architecture) is some kind of shader effect. The clouds in the real screenshot appear to have some kind of bloom effect as compared to emulated shot.

Or an issue with the ambient lighting. The parts of the Arwings that are in direct light seem to look normal. Everything else, including static geometery, appears to not have the same lighting as the Arwings. In the real shot the Arwing isn't nearly the brightest object in the scene, the clouds are. But in the emulated shot it's obviously the brightest thing.

Anyone have any other ideas?

 

[Clements]

Starfox64/Lylat Wars is definitely darker than the original when emulated with Jabo's plugin at least. I've owned and completed the original many times, and the difference is clear. This is not a monitor brightness issue, since almost all other games are not dark. Other 'dark' games include Doom64 - other plugins display the game much brighter.

I guess these were probably the games Jabo had in mind when he implemented the brightness slider.

 

[Smiff]

hrm that's interesting.. the slider is not meant to fix emulation bugs. so thanks Clements that sounds like a bug (new to me). is the whole game too dark? you know if other jabo plugin versions were better?

 

[blazekun]

Yes the other levels are just as dark. It's also not limited to Jabos. Every plugin I tried had the same issues including Rice 6.1.1 and Direct64 0.5.03.25. This doesn't seem to be specific to Project 64 either. It happens in 1964 and Mupen also.

Here are some screenshots of other levels.

Oh and for some reason the warp area in Asteroid field seems to be fine.

 

[Clements]

Corneria is certainly darker when emulated, since the level is normally quite bright - and the sky in particular is a much lighter blue on the N64. It would be fantastic if someone could post some decent full-size shots of Corneria from a real N64 with a video capture card, as this issue has been raised on many occasions by numerous people.

 

[64ultramaniac]

the above are not real n64 screenshots, for better comparison here are some screenshots from a review of the game

 

[MI6CIA007]

I just installed a vid cap card into my dad's pc, next weekend (not the one that starts tomorrow) if i remember I can get some, if someone doesn't do it before then. I can get a screen from every level if you want. Well, not every level, but every level I visit, as there are multiple paths.

 

[Jelta]

real n64 and Jabo's D3D 1.6 screenshots here.

 

[Azala]

I was playing around with this and I found that if you Force Alpha Blending in Jabo's DED8 plugin it will light up the game. It makes far away enemies easier to see. However it completely removes the fog effect. It appears that the fog is too 'thick' or dark, it is playable either way really.