Pete's OpenGL driver for PSX emus ---------------------------------- During development of PSSwitch I used some of the public PSE plugin sources to look how PSE communicates with the different plugins (especially the GPU drivers). After Version 1.0.12 of PSSwitch I wanted to write my own GPU, mainly because I was curious how the GPUs are working but also because the only real good GPU plugin (Lewpys Glide) could only be used by the owners of 3DFX cards. So I started to improve Duddies SoftGPU, fixed some bugs and learned... until I noticed, that some important GPU parts were just missing and not even mentioned in the sources. I cried for help... and Lewpy jumped in... he gave me the informations I needed most, so my GPU could grow again... and it was slowing down. I had to make a decision: doing some high optimization stuff (but that's mostly a boring and very time-consuming job) or trying to use some kind of hardware acceleration (hey, that one sounds nice). OK, the decision was an easy one: "acceleration" should do the work, now-a-days video cards are "intelligent", so why don't use it? But what kind of interface should I use? Direct3D ? My aging MSVC 5.0 compiler just supported DirectX 3, the download of the DirectX 6 SDK from the internet would be >70MByte (and I have a slow connection to the net). And "NoComp" seemed to be working on a Direct3D GPU... you are, don't you? Well, Segu isn't lazy, too... So I looked at the OpenGL API and it seemed to fit... and there are no "real" OpenGL GPUs for PSE, all, even the one from Kazz, are just partial implementations. I borrowed an OpenGL book from a friend (hi Gamma!) and got to work. Now I spent some weekends and evenings for getting it to work and after some ups and downs (in one of these downs I downloaded the DirectX 6.1 SDK and didn't want to do something with OpenGL at all in the future) I feel it is ready to hit the public. Enjoy! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Requirements: OpenGL... in Win95/98 there should be a file called "opengl32.dll" in your Windows\System directory. That's the one I am using. If your video card supports OpenGL, the "opengl32.dll" will just be a mapper for the faster video driver functions, you don't have to install anything else. If you have a 3DFX add-on card (I have a Riva TNT/GeForce and a Voodoo II/III, so I could test both) and you want to use OpenGL with it, you should place the 3DFX "opengl32.dll" from the 3DFX OpenGL SDK in your PSEmu Pro directory, don't overwrite the original Microsoft dll in your System directory! You can get that SDK from the 3DFX server (www.3dfx.com), just search for "OpenGL SDK". Hint: Rename the "3dfxopengl.dll" into "opengl32.dll". Don't use a MiniGL driver for Quoke (had to rename that game from ID because I am a really dumb german grown-up and can not make a difference between the screen and the reality, greetings to the german BPS) or alike, the right DLL should be > 600 KByte (MiniGL IS NOT OpenGL). If your video card has no OpenGL support, software emulation will be done from the Microsoft OpenGL32.dll, but that one is ssssslllloooooowwww. You can also give a "OpenGL to DirectX" mapper a try, there is one at www.altsoftware.com, just copy that "opengl32.dll" in your PSE directory. If you own a Riva TNT, be sure to have installed the latest drivers (Detonator build), they are much faster than earlier versions. And, of course, try my D3D plugins, if your card is having OGL troubles :) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Configuration: Take yourself some time to test different settings (especially texture modes), because it seems every video card company has its own opinion what's important to speed up in OpenGL. Here is the list of the available settings and their baddies and gooddies... 1) Desktop resolution --------------------- You can change the color depth and resolution of your desktop dynamically by turning on "Change Desktop setting". Every time the GPU will be started it will change the desktop to the chosen settings, after quitting PSE your original Desktop will be restored. If your OpenGL driver doesn`t support this feature (for example: older 3DFX OpenGL drivers) turn it off und just select a proper resolution that fits your actual Desktop size, the color depth will also be taken from your current desktop setting (3DFX: will be ever 16Bit colors, even if you have a Voodoo III...). If your card supports OpenGL in window mode, you can give it a try. I prefer to play my games in fullscreen, but to do the coding in window mode :) 2) Texture handling ------------------- That option is always under construction... from version 1.26 there are 4 different texture caching modes: Standard: will be the slowest mode, lotta vram uploading will occur. Heavy: better caching, but also more resources needed Dynamic: tries to do the best caching, limited by your cards vram Palettized: just a few cards will be able to do it (3dfx cards like Voodoo 2 or better or nVidias GeForce ones) Well, depending on your card and game select the mode that gives you the highest speed :) 3) Texture quality ------------------- Please see the 'version.txt' entry '1.May 1999' for details... * 'don't care' is how the versions minor 1.9 of my GPU were working, so selecting it means no gain and no loss... just to be sure. And of course it is the best solution for 3DFX OpenGL drivers at the time I am typing this text... * 'R4 G4 B4 A4': Every color info has 4 bits, so texture colors are not as fine, but speed is better with newer cards * 'R5 G5 B5 A1': texture colors are getting better, but the 'Alpha Multipass' mode can't be done with just one alpha bit. Many games don't need AM (Spyro, Tekken) so you can select this mode for better colors. This mode is as fast as R4G4B4A4. * 'R8 G8 B8 A8': Best colors your PC can offer, at the cost of speed. If game speed is OK with that mode on your PC, use it! 4) Bilinear filtering --------------------- Give it a try... the real PSX doesn't support BF, so there will be some glitches if you turn BF on. Several games will look nicer... there are two filtering modes... the Extended mode is slightly slower, but even better with most games. If you want you can also try both filtering modes without sprite filtering. Some game text will be much better readable, but some games will look weird if everything but sprites are smoothed. 5) Framerate limit/Frame skipping --------------------------------- You can activate FPS limitation if your game is running to fast. You can use "Auto detect FPS limit", if you are not sure, what limit would be best to use or just type in a FPS rate. PAL games use 50 FPS, non-PAL games 60 FPS. And if things are getting too slow... you can try Frame skipping. Tip: you can also try to turn on both... if your cdrom is a bit slow reading psx games, some jumps will happen, sorry. You can also enable the in-game menu right from the game start (showing the fps and let you change some gpu options while playing). Of course you still can use the "DEL" key for showing/hiding the menu. 6) Offscreen Drawing --------------------- There are now (1.48 or newer) 5 different OD modes... OD is used to detect drawings which are outside the front/backbuffer, doing such stuff in software (or by tweaking polygon coords). 0 (none): fastest mode, glitches in splash screens/game gfx can happen 1 (minimum): takes care of most splash screens 2 (standard): does an easy check, if software drawing/coord tweaking is needed 3 (enhanced): does a more complicated check for soft drawing 4 (extended): does the "enhanced" check, and adds some additional buffer swap (can cause flickering with some games) 7) Framebuffer texture ---------------------- To get whirling screen effects and motion blurring, there are two ways to go: a) set framebuffer textures to emulated vram, enable full vram primitives and offscreen drawing or b) disable full vram primitives and set framebuffer textures to 'gfx card buffer'. (a) will work on every system, but it will be very slow. (b) will prolly work only with certain gfx cards with a good speed (GeForce :) Well, ppl with slower cpus and/or gfx cards can use "black framebuffer textures", this option will be very fast, but, of course, the special effect will not appear! 8) Advanced blending --------------------- Depending on your drivers OpenGL implementation using 'Advanced blending' will be nice or slow... Some games are really looking better using AB (Spyro!), try it yourself... 9) Alpha MultiPass ------------------- Draws opaque texture pixels the way it should be. Of course it could be a bit slower (and if your OpenGL driver draws black rectangles around objects, turn this option off). 10) Mask bit ------------ A really rarely used ability by the real PSX is the usage of mask bits to avoid drawing into some parts of the screen. Well, to increase compatibility you can turn the mask bit emulation on, but as far as I know only Silent Hill is really needing it. If you activate it, there are also some chances that 3D shutter glasses will work... Another hint: because most games don't need the mask detection, you can turn it off to get more available texture vram. 11) Line mode ----------------- A funny mode, just displaying lines... 12) Color dithering ------------------ If you are using just 16Bit colors (or 3DFX OpenGL), you can enhance shaded objects by turning on color dithering. Of course it will slow things a bit down, but not too much... 13) Unfiltered framebuffer updates ---------------------------------- MDECs and such will be bilinear filtered be default. The 'unfiltered' mode is a little bit faster, though. 14) Full vram primitives ------------------------ If you activate this option the internal soft gpu will paint every polygon, etc. into the gpu vram. That's helpful if you want to see most of the fancy psx effects, but also _very_ slow. Usually turn it off. Oh, yes, and you have to activate some OD mode to get it to work. 15) Special game fixes ------------------------ Some gfx glitches are caused by the main emu core or because I've not found out (yet) how certain things are activated on a real psx gpu. But you can minimize bad effects with certain games by using the internal gpu patches.... push the "..." button to see (and activate) the list of available fixes. Keys ---- save screenshot to 'Snap' sub directory + switch between window/fullscreen mode + dunno... but it's slow ;) show/hide the gpu version (if no FPS is displayed) or an help text (if the FPS menu is displayed) show/hide FPS and option menu How it works: Hit and the Framerate und the menu will appear. It looks like: 'FPS XXXX.X FL< FS OD AM FI DI FV AB FB GF DI :) * A' What does it all mean? Here's the legend: FPS: frames per second, higher means better :) FL : Frame rate limiter FS : Frame skipping OD : Offscreen drawing (none, minimum, standard, enhanced, extended) AM : Alpha multipass FI : Filtering (none, standard, extended, standard without sprites, extended w/o sprites) FV : Full vram primitives AB : Advanced blending FB : Frontbuffer texture (emulated vram, black, gfx card buffer) GF : Special game fixes DI : Dithering :) : Smiley (see version.txt) * : Shining sun... Advanced blending is activated and supported nicely with your card A : Anarchy... ah, no, Analog mode :) if the main emu can tell the gpu the pad mode, an 'A' will be displayed in Anlog mode and no 'A' in Digital mode... and 'M' in PSX Mouse mode :) < : Arrow for selecting Below every option there is a small box, if the box is filled the option is active, empty box means inactive. There is a small arrow you can move with the or keys to an option you want to toggle. Just hit the or key to switch the selected option on or off. Changes will be done immediatly, you can see how the framerate is affected if an option is on or off. If you have found a setting that suits your game just hide the menu by pressing again. I don't store changed options permanently, you have to do that still in the main configuration dialog. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Conclusion: After all it was a hell of coding... but it was worth the time and I will surely enhance the driver further. I have done all the tests with BOF III and Spyro and some PSX demo CDs, if your favorite game doesn't work... bad luck, sorry. For version infos read the "version.txt" file. Have fun! Pete Bernert EMail: BlackDove@addcom.de Web: http://home.t-online.de/home/PeteBernert ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Disclaimer/Licence: This program is freeware and cannot be sold. Also this program cannot be distributed without written permission. This program cannot be used for any commercial purposes. You may not reverse engineer, decompile, or disassemble the enclosed software. Authors are not responsible for any damages that this program may cause, and are also not responsible for anything this plugin will be used for. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------