Created on 18.10.2005 - 17:06

One thing I'm confused about...

I noticed they detect edges, but can shaders focus on the polygon texture or is it only a full screen type filter?

Created on 18.10.2005 - 18:32

Fullscreen type filter only...
Bye

Created on 19.10.2005 - 01:33

Doh, kinda figured, but wanted to make sure. Thanx for the reply ShadX. =)

Created on 24.10.2005 - 02:48

I had a quest about shaders also. I figured I would post it in here instead of making a new thread for my probably siully question.

Is there any software or way to force shaders over applications that normally don't use them? Like older PC games or even the desktop?

Created on 24.10.2005 - 09:32

Ati users could use Ati "Smartshader" (not tested by me), other users could try "DXtweaker"...
Bye

Created on 24.10.2005 - 17:29

Is there a good list of descriptions for what exactly each type of shader is doing? For instance there are Scale, Filter & HQ Filter, SaL, Median, Gaussian, and probably some I missed.

It would be nice to have, maybe a stick, of a short definition of all these for lamens like myself. I know what some of this means but not all of it. I'm sure this would help other ePSXe EMU'ers find exactly what they might be looking for also.

Created on 25.10.2005 - 00:05

Two times scaling:
- To make an image (for example) two times bigger, like from 320x240 to 640x480.
- It may be a visual scale (like from 640x480 -> 640x480) where the pixels in the first image were compact 2x2 blocks.

An exemplary 2xscaler (3x, 4x...) should:
- retain the visual message
- do some antialiasing (or make the "lines" look as if they were drawn in better resolution as in the original image)
- do some "reshaping" for the better
- make the scaled image look better as the original

Some fullscreen scaler do not produce any new colors with interpolation (mixing) - like the well known Scale2x algorithm - and some do - like 2xSaI, HQ2X...algorithms.

3x and 4x Scalers do preety the same job as a 2x scalers but the resulting image is three (four) times bigger. (from 320x240 to 960x720 or to 1280x960). Usually it's expected that 4x looks better as 3x looks better as 2x scaling. This could be absolutely correct if there would be no other HW/gameplay based limitations (like time consumance, length of programs...).


Since with 3x,4x scalers colors for more pixels must be calculated with the same input data, such procedures are usualy more complex as 2x scaling procedures (but is not a general rule).

To write a 3x scaler can be harder as implementing a 4x scaler since you can scale the image twice after another using the same algorithm (320x240 -> 640x480 -> 1280x960) - the result is 4xscaling.

Such nX scalers have their advantages and their disadvantages. One of the main disadvantages is that they cant be used properly to gain an "in-between" image (320x240 -> 480x360; is 1.5x larger)

So they aren't much used for texture real-time processings. Instead the textures are much more likely to be resized with standard interpolation algorithms, like the bilinear algorithm. But bilinear filtering/resizing blurries the processed subject and the idea of smart texture resizing comes to front.

Filtering an image could generaly mean that you parse the whole image and change something, correct irregularities, prepare the image for further processings...

Some popular filtering effects are blurring, sharpening, smoothing, emboss, gaussian blur... The difference between a HQ and an ordinary filter might be that the HQ filter considers more circumstances and therefore produces a nicer (or any other way better) result.

SaL -> Sal and SaI -> Sai look wery alike when written in a specific way.
The SaI (with i) term means Scale and Interpolate and is used in the name of legendary scaling algorithms from Derek Liauw Kie Fa. (2xSaI, Super2xSaI).

Median image filters are used to remove noise from images (or to mitigate pixelisation). Like there is a blue dot on yellow surface. Median makes the blue spot dissapear. Or there is a black spot on a bright surface. Median takes care of the black spot.
The pixel is replaced with the most proper pixel form the immediate surrounding. So in fact no new colors should be gained, only "extreme" colors replaced.

Gaussian blur:

In image processing this is a way to redistribute the color values over the image. Values for each pixel are taken from 8 (3x3), 24(5x5)... neighbour pixels and added to influence the central pixel in a linear way. A general rule is that farther the pixel form center, less it contributes to the result-pixel. Gaussian blur does not make the image brighter or darker. It smoothens the edges and removes pixelisation to a degree.

This could be how i look at theese general terms, there might be some other views too...

[Dieser Beitrag wurde am 26.10.2005 - 10:38 von guest aktualisiert]

Created on 25.10.2005 - 04:42

That explains a lot! Much thanks for the explinations, Guest.

Created on 25.10.2005 - 22:59

FF7 640x480 no filtering:

img431.imageshack.us/img431/7589/ff7nofilter8aj.jpg

FF7 640x480 2xGLSL_HqFilter:

img431.imageshack.us/img431/7507/ff72xglslhqfilter0ch.jpg

Lunar 2xGLSL Filter:

img431.imageshack.us/img431/7490/lunar2xglslfilter7ko.jpg

[Dieser Beitrag wurde am 25.10.2005 - 23:01 von guest aktualisiert]