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Emulator Issues #7650

closed

Problem with "efb2tex_alpha"

Added by ZephyrSurfer over 9 years ago.

Status:
Invalid
Priority:
Normal
Assignee:
-
Category:
GFX
% Done:

0%

Operating system:
N/A
Issue type:
Bug
Milestone:
Regression:
No
Relates to usability:
No
Relates to performance:
No
Easy:
No
Relates to maintainability:
No
Regression start:
Fixed in:

Description

Game Name?

-- Little King's Story

Game ID?

-- RO3EXJ

What's the problem? Describe what went wrong in few words.

-- The game looks too bright (especially anything that emits light) You can in the screenshots. It also gives some characters a strange bright aura.
The problem existed since the merge of "efb2tex_alpha".

What did you expect to happen instead?

-- Lovely darker scenes? For it to look normal?

What steps will reproduce the problem?

-- No specific steps are necessary.

  1. Play the game with dafault settings. OpenGL and D3D both share the issue.
  2. The problem persists throughout the game.
  3. Disabling "EFB Copies" is a near fix however there are no shadows.

Dolphin 3.5 and 3.5-367 are old versions of Dolphin that have
known issues and bugs, so don't report issues about them and test the
latest Dolphin version first.
Which versions of Dolphin did you test on?

-- I've done plenty of testing. 3.5, 4.0, 4.0.2 and latest dev builds also.

Does using an older version of Dolphin solve your issue? If yes, which
versions of Dolphin used to work?

-- Yes. Versions 4.0-415 and older work. 4.0-418 is the problematic one.

What are your PC specifications? (including, but not limited to: Operating
System, CPU and GPU)

-- I've tried a few of my builds. But...
Current build:
Intel Pentium G3258
Amd R9 290 (Ref. w/ custom cooler)
Windows 8.1 x64

Is there any other relevant information? (e.g. logs, screenshots,
configuration files)

-- Disabling "EFB Copies" is close to the working builds, minus the shadows.

Screens: Broken: http://imgur.com/XPZ2IN7,0vkYrhZ#0
Working: http://imgur.com/XPZ2IN7,0vkYrhZ#1

Actions #1

Updated by JMC4789 over 9 years ago

Can you get a screenshot on console for verification? Also, a 2 frame fifolog would be nice.

https://wiki.dolphin-emu.org/index.php?title=Fifoplayer

Actions #2

Updated by ZephyrSurfer over 9 years ago

Hey JMC4789. The game requires External Frame Buffer and setting EFB Copies to off will not show the issue. Also the fifolog remains black... Is that ok?
Here it is: http://s000.tinyupload.com/?file_id=82732735088464837673

Here is the screenshots at least:
Screenies: http://imgur.com/7myvy9U,4DPYpC9,ohfvt4k,nPPnlka
Dolphin 4.0-3164(Broken) native: http://i.imgur.com/ohfvt4k.jpg
Dolphin 4.0-3164(Broken) X4 : http://i.imgur.com/nPPnlka.jpg
Dolphin 4.0-415(Working) native: http://i.imgur.com/7myvy9U.jpg
Dolphin 4.0-415(Working) X4 : http://i.imgur.com/4DPYpC9.jpg

Actions #3

Updated by JMC4789 over 9 years ago

  • Category set to gfx

if it requires XFB, then fifologs won't work, unfortunately, EFB Copies wouldn't have mattered though.

Actions #4

Updated by ZephyrSurfer over 9 years ago

It flashes a lot without XFB. What if I record more than 2 frames would that suffice?
Flashing pictures warning?!

Actions #5

Updated by JMC4789 over 9 years ago

That'd work well enough for us to examine it.

Actions #6

Updated by ZephyrSurfer over 9 years ago

Here, they are: http://m2ca3samg1.1fichier.com/

Flashing and all :(

Actions #7

Updated by ZephyrSurfer over 9 years ago

Hi JMC4789. I tracked down the line that causes the issue.

It's line 830 here: https://github.com/dolphin-emu/dolphin/commit/7d58278b6723f6293ed908604887d1c950b837c9#diff-1770d2a09c82a1afc8f52efa1d047776R812

That's "fConstAdd[3] = 1.0f;" inside case 6 BTW.

Deleting that line makes the game look fine.

Actions #8

Updated by ZephyrSurfer over 9 years ago

Or, you know, setting it's the alpha value to 0 with "fConstAdd[3] = 0.0f;"

Actions #9

Updated by kostamarino over 9 years ago

I kinda disagree, the broken pics seem closer to the original than the working ones, the game isn't that dark, and probably the bloom gets disabled.

http://www.gametrailers.com/videos/e3as3e/little-king-s-story-e3-09--developer-walkthrough

Actions #10

Updated by ZephyrSurfer over 9 years ago

Look here: http://imgur.com/Fx0UTjh
And that video is way off. Look at the publishers video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJAbYDacSc4 at 00:13

You are right about the bloom but there needs to be a compromise. Currently there is too much.

Actions #11

Updated by JMC4789 over 9 years ago

Honestly it looks just as bad in the video to me, but I don't own the game, so I can't really say for certain.

Actions #12

Updated by ZephyrSurfer over 9 years ago

I was talking about the brightness not the bloom though. You can the floorboards and pillar for the door are too bright now. Without the alpha there is no bloom.

I guess I'm just going to have to buy a camera.

Actions #13

Updated by ZephyrSurfer over 9 years ago

Big, big oops.

I guess I am actually talking about bloom, I guess they seemed similar in my head.

I've been looking at light sources for comparison.

So this is to clarify if you look at the torch in the upper right hand corner of that picture I posted earlier, the one at the title screen, or the aura given off characters in-game a value closer to "0.0f" seems right a value in between that and "1.0f" seems good.

"0.0f" otherwise makes the rest of game look too dark though agreed.

Actions #14

Updated by pauldacheez over 9 years ago

  • Status changed from New to Invalid

On a Wii U connected via HDMI, the game looks exactly like your "Broken" screenshots, down to the bloom weirdness (which even I initially thought was an issue caused by increasing IR). Component/composite cables (and the NTSC standard in general) seem to inherently carry a loss of brightness, while Dolphin and HDMI carry the exact color outputs from the GPU (or EFB/XFB/whatever) and display those unmodified (aside from OS/monitor color calibration).

tl;dr, if you think the game's too bright, SweetFX it away. There's no bug here unless you consider not emulating lossy video cables a bug. (Someone's inevitably gonna make an NTSC shader for Dolphin at some point anyway.)

Actions #15

Updated by ZephyrSurfer over 9 years ago

Thanks for the explanation pauldacheez.
I don't think my olden CRT helped either.

Damn graphics programmers stabbing me in the eyes :(

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