Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Resolution pack issues

[Unrul3r]

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Hey!

There seems to be a problem in what appears to be this game's resolution graphic pack. A reddit user described it well here in this thread.

In that thread, the comment by Nimbus-Skye describes an issue that also seems to be present in the current version of the pack.

Is there any way to fix both of these issues?

Thanks!

[getdls]

Hello...

• The blurriness is due to a cemu bug (Texture LOD?) . It should be foreground/background DOF with characters in focus. High res doesn't really fix it, just masks the issue
• Broken shadows is a Cemu regression from 1.13
• White title screen is due gfx pack limitations, we need to scale the format in other areas and that breaks menu.
• Missing character art can probably be fixed, I'll take a look
• Grainy look in mirror is probably a bug, but I haven't checked with an actual WiiU and confirmed

Also note that none of the shaders are committed in the 1.4.x pack due to constant crashing when editing in Nsight.

[Unrul3r]

@getdls Thank you for the reply. I understand the 2nd and 3rd point and thank you for looking into the 4th. Regarding the 1st point though, High res pack does indeed mask the 3D blur issue which is great but it also seems to pixelate the menus as the user describes "the text and character icons look absolutely terrible, like they're somehow lower res than they were with the default config". The default res menus are great but once I use the resolution packs they mess up the menus. This seems like a graphic pack issue, is it not?

[getdls]

The pixelation is likely due to the shaders not being included yet. Blur and anti aliasing is being sampled at the wrong coordinates.

I'd recommend staying on 1.3.x for TMS until the next release. Even if we fix all the shaders, performance and shadows still won't be up to par on 1.4.x.

[Unrul3r]

I see. Thank you for the assistance! I don't understand the versioning though. Do you mean to stick with Cemu 1.13 instead of 1.14? Or are they graphic pack versions?

[getdls]

Both. Cemu 1.4 changed the graphics pack format (graphics pack version 3). We're still updating all of them.

You can have two different installs of cemu, just stick them in separate folders and make sure you have the matching graphic packs version. Cemu 1.2, 1.3 uses graphics V2

See old graphics pack icon on the download page https://slashiee.github.io/cemu_graphic_packs/

There should be some guides on reddit if you check /Cemu

[Unrul3r]

I see. So what you mean is for me to use Cemu 1.13 which has the graphic pack format v2, correct? Your "Cemu 1.2, 1.3, 1.4" terminology was confusing me. I'll use that then for TMS. Thanks!

[Unrul3r]

I just remembered now. Going back is possibly not going to fix the pixelated menus since the reddit thread is from 4 months ago which means it was with the previous graphic pack versions.

Edit: Yea, just tested it now. Res packs still mess up the menus.

[getdls]

Omg it's been a long week... I just realized that every commit I've done has the wrong version number.

Yea I meant Cemu 1.13 maybe even earlier around 1.11 for performance. It's as good as its going to get for a while.
Btw could attach a screenshot of the pixelated menus? May as well verify if it's a shader or Cemu problem

[Unrul3r]

https://i.imgur.com/991aqSZ.png https://i.imgur.com/j07PL14.jpg

Zoom in on them. PNG and JPG compression made them look a bit better than they really are while zoomed out but if you zoom in you can already notice all the blockiness.

[getdls]

Thanks, that's mostly a side effect of 1080 not being an even multiple of 720. But I'll see if I can scale the text separately.

[getdls]

Can you set scaling to bicubic? It fixes text for me at 1080. Options -> General settings ->graphics -> upscale filter -> Bicubic

[Unrul3r]

The screenshots were taken with Bicubic upscale filter.

[getdls]

OK, then we can't solve text in 1080. Either downscale using the 1440 res, or run in 720

[Unrul3r]

It happens in all resolutions above 720p though. I'd play in 720p but the 3D aspects either are too blurry with AA or jagged without it. I guess I'll just wait until something is fixed.

[skalfate]

The font texture is mapped by coordinates, I think. Any scaling we do it, breaks the rendering of it.

And the white screen issue is a cemu limitation. I brought it up with exzap more than twice. There won't be any solution to that for a very long time. Even worst was that He didn't provide any hope of a solution.

[BigheadSMZ]

Since it didn't seem to be mentioned anywhere here, I figured I'd point out that increasing the resolution also breaks the maps in all areas within the Idolasphere: https://i.imgur.com/L1AkaWI.png

[getdls]

Map is probably fixed in last commit, please test and report back.

[BigheadSMZ]

Wow that was fast! From my brief testing, it does seem to be working correctly now. Great work!

I also tested the new 60FPS pack. Although it states it is for the EU version updated to v16, I have the US version updated to v16 and it seems to work there as well (with all the same issues mentioned in the commit message).

[iwubcode]

Yep it seems to be working. Thanks for fixing the bloom too @getdls ! Any hope for fixing the missing character art?

Also, not sure if this is even possible but some games have shadow enhancements. Is that feasible here? Shadows are quite pixelated on my machine (might be an emulation issue)

[getdls]

@BigheadSMZ Screenshot, / Location of where portraits break? (or anything else that isn't shadow related) Edit, found at least one portrait location after fight win..

Great that it works on US, haven't got that version :)

Broken shadows is an emulation issue since around 1.11, that's why its pixelated and Shibuya looks so flat. Graphics pack won't fix hat.

Once they work in Cemu anyone in can port the working v2 pack, should have both shadow scaling and detail fixes. Same goes for cel shading tweaks.

[getdls]

Checked, can't fix portraits. The problem is that there's an actual texture matching the rules for the resolutions scaling.

To be able to fix this, we would need to be able to create rules on texture ID level.. and the potential issues with that are even more scary.

[iwubcode]

Once they work in Cemu anyone in can port the working v2 pack, should have both shadow scaling and detail fixes. Same goes for cel shading tweaks.

Good to know. Hope shadows get fixed soon! Are there any guides on how to update a graphics pack from v2 to v3?

I see the cell-shading tweak pack, I'm assuming shadow fixes are in the resolution packs. Is there a standard here? I notice some games have separate 'shadow resolution' packs.

Checked, can't fix portraits. The problem is that there's an actual texture matching the rules for the resolutions scaling.

Thank you for looking into it.

[getdls]

Check the resolution rules.txt file. The original shadow scaling is commented out. Standard is more or less, try to do a separate shadow pack. But whatever slashiee says goes.. His repo, his rules.

#[TextureRedefine] # Shadows cemu scaling broken?
#width = 1024
#height = 2048
#formats = 0x011,0x811
#overwriteWidth = ($height/$gameHeight) * 1024
#overwriteHeight  = ($height/$gameHeight) * 2048

#[TextureRedefine] #Shadows, cemu scaling broken?
#width = 1024
#height = 1024
#formats = 0x011,0x811
#overwriteWidth = ($height/$gameHeight) * 1024
#overwriteHeight = ($height/$gameHeight) * 1024

[BigheadSMZ]

Checked, can't fix portraits. The problem is that there's an actual texture matching the rules for the resolutions scaling.

I don't know much about the Wii U texture formats, but according to this it looks like they are just using DX9 DDS formats: https://gbatemp.net/threads/release-gtx-extractor.436270/

Since there is little control over the textures themselves, it begs the question of whether or not the textures that are being scaled incorrectly could be ripped from disc, converted to a different format, and then patched back to prevent scaling. I guess it depends on whether or not the Wii U / Cemu, or the game, would care if the format is changed. I'm guessing the portraits are most likely RGBA?

Of course I have no idea how graphics packs work, so I'm just making wild assumptions here. (Edit: Sorry, this is obviously outside the scope of a graphics pack, but if it's even remotely possible, I might give it an attempt).

[iwubcode]

Checked, can't fix portraits. The problem is that there's an actual texture matching the rules for the resolutions scaling.

@getdls - just curious why would resolution enhancement work for some textures and not others? Why is the texture disappearing as opposed to say getting cropped?

[getdls]

The correct answer is because that's how Exzap designed Cemu and how that game interacts with emulated GPU features ... so I’m just speculating below, feel free to correct me.

The simplified answer is:

Portraits are 1280x720, camera is 1280x720. Cemu first tries to increase the camera resolution and then increases portrait texture to four times the size , tries to match to the old world coordinates and it breaks.

edit its probably even simpler, game logic still says that GUI texture should be 1.0 , tries to address that and poof nothing.

The more fuzzy longer answer is:

Think of a chess board stretching towards the horizon, the floor in a game. The viewport, our camera is how we convert that from 3d coordinates to a 2d TV (1280x720)

Now imagine that every black and white square is a texture (256x256) If you choose to double the size (512x256) of that white texture what will happen to the chess board? Should it be twice as wide every other texture or should it stay the same and just “double” the resolution in place?

Now imagine the chessboard consists of multiple layers of white with some property like, compressed, depth, reflectiveness, transparency and apply the same problem again, should we just scale reflectiveness, or all of them?

A more robust solution is that we can manipulate the camera instead, resolution. All 3d to 2d conversion is an approximation of the depth , by increasing the resolution of the camera (1080->4k) we increase the fidelity of the chessboard depth conversion, and see more squares further back.

Cemu allows you to do both! As it happens on a modern GPU it's the same thing. Viewport and in-world chessboard are textures.

For TMS, that rule happens to be the exact same rule. Portraits are 1280x720, camera is 1280x720. Cemu first tries to increase the camera resolution and then increases portrait texture to four times the size , tries to match to the old world coordinates and it breaks.

[ActualMandM]

cemu blanks out any texture that is overridden (in 1.14.0 i believe it was made to be transparent instead of black)

[Ragnar-es]

I've managed to fix the invisible portrait textures and intro background.

For those who want to know how to fix it refer to the issue #364

[ActualMandM]

fixing invisible portraits should be possible in recent cemu versions

[therealsbeve]

Don't know if this issue is still being monitored but is there a way to fix the problems with the intro background when upscaling to 1080p?