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Some feedback on the latest features

Open PoloniumRain opened this issue 7 months ago • 98 comments

Just had a look at the latest changes you've made, and obviously a lot of these new features might not be finished yet and could change before the next release, but...

  1. The new 3dfx Voodoo Hardware OpenGL option is huuuuge and massively improves performance :) I assume it works similar to DOSBox-X with glide passthrough enabled? There's also a Hardware OpenGL High Resolution option which seems to double the games native resolution. But i think it would be better if there was a separate resolution option for this, with 2x, 3x, 4x increases and so on. This would also make it clear to the user exactly what the setting does, and this is how other emulators deal with this feature (the DuckStation core is a good example). I can now run any 3dfx supported game and hit the games maximum frame rate with "High Resolution" 2x res enabled, so the performance headroom is there for much higher resolutions.

  2. Hardware OpenGL fixes significant visual issues like #316. I need to do more testing but it's looking great so far.

  3. The 3dfx Voodoo Gamma Correction option is really useful but by default it has incorrect gamma. There's roughly 30-ish DOS games that support 3dfx Voodoo and i've tried most of them. Every one of them now has incorrect gamma by default, so they look either too bright (most common) or too dark. Previously the gamma was correct in every game. So how about an "Auto" gamma setting that works exactly as things did before? Or have the current None gamma setting function this way. If there's some reason this can no longer be done with Hardware OpenGL, then i can create a list with the correct Gamma settings for every game and DBP could apply them on launch.

  4. Software Multi Threaded (default) and Software Multi Threaded, low quality run worse than before. Frame rates are cut in half and i get significant sound stuttering/popping. It's similar to when i tried 1 CPU thread in my testing. But Software Single Threaded runs the same as when i tested with 7 threads... Are these options incorrectly labelled?

  5. This only affects Hardware OpenGL - In Screamer 2, Screamer Rally and Carmageddon 2 the menu screens have the same issue as above, but not as severe and only with the menu screens. Seems like a possible threading issue but it's strange how (so far) it only affects the menus and never gameplay.

  6. Running a 3dfx accelerated game and switching from any of the Software Multi Threaded or Software Single Threaded options to Hardware OpenGL will show a black screen after restarting the game. To fix this the game needs to be closed and run again.

Anyway, just ignore any of the above problems if it's simply down to the feature being unfinished. Excellent work btw!

PoloniumRain avatar Jul 25 '24 00:07 PoloniumRain