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Disabling anti-aliasing on Goldeneye

 
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bmw
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 PostPosted: Tue Aug 16, 2016 7:55 pm    Post subject: Disabling anti-aliasing on Goldeneye Reply with quote Back to top

Not sure if this has ever been discussed in here before, but apparently it IS possible to disable the anti-aliasing feature of most N64 games, including Goldeneye.

I came across these codes:

8102316C 0000
8102316E 3216
8102319C 0000
8102319E 3216

Problem is, they're for the PAL version. No NTSC version has yet been hacked. Anybody here want to try to convert these to NTSC? I'd really like to see what goldeneye looks like on my RGB-modded N64 console without the blurring.
 
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00action
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 PostPosted: Wed Aug 17, 2016 10:40 am    Post subject: Reply with quote Back to top

try this, i just added 4AB0 to each address witch is the difference between PAL and USA around this area in memory but i haven't tested it and i have no idea if the values need to be different or what they do.

81027C1C 0000
81027C1E 3216
81027C4C 0000
81027C4E 3216
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bmw
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 PostPosted: Wed Aug 17, 2016 1:14 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote Back to top

Hmmm I tried those and I can tell no visible difference with the codes on or off, even directly comparing screenshots.

And yeah I have no idea what the codes actually do.
 
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 PostPosted: Thu Aug 18, 2016 1:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote Back to top

ok i looked a little deeper into it, try these.
again i dont know what the values do.

81027FEC 0000
81027FEE 3216
8102801C 0000
8102801E 3216
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MRKane
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 PostPosted: Thu Aug 18, 2016 3:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote Back to top

Zoinkity exists everywhere in electronic form!

http://assemblergames.com/l/threads/is-it-possible-to-disable-anti-aliasing-in-n64-games-via-gameshark-cheats.59916/

And this link is the compiled spreadsheet so far (could you believe there was serious bitching because the guys who worked on this were making PAL not NTSC codes?):
http://retrorgb.com/n64blur.html

Seriously though the jury is vehemently out on tweaking the AA settings and while it sharpens some things when using upscaling, with other things it can make the dither look dreadful. It can also boost framerate by a fractional amount.

What it does also mean is that we can turn them ON for games that have them disabled (for whatever reason). These games are few and far between but Gauntlet Legends is the key one that springs to mind.

Next thing: You'll only see the effect of this code on actual hardware as emulators rather fix all of those problems already Smile
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bmw
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 PostPosted: Thu Aug 18, 2016 3:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote Back to top

Those are indeed the correct NTSC codes!

And yeah - the dithering is absolutely dreadful, at least over RGB. I'll have to check it on S-video and composite - it might actually HELP sharpen the image a bit for S-video, or especially composite, without destroying the dithering effects.

I'll post some comparison screenshots tonight or tomorrow comparing s-video, composite, and RGB both with and without AA enabled.

And yeah, I saw both of those threads (in fact that's exactly where I read about this) but paid zero attention to the user names, so I never noticed zoinkity's name. He must be part of the fabric of the internet!
 
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bmw
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 PostPosted: Thu Aug 18, 2016 3:56 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote Back to top

Ok, here is a GIF I created showing the difference with AA on and off (over RGB) - I still want to create one for s-video and composite:



Last edited by bmw on Sun Mar 26, 2017 9:39 pm; edited 1 time in total
 
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Trevor
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 PostPosted: Fri Aug 19, 2016 9:38 am    Post subject: Reply with quote Back to top

That is a very nice GIF, proves directly what AA does and its benifits.

Also its good because its bigger than 640x480 just like todays HD TV's.
Am I correct though in saying that the image is "HD Ready" as its not 1080 high but 768.

What we need now is a GIF showing AA, No-AA, UpscaleSmoothing.

Trev
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bmw
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 PostPosted: Fri Aug 19, 2016 2:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote Back to top

Trevor wrote:
Am I correct though in saying that the image is "HD Ready" as its not 1080 high but 768.


Not exactly. The raw N64 output is 240p. It was the routed through a Micomsoft XRGB-3 in line-doubling mode - effectively to an image size of 640x480. From there it was fed into my high-end capture card which simply displayed the image in full-screen mode, which I have set to another doubling of 1280x960.

The fact that the image is 767px tall is sheer coincidence - I actually cropped a 960p image to cut-off the bottom text since the text was present in one image and not the other.

Bottom line is that it is a 240p image, hardware up-scaled to 480p, and then software-upscaled to 960p.

Interestingly enough, disabling AA actually looks pretty good when fed DIRECTLY from my XRGB-3 to my CRT monitor as opposed to what I get on my capture device (but that is not nearly as easy to get a good pic to post). So I suspect the end-result is heavily dependent on what screen you are viewing this on, and how it is processed on its way to that screen. My guess is that when displayed on an LCD screen, disabling AA is a big mistake, but on a larger CRT, such as a 27 or 32-inch Sony tube TV or maybe a Sony PVM monitor (or in my case, a Sony 24" CRT widescreen computer monitor), it might actually look sharper but without too much dithering distortion.

And I have another question - is it possible to leave AA on but weaken its effects? Again, this is a topic way outside of my knowledge base, but I see settings on my video card for an AA filter setting of 2x, 4x, and 8x. Can the same be done on the N64?
 
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MRKane
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 PostPosted: Fri Aug 19, 2016 9:33 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote Back to top

Ok. There are two parts to that code, just as there are two parts to the N64 AA method.

The first controls the across screen smearing (0000,0001):
81027FEC 0000

And the second is your AA mode (30,31,32,33):
81027FEE 3216

GE default is to have the smear on, and I think 30 as it's sample mode but don't take my word on that. Have a play - see what your prefer!

I cannot remember what the 16 did. I know other values are 12, 02, or 0E.

Dither looks dreadful through both s-video and RGB.

Making this even more interesting is that one user was talking about trying to find a number that controlled screen resolution (as there is one for PD). I've not heard more of that and work as kept me too busy.
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Trevor
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 PostPosted: Sat Aug 20, 2016 4:59 am    Post subject: Reply with quote Back to top

Ah ok, I thought they were full captures from a TV, I didnt realise they were croped to a non-standard size. Embarassed
I do know that GE renders to a 320x240 framebuffer.

So, what the GIF has here IS in fact AA+UpscaleSmooth and UpscaleSmooth.

I just realised that the dither is visible because you have disabed "Dither Filter".

This is NOT technically part of AA but just a feature of the VI.

The dither filter will take any 2x2 pixel colour pattern and average smooth it.
Since this does not smooth edges I assume that its smart enough to only take single colour shifts into consideration (as used in dither to aproximate the mid tone of 2 shades
eg. in 4bit if we wanted 88 we would mix 2x90 with 2x80)

" this even more interesting is that one user was talking about trying to find a number that controlled screen resolution "

This is not as simple as it sounds.
Changing the VI to output 480 wont change the fact that the framebuffer is only 320x240.
You need to change the framebuffer and with that, possibly re-alocate memory ranges to fit.


Trev
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bmw
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 PostPosted: Sat Aug 20, 2016 6:34 am    Post subject: Reply with quote Back to top

MRKane wrote:
The first controls the across screen smearing (0000,0001):
81027FEC 0000

GE default is to have the smear on, and I think 30 as it's sample mode but don't take my word on that. Have a play - see what your prefer!



I experimented with that yesterday, and setting the smear code to 01 instead of 00 seems to substantially eliminate the dithering problem - but not completely. It also adds some minor, what I would best describe as "jitter" to the picture. It is just enough to be annoying, though visually it looks better with this set to 00.

As to the second code, I think zoinkity's explanation for setting between 30 and 33 is as follows:

30: antialias and resample, always fetching extra lines
31: antialias and resample, fetching lines as needed
32: resample
33: replicate pixels without interpolation

setting to 33 does not work on goldeneye as it causes severe image distortion, repeating only a fraction of the image like 3 or 4 times left to right. I haven't tried a 31 setting, I'm not sure how, if at all, that would look any different than the default of 30.
 
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bmw
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 PostPosted: Tue Aug 30, 2016 6:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote Back to top

Having gone back and played a few missions with AA disabled, I have to say I MUCH prefer it off as opposed to the default blur. While there's a certain kind of "graininess" to the image, I much prefer that to the "smeared" look that is there by default.

Plus, at least in the Dam, the framerates seem CONSIDERABLY smoother. I'll have to do some further testing to be certain, but it immediately felt choppy when going back to normal. Between the slower framerates and the blur, Dam almost felt unplayable compared to once I got used to playing with AA off.

Detailed test results to follow (when I get around to it)
 
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