Plugins

**Robert** · June 18, 2005

During the week, Pete released a bunch of new GPU plugins to improve the performance of various PSX emulators.

Pete's OGL/D3D Plugin 1.76

Ok, some of the new 1.76 plugin features I have described in the OGL2 version file (OGL2 V2.07):
* floating point fps limit value
* y sprite mirroring (thanx to smf)
* fixed psx gpu blending mode (thanx to softm)
* fast forward key
* I've added a "pause" key, if you have to do a break, and you don't want to quit the emu (my other gpu plugins already had this option)
* I've noticed the "G4 polygon cache" special game fix (for FF9) was a bit overdone. Should be better now.

Pete's OGL2 Plugin 2.07

* Some users wanted the possibility to enter a floating point value as framerate limitation. Ok, done (doesn't make much sense, imho, but it will not hurt as well... my personal advice: use the "auto-detect limitation value" option whenever it is possible).
* softm reported on my messageboard, that one of the PSX blending modes looked different in my plugins, compared to the real PSX. You will notice the difference only in a few games (softm found Diablo, Legend of Mana and Castlevania), but nevertheless I've fixed this glitch.
* In some games the "Flicker-Fix border" option (needed in combination with the fullscreen shader option) actually didn't fix flickering borders. That's fixed.
* Many users requested a "fast forward" key, which deactivates the frame limitation while pressed (to skip boring parts of a game). I've added this feature, you have to configure it in the "GPU key configuration" (hint: look for a small "..." button in the main config window).
* smf of MAMEdev found a new psx gpu feature: y sprite mirroring. With his help (thanx for the small psx demo!) I could add this psx gpu capability to my plugins. Don't ask me if a console psx game will use such a mirroring (I've never noticed it), but who knows... there are many psx games out there
* ShadX and guest® created all kind of interesting and nice looking OGL2 fullscreen shaders, which can be found in the shader forum on my messageboard. With version 2.07, even better shaders can be made: I've added the possibility to access own textures (stored as tga files), which can be used as look-up-tables, for example. If you want to know how to use this multi-texture option, I've put two small shader demos on my web site as well. Happy shading.

P.E.Op.S. Soft Plugin 1.17

* MxC added HQ2X, HQ3X and Scale3X display filters to the Windows version.
* smf of the MAME team found a new capability of the PSX gpu: sprite Y mirroring. I've added this to the P.E.Op.S. gpu, big thanx to smf for sharing this info (and for coding a small psx demo showing this feature)
* softm informed me on my messageboard that one of the transparency modes seems to be wrong in some games (Diablo, Legend of Mana, Castlevania). I've repaired that, now it will look fine.
* Sometimes small (wrong) texture distortions happened in the soft gpu. That's caused by internal precision issues, when the plugin is drawing quads using two triangles (needed to get the PSX g-shading right). I've made a special game fix (0x200), now users can decide if they want a correct g-shading (fix activated) or textures without distortions (fix deactivated).
* The frame limit value is now a floating point number, so you can set (for example) "50.1" as limit. Dunno why, but many users requested this...anyway, my advice: use the "auto-detect limit" option whenever it's possible