3.0 Alpha Testing

[retroben]

I still have that PC image if you want to look at the difference of no dithering on PJ64.
I can still see the dithering of Mupen64Plus AE on GLideN64 with 5xBRZ enhancement.

Meanwhile,I was intrigued by something about ARM assembly/ASM coding...
It is said to run 30x faster than some of the best C code.

How fast would Mupen64Plus AE be if it took full advantage of ARM assembly/ASM code?
(could also make Peach's Christmas Invitation run without crashing and run much faster)
It could even end up running much faster for old low-spec devices.

How fast could the Pure Interpreter run if it adopted Hatcat's fast interpreter method and additionally took full advantage of ARM assembly code?
(interpreter is much easier to port than a recompiler)

Getting Mupen64Plus AE to work with ASM code may bring it to a superb performance on lower end devices.

It turns out that NEON is assembly related and works even faster than standard ARMv7 based assembly!

Here is the awesome page I am reading from that shows detailed results of performance gains...
(despite unfairly using Iphone for an example test )

Stupid Opera Browser leaving out required "hyper transport text protocol" letters.

http://shervinemami.info/armAssembly.html

Speed comparison at the bottom of the page.

[xperia64]

That dithering appears to be done by your device's GPU, not the app. Nothing like that on my Shield Tab. Using GlideN64-3.0.

[retroben]

Errybody's got a shield except me. *comically sad crying face*
What game,where did you go in it,and can you get a screenshot so I can inspect it closely on Perfect Viewer in comparison to mine?

Preferably in the underwater DK Isles spot on DK64 using Glide64mk2 and native resolution with scale set to none.
A lot to ask,but it would be extra helpful so I can see it within the same Polaroid 1080P HDTV.

What about any other plugin,unfair to choose one I can't access.
I can confirm seeing dither in Rice and Glide64. (Banjo-Tooie and DK64 respectively)

I wonder if even the most powerful devices are unwittingly set to 24bit color like my FireTV's default is.
I am running in 32bit colors mode thanks to root access and Kernel Tuner,and it looks so much sharper.

Edit: I used "Pimp My Rom" to check the settings and dithering is disabled while a few other non-related features are seen enabled proving no read errors.

Edit2: I added the build prop function for dithering and set it to 0 then rebooted,and it still shows up on AE.
I noticed some minor visual differences on this site with that change though.
Is there any way to force the disabling of dither in Mupen64Plus AE so all devices can have crystal clear visuals?

I would say it is the GameSurface part using dithering,and I want to disable that dither.

[xperia64]

Glide64mk2: http://i.imgur.com/mqGCVep.png

I think I remember some dithering on my older adreno devices like the xperia play.

[retroben]

Darn,so I have yet another reason to say Qualcomm sucks.

[retroben]

What da heck is going on?

I ran Goat Simulator on FireTV (Google Play installed) and there is no longer ANY of the extra ugly dithering it had,and it looks crystal clear.

Why must Mupen64Plus AE refuse to be clear for me even after all this
with Goat Simulator now looking crystal clear?

Is there any other way of rendering the video that kills off all chances of dithering?
I did have a dither-free Banjo-Tooie at least once a few months ago,but I don't know how the heck it managed to happen.
(an image viewer gave me dithering until I set it to fullscreen,which fixed it somehow)
It may have been something to do with enabling fullscreen,can I force fullscreen render mode to always be enabled?

Edit: Used Rice on DK64 with working blue water color and in fullscreen then,BAM! No dithering!!!

Why is Glide64mk2 forcing dithering on for me?
That really sucks because it has the best for performance on DK64 and some other games.
Dithering is said to "improve " quality but cause performance loss.

I found two dither settings set to "-1" on Glide64,what numbers do I use to force them to be disabled?

Edit2: Rice actually still has some dithering left on Banjo-Tooie,but is less noticable though.

[retroben]

Can somebody please help me fix this issue with Glide64mk2 dithering?
I've tried setting alpha dithering to 0 and changing stipple modes and the stipple pattern,but nothing remedies the problem.

Both game specific and the Android/data .ini file's stipple including the pattern number.
Still need to know how to get proper fullscreen working since the setting reverts to "False" every time,and no,I don't mean immersive mode.

Rice still does look a lot better with same clean water,but performance is slower than Glide64 on DK64.

[retroben]

I have a theory,a gam- ...

I think it has something to do with scaling and "native" resolution versus real native resolution.
From the 1080p screen,it has square gridding much like some older gif player with any non-dithering gif.
If you want to,try to get my ditherless user image gif and view it in an older gif viewer for android. (unless it uses forced dithering on that viewer)

Maybe there is an alternate way to make it scale that doesn't allow square gridding while possibly gaining a few fps of performance.

I still wish to get a less obscure detail than Mikhail's of what manifest to edit with android:dither="false" command.
I can't even view xml files properly on Android,I guess I need to use the computer to read a copy,change the value,get the copy onto the device,and then overwrite the original.
But from what app in root directory?

[littleguy]

Post a savefile so we can jump right to the part in the scene that's dithered.  If I can reproduce the issue on one of my devices, I'll take a closer look.

Also, what do you mean by fullscreen, if not immersive mode?  Are you editing the mupen config file manually?  If so, which settings?  Just need all the info in order to help.

[Mikhail]

I have a theory,a gam- ...

I think it has something to do with scaling and "native" resolution versus real native resolution.
From the 1080p screen,it has square gridding much like some older gif player with any non-dithering gif.
If you want to,try to get my ditherless user image gif and view it in an older gif viewer for android. (unless it uses forced dithering on that viewer)

Maybe there is an alternate way to make it scale that doesn't allow square gridding while possibly gaining a few fps of performance.

I still wish to get a less obscure detail than Mikhail's of what manifest to edit with android:dither="false" command.
I can't even view xml files properly on Android,I guess I need to use the computer to read a copy,change the value,get the copy onto the device,and then overwrite the original.
But from what app in root directory?

The AndroidManifest.xml within the apk, rename .apk to .zip and you'll see it.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2493107

It's been a while since I edited a apk but I believe I used the above tool in the past.
Also have some command prompt / batch commands for extracting apks and repacking / resigning them which is quicker for small edits, I'll try and find them on my comp tommorow for you.

[retroben]

So you meant the Mupen64Plus AE apk file?
Thanks for being so helpful to me. *tear slips out*
I still need to use a computer since Android confoundly lacks proper xml viewing support.
Can't you just as easily set this as default in the manifest so quality can be fixed?

I found something rather intriguing though.
When I tried Retroarch for Android on the same moment (DK64 DK Isles underwater in front of K. Rools lair),it does not even show a sign of dither and it looks perfect despite missing skybox color.
I even used both 640x480 and 1920x1440 resolutions and even took screenshots.

I got a VERY interesting result!
The Retroarch Android screenshots look EXACTLY identical to my PJ64 screenshots with Glide64 with no dithering yet with missing color depth of actual visuals.
The one I uploaded was a print screeen of PJ64 so I could keep all colors seen on the image.
Why is it so dumb by not keeping all colors as it should?
I may try to use an external screenshot tool if possible on Android,wish me luck.

Somehow Glide64 on Retroarch for Android looks exactly identical to how GLideN64 acts with polygon offsets.
You can see some stuff through walls,Banjo-Tooie is missing dynamic shadow and has a rectangle instead while paths are seen through Jinjo houses.

(it must be something to do with Mupen64Plus AE itself and how it reacts unfairly to some devices)
Either that or Retroarch for Android's manifest has dither set to false already?
If it does,then that should be what Mupen64Plus AE does.

I wonder,where did Retroarch port Mupen64Plus from,particularly where for use on Android?

... What? ... What!
OKAY OKAY,I will try to upload a savestate soon.

[littleguy]

@retroben I just made a branch to test Mikhail's manifest fix.  It will show up on the auto-builds page under the "test-dither" category when the next hour rolls over.

[retroben]

Great. Thanks!

Here is a user savestate for DK64 (U)...

http://www.2shared.com/file/wQnrvWMe/ow_the_edge.html

I put it where it gets REALLY bad on Glide64.

I also already got a screenshot from Retroarch for Android without any dither on their Glide64 plugin.
I wonder if theirs is actually the normal Glide64 instead of the mk2 version?
Let me know if you want the screenshot as well.
It even shows evidence of the Retropad overlay and my FireTV's orange mouse circle/cursor.

[littleguy]

RetroArch has evolved so much it's hard to say what came from what.  I believe they started roughly with mupen64plus-ae though (before it was fully merged back upstream).

Edit: Oops it looks like it takes an extra full hour for the autobuild script to start building new branches.  This hour it discovered the branch.  Next hour it will build the branch

[retroben]

I'm stuck on my daily routine of GS code making anyway,and I can't as easily test it.

Does Logitech F310 Gamepad work well with Mupen64Plus AE,I am thinking about hopefully nabbing one successfully while at Walmart tomorrow (secrecy) and I was wondering if it has been confirmed good for the emulator.
It already reaches out to Android TV users and FireTV is more or less a type of Android TV.