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Open-source hardware PlayStation GL renderer – alpha version

87 points by libretro 10y ago

hardwaresofton 10y ago
I'm eagerly awaiting the surely-incoming emscripten port so I can play PSX games in my browser.
- libretro 10y ago
  RetroArch has an Emscripten port but it's in a state of disarray for a few months. It should be getting patched up again though. Anyway, a more immediate priority once the renderer is close to being finished is a Vulkan port. There is also similar work being done right now on the libretro core version of Mupen64plus.
- klodolph 10y ago
  We'll see. It uses OpenGL 3.3, which is roughly equivalent to WebGL 2, which is not really available yet. You can enable WebGL 2 in Firefox or Chrome but it is disabled by default in both browsers.
  - libretro 10y ago
    I'd like to have codepaths for GL2+ (assuming FBO support and GLSL shaders)/GLES2 eventually too, but hopefully it won't involve too many sacrifices.
  - TD-Linux 10y ago
    It's already on by default in Firefox Nightly, so I suspect it will be shipped by the time such a port is made.
Mithaldu 10y ago
That page seems to not mention at all: Why is this being made? Why should i care, as an end user?
- mmebane 10y ago
  Sounds like existing renderers for PSX emulators are either closed-source, or based on legacy graphics APIs and therefore hacky. From about halfway down the page: > This is probably the first OpenGL renderer for PSX that is not based on outdated fixed-function OpenGL code and which is, actually, well, open-source. Because we can assume shaders will be there, we can get reasonably close to emulating texture windows accurately (with Pete’s OGL1 GPU plugin, there were codepaths for doing it with paletted textures – the hacky approach – and the pixel shader approach). Therefore, the renderer is still kept pretty simple and easy to understand.
  - astrange 10y ago
    There are perfectly fine and compatible CPU-based renderers for Playstation 1 in Mednafen or pSX. People don't want compatibility, though, they want their graphics to be better than the original. So emulator devs make these GPU-based HLE renderers that are always going to be hacky no matter what.
- cloudjacker 10y ago
  So you can put a PSX emulator on a HTC VIVE duh!
pcwalton 10y ago
Out of curiosity, why did the project move from Rust to C++?
- coolsunglasses 10y ago
  https://www.reddit.com/r/emulation/comments/4kdnwi/alpha_version_of_mednafenbeetle_psx_gl_renderer/d3f1cuv https://www.reddit.com/r/emulation/comments/4kdnwi/alpha_ver... Manually pulling in context: First comment: >We successfully ported simias' Rust renderer from Rustation over to Mednafen/Beetle PSX as C++ code. May as ask - why? Why didn't you just add a tiny FFI layer to the renderer, set it up to compile as a static library and link that into Mednafen? Surely that would have been less work? Reply (from dev or OP?): This has existed for several months already, check the source. It is still possible to just make the Rust renderer statically link against Mednafen PSX, however it's hidden away in some branch of a fork simias made of rustation/frankenbeetle somewhere, so it wasn't really accessible. Anyway I don't know what you're griping about, and the same goes for the guy below (SCO_1). Simias is in full support of this, and we made this specifically in a way so that we can still easily send code back and forth. Also, there being a C++ port means we can get certain devs to participate who wouldn't want to touch anything Rust-based. That is not an indictment of Rust or anything, from my limited interactions so far I actually like it. It's just that certain very capable engineers might only know C++/C to a large degree and have no interest to be learning a special language specifically for PSX development. And this one guy in specific could make a very large difference. Nobody, not simias, not anybody, is opposed to that just because of it not being done in Rust. It can still be backported and it won't detract from Rustation, if anything, it helps build it up. This was also explained already in an earlier post. Later reply from or OP: 1 - Users were finding it unclear and hard to compile the core with the statically linked Rust library. 2 - Some coders are mainly well versed in ASM/C/C++ but they still wanted to contribute to the GL renderer efforts, and we need to draw in as many capable devs as possible to improve the state of this GL renderer. In any case, it can still use the external Rust static lib. Then from a different thread: I believe you might not understand what this post is about - the idea is to take the renderer from simias' rustation and incorporate it into mednafen, which is a C++ project already. Mednafen uses SW rendering and this brings in HW rendering to mednafen (beetle). #### Summary The original Rust project has had its code incorporated into a C++ project, which then converted it to C++ because all the contributors knew asm/C/C++ and not Rust. AFAICT. YMMV.
iamcreasy 10y ago
Can anyone tell me what is it?
- Sophistifunk 10y ago
  Don't know why the downvotes, seems like a legit question to me. The title says "open source hardware" and it appears to be just a rendering update to some PSX emulator software.
  - Qwertious 10y ago
    I think it's '[open-source] [hardware rendering]', not '[open-source hardware] [rendering]' - the key tidbit being the distinction between "software rendering" and "hardware rendering" - the former is shorthand for rendering purely on the CPU, while the latter uses the graphics card for faster rendering speed.
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Mizza 10y ago
Looks very crisp - I wonder if they could apply HQ2X or similar on certain textures to try to improve the look of text and other sprites?
ParadisoShlee 10y ago
There is an upscaled PSX emulator that works on ARM - PCSX ReARMed... worth a look for running great looking full speed PSX games on low powered ARM devices. Video of the Enhanced Graphics on OpenPandora Handheld https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ydxoaHfymU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ydxoaHfymU

87 points by libretro 10y ago

hardwaresofton 10y ago

I'm eagerly awaiting the surely-incoming emscripten port so I can play PSX games in my browser.

libretro 10y ago
RetroArch has an Emscripten port but it's in a state of disarray for a few months. It should be getting patched up again though. Anyway, a more immediate priority once the renderer is close to being finished is a Vulkan port. There is also similar work being done right now on the libretro core version of Mupen64plus.
klodolph 10y ago
We'll see. It uses OpenGL 3.3, which is roughly equivalent to WebGL 2, which is not really available yet. You can enable WebGL 2 in Firefox or Chrome but it is disabled by default in both browsers.
- libretro 10y ago
  I'd like to have codepaths for GL2+ (assuming FBO support and GLSL shaders)/GLES2 eventually too, but hopefully it won't involve too many sacrifices.
- TD-Linux 10y ago
  It's already on by default in Firefox Nightly, so I suspect it will be shipped by the time such a port is made.

Mithaldu 10y ago

That page seems to not mention at all: Why is this being made? Why should i care, as an end user?

mmebane 10y ago
Sounds like existing renderers for PSX emulators are either closed-source, or based on legacy graphics APIs and therefore hacky. From about halfway down the page: > This is probably the first OpenGL renderer for PSX that is not based on outdated fixed-function OpenGL code and which is, actually, well, open-source. Because we can assume shaders will be there, we can get reasonably close to emulating texture windows accurately (with Pete’s OGL1 GPU plugin, there were codepaths for doing it with paletted textures – the hacky approach – and the pixel shader approach). Therefore, the renderer is still kept pretty simple and easy to understand.
- astrange 10y ago
  There are perfectly fine and compatible CPU-based renderers for Playstation 1 in Mednafen or pSX. People don't want compatibility, though, they want their graphics to be better than the original. So emulator devs make these GPU-based HLE renderers that are always going to be hacky no matter what.
cloudjacker 10y ago
So you can put a PSX emulator on a HTC VIVE duh!

pcwalton 10y ago

Out of curiosity, why did the project move from Rust to C++?

coolsunglasses 10y ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/emulation/comments/4kdnwi/alpha_version_of_mednafenbeetle_psx_gl_renderer/d3f1cuv https://www.reddit.com/r/emulation/comments/4kdnwi/alpha_ver... Manually pulling in context: First comment: >We successfully ported simias' Rust renderer from Rustation over to Mednafen/Beetle PSX as C++ code. May as ask - why? Why didn't you just add a tiny FFI layer to the renderer, set it up to compile as a static library and link that into Mednafen? Surely that would have been less work? Reply (from dev or OP?): This has existed for several months already, check the source. It is still possible to just make the Rust renderer statically link against Mednafen PSX, however it's hidden away in some branch of a fork simias made of rustation/frankenbeetle somewhere, so it wasn't really accessible. Anyway I don't know what you're griping about, and the same goes for the guy below (SCO_1). Simias is in full support of this, and we made this specifically in a way so that we can still easily send code back and forth. Also, there being a C++ port means we can get certain devs to participate who wouldn't want to touch anything Rust-based. That is not an indictment of Rust or anything, from my limited interactions so far I actually like it. It's just that certain very capable engineers might only know C++/C to a large degree and have no interest to be learning a special language specifically for PSX development. And this one guy in specific could make a very large difference. Nobody, not simias, not anybody, is opposed to that just because of it not being done in Rust. It can still be backported and it won't detract from Rustation, if anything, it helps build it up. This was also explained already in an earlier post. Later reply from or OP: 1 - Users were finding it unclear and hard to compile the core with the statically linked Rust library. 2 - Some coders are mainly well versed in ASM/C/C++ but they still wanted to contribute to the GL renderer efforts, and we need to draw in as many capable devs as possible to improve the state of this GL renderer. In any case, it can still use the external Rust static lib. Then from a different thread: I believe you might not understand what this post is about - the idea is to take the renderer from simias' rustation and incorporate it into mednafen, which is a C++ project already. Mednafen uses SW rendering and this brings in HW rendering to mednafen (beetle). #### Summary The original Rust project has had its code incorporated into a C++ project, which then converted it to C++ because all the contributors knew asm/C/C++ and not Rust. AFAICT. YMMV.

iamcreasy 10y ago

Can anyone tell me what is it?

Sophistifunk 10y ago
Don't know why the downvotes, seems like a legit question to me. The title says "open source hardware" and it appears to be just a rendering update to some PSX emulator software.
- Qwertious 10y ago
  I think it's '[open-source] [hardware rendering]', not '[open-source hardware] [rendering]' - the key tidbit being the distinction between "software rendering" and "hardware rendering" - the former is shorthand for rendering purely on the CPU, while the latter uses the graphics card for faster rendering speed.

deleted 10y ago

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deleted 10y ago

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Mizza 10y ago

Looks very crisp - I wonder if they could apply HQ2X or similar on certain textures to try to improve the look of text and other sprites?

ParadisoShlee 10y ago

There is an upscaled PSX emulator that works on ARM - PCSX ReARMed... worth a look for running great looking full speed PSX games on low powered ARM devices. Video of the Enhanced Graphics on OpenPandora Handheld https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ydxoaHfymU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ydxoaHfymU