Gsdx future discussion

[Blyss Sarania]

The way I see it. If you use the advance plugin, you could have a build available for the buildbot for each new commits. This way people test new stuff. We will keep the building of the legacy plugin so users can easily use it. But I don't want to spend tons of the limited buildbot resources to build various version of the legacy plugin which will mostly be in pure maintenance mode (aka no new feature)

Right I understand that. You wanna have at least one version of the legacy plugin in with the buildbot builds. I get that. But I'm saying I will compile the other versions myself and make them available on the forum or the plugin section of the site, just so users who do want them can get them.

[Exos]

Please drop the support for the legacy hardware, it's not like users are going to be able to play more demanding games on their 10 year old toasters anyway. Focus on the current tech and making the emu as compatible as it can be.

[gregory]

@blyss sure. I just don't see the point to build all commits when there will be virtually no change in them.
Just to clarify that users won't need to download a new version every days.

[Blyss Sarania]

@blyss sure. I just don't see the point to build all commits when there will be virtually no change in them.
Just to clarify that users won't need to download a new version every days.

I agree, it's quite a waste of resources to build something unchanging over and over and over, especially several versions of it.

Here is an idea: Why couldn't we just include a prebuilt binary in with the buildbot? I'm sure we can do that. Just like we have other files(cheatsws.zip and others) that aren't built from code but just included. I think we could do that with a DLL too yeah?

[gregory]

Well that a possibility. Maybe not in plugin directory as some Linux user will have an heart attack

[refraction]

relabel the dll to be legacy-gsdx9.dll or .so or w/e

[BlackTelomeres]

The SSE2 stuff is about the optimization of the number of "default" build. It would still be available as a self-build.

Most of the general userbase with only an iGPU probably don't know how to build from source--I don't know whether the FPS gain from SSE2 to AVX2 would even be worth it to them to bother. People will just have to get it from Blyss Sarania who has volunteered to build it if they want something other than SSE2 I guess, especially if it is a significant difference.

Question: what do you mean by slow iGPU ?

Modern iGPUs are slow as hell compared to dedicated GPUs, meaning getting full speed at even 2x res is hard for many games. I assume you know this and it's just the wording or the term iGPU=integrated GPU that is confusing.

I don't see how moving DX9 to the legacy plugin could upset anyone. Or at least it shouldn't.

The fact is our DX9 backend isn't being worked on. And it isn't gonna be worked on. It's not gonna change. Whether it stays in mainline or gets pushed to legacy, the DX9 backend will be EXACTLY the same. So yeah, I don't see how it could be an issue really. There's nothing to lose and a good bit of code simplicity to gain.

It's because I didn't understand what the change entailed or how exactly it would work in the future. I assume people just reading this without a knowledge of how the codebase works would be sort of puzzled as well until it was clarified. I obviously know bugs haven't been fixed in DX9 for a long time, that it is already essentially legacy. What I now get the impression gregory means is that this is just making a branch in the main swath of code that handles the legacy graphics plugin(s) so that they don't break when the main branch code for DX11/laterOGL is so different from what the DX9/legacyOGL plugin was written for that it couldn't handle it. This doesn't seem to be a problem or might even be good.

[FlatOut]

Modern iGPUs are slow as hell compared to dedicated GPUs, meaning getting full speed at even 2x res is hard for many games. I assume you know this and it's just the wording or the term iGPU=integrated GPU that is confusing.

I've actually managed to get some games to run smoothly at 3x native in OpenGL with my intel iGPU where my AMD GPU couldn't even get close.

[BlackTelomeres]

I've actually managed to get some games to run smoothly at 3x native in OpenGL with my intel iGPU where my AMD GPU couldn't even get close.

Yeah it is possible for some games, like Devil Summoner 1. Games with prerendered backgrounds are a typical candidate I assume since there isn't much 3D going on and if it does shift into a full 3D arena for battles, said arena is typically very small.

As far as the AMD GPU being slower in that case, it's probably just due to the frequently mentioned problems in their driver regarding the case of the niche OGL extensions used, but overall I would never argue an Intel iGPU is better than a dedicated AMD one, at least I hope not or else AMD buyers are getting really ripped off

[gregory]

It's because I didn't understand what the change entailed or how exactly it would work in the future. I assume people just reading this without a knowledge of how the codebase works would be sort of puzzled as well until it was clarified. I obviously know bugs haven't been fixed in DX9 for a long time, that it is already essentially legacy. What I now get the impression gregory means is that this is just making a branch in the main swath of code that handles the legacy graphics plugin(s) so that they don't break when the main branch code for DX11/laterOGL is so different from what the DX9/legacyOGL plugin was written for that it couldn't handle it. This doesn't seem to be a problem or might even be good.

It is ok. The purpose of this thread is to discuss the impact. And I will be honest, I didn't think about the iGPU (not in this way).

Well I know that iGPU aren't the fast chip in the world. But my question was, "are all iGPU too slow" or only some them and so which one.

Normally openGL uses some extensions to directly access the GPU memory. So potentially it could be a bit faster than dx9 (mostly CPU wise). But 2x/3x is mostly a matter of GPU horse power. Hum, or maybe memory bandwidth. On SotC my 256 bits GTX760 (200 GB/s) is limited by the memory (if I trust Nvidia profiler).

Anyway, AVX/AVX2 is only used by the SW renderer. The HW renderer use a couple of SSE3/4 instructions, but if you're GPU limited, the impact will likely be small. But yeah, the blyss build will be fine