GREAT READ:Making developers more productive — the Dolphin development infrastructure

[Akio]

Asmodean's FXAA is great. We should have an article showing screenshots comparing FXAA On/Off in both hardware and software mode. We should have a separate article about AF as well as it's a relatively new feature and I think many users don't really understand it. What about MTVU? I think it's a great feature.

To sum it up, now we have the following interesting features that we can write articles about:

• Compressed ISO image files support
  
• Async audio
  
• Custom resolutions
  
• Custom shaders support
  
• FXAA
  
• AF
  
• Fast and accurate multithreaded software mode
  
• EE overclocking (when it's finalized)
  
• MTVU
  

Also, the more I think about it, I do like the idea of highlighting the complexity in emulating the PS2. It might garner more attention from devs.

Or it might scare them off. Actually, most developers don't like complicated/difficult stuff. Most people don't like them. But it might attract some developers who want to work on challenging projects.

[karasuhebi]

Besides spotlighting certain features within GSdx, I believe an article should be dedicated to the entirety of GSdx itself, mainly explaining all the different options and what they do...sort of like a guide. For example I'd like the article to touch on how many extra rendering threads someone should set for software mode and why that is.

[ssakash]

For example I'd like the article to touch on how many extra rendering threads someone should set for software mode and why that is.

If we are gonna have articles for such beginner stuff, we will probably end up having a whole lot of rookie articles. It's better to have articles based on in-depth knowledge of emulation.

[karasuhebi]

What's wrong with having many articles? The more content the better! Also I don't think having an in-depth article on how to use GSdx is uncalled for.

[ssakash]

I think writing articles for such trivial stuff won't be helpful for the peoples who are following the project. It may help for some newbies who have no idea about emulation but, I really doubt that newbies will read the article. Most of them don't even have the patience to read the configuration guide. Though, I think this will be a great addition to the configuration guide rather than creating a article about it. Even though, there are still some other topics on making articles which, even the normal active members of the forum can make a article about.

[Akio]

Besides spotlighting certain features within GSdx, I believe an article should be dedicated to the entirety of GSdx itself, mainly explaining all the different options and what they do...sort of like a guide. For example I'd like the article to touch on how many extra rendering threads someone should set for software mode and why that is.

We already have a page on the wiki: http://wiki.pcsx2.net/index.php/GSDX

SW renderer threads -- chooses the number of threads (pipes) to render the picture in software mode. Every additional thread here means one additional CPU core will be used in the rendering process. You're still going to need at least one core left for the PCSX2 itself so if you, for instance, have 4 cores (quad core CPU) you may want to set this field to 3.

[karasuhebi]

We already have a page on the wiki: http://wiki.pcsx2.net/index.php/GSDX

Thanks for the link. That needs to be revised though. Number of threads != number of cores. Also if you have MTVU enabled, I would think choosing '3' would hurt your performance instead of help it because technically one of your 4 threads is already being used for MTVU.

[karasuhebi]

Looks like MTVU doesn't have to do with it too much. With some testing I've been doing in R&C, I noticed I get better FPS with 2 threads instead of 3, regardless of MTVU being on or off. So apparently PCSX2 is using 2 threads right off the bat no matter what.

[Akio]

PCSX2 uses 2 cores/threads by default. It will utilize 3 cores if MTVU is enabled. It can utilize 4 or more cores in software mode.

Thanks for the link. That needs to be revised though. Number of threads != number of cores. Also if you have MTVU enabled, I would think choosing '3' would hurt your performance instead of help it because technically one of your 4 threads is already being used for MTVU.

Actually, the cores can be physical or logical. You can edit it, though. It's not necessarily true that using 3 extra rendering threads will hurt the performance if MTVU is enabled. It depends on the load on each core.

If you enable MTVU and use 3 extra rendering threads, PCSX2 will use 7 threads.

[karasuhebi]

4 or more threads*

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