SweetFX....utility that adds CRT shaders to nearly any directX game!

[isamu]

OK Guys by popular demand here is its own thread!!! 

I'd like to introduce you to a post processing utility called sweetfx. It's for D3D *only* and is similar to ENBSeries.  What it does is add some cool post processing effects to your games, like Bloom, HDR, FXAA, etc.


We have discussed Sweetfx, in the Driving game forum but we feel it deserved it's own thread here.


You can grab SweetFX  from here:

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=376265

Then, if you choose to, grab a cool and useful UI/Frontend called "The configurator tool" from here:

http://sweetfx.thelazy.net/

Sidenote...*IF* by any chance the game you're running is a DirectX 8 game, then you need to use the ENB converter. What this is, is a tool that will convert Directx8 to Directx9, and will allow the game to be seen as a Dx9 game...then it will be recognized by SweetFX and will work! Just download the zip file, and then extract it into the game's folder. Then run SweetFX again.

The Converter is here:

http://enbdev.com/convertor_dx8_dx9_v0035.htm

OutRun 2006 Coast to Coast for example, looks bonkers with these Arcade CRT effects.





There's a ton of interesting things you can do with sweetfx. Just extract the files into the game you want to run it with and you're golden!

Also works in Model 2 emu!!!!!



But not in Supermodel unfortunately, since Supermodel is OpenGL, and none of the wrappers I've tried works with it.

Remember...SweetFX is for D3D *ONLY* and will NOT work with OpenGL unless you use a wrapper. If someone knows of a good OpenGL to D3D Wrapper/converter *other* than Qindie or GLdirect5, let me know. I tried both in Supermodel but it just crashes. I think in GLDirect5's case, it might due to GLDirect5 supporting OGL only up to 1.xx.

Feel free to post and share your results and screenshots with SweetFX enabled

[Howard_Casto]

Ok we need to start a list of supported games.

Confirmed Working:

Model 2 Emulator
Outrun 2006 (Turn of Anti-Aliasing in Outrun's settings, also use the dx8 converter)

Confirmed Not Working:

Supermodel

[isamu]

Confirmed working:

Dolphin(use D3D mode)
PCSX2 PS2 emulator
PCSX1 PS1 emulator(use the GDSX plugin)

Not working:
PPSSPP PSP emulator(I have tears in my eyes just typing this, I want it so bad )

[isamu]

Howard post a couple pics of the screenshots you took dude. Do you see any differences on your end between Bloom turned on and turned off? HDR?

[Nuexzz]

very very interesting, I will continue this thread 

[Howard_Casto]

Today is laundry day, so I'm busy atm.... I'll take a look at the stuff you were mentioning tonight. 

You may want to change the title of the thread so it'll get more traffic....  sweetfx doesn't really tell a person what it does just by the name alone. 

How about "How to add crt shaders to nearly any directX game"?

[Hunk_4TH]

Demul 5.7 running Naomi seemed to work. I was hoping it would work on Fusion but it didn't seem to.

[Howard_Casto]

I'm interested in console emulators mostly.... current MESS releases have more popular systems working, but there are still a few oddballs that would be nice to have crt effects on.   I tried bsnes and a few others with no success.  But many of them have their own shader support, so that might be the issue.  Haven't had time to look into it much. 

I might try project 64 and a few others of that era... that's about as modern a game as I'd want effects on. 

[ZeroPoint]

Well....huh....Mame works with this 

Can even be combined with HLSL.

Also some nice effects for vector games with a little effort.

[Howard_Casto]

How about 64bit mame?  That one is always the stickler. 

Tried project64... it works but because p64 is so old you have to mess with it a little.  You'll need to install the dx8 proxy dll first off.  Also use a d3d graphics plugin (duh) and make sure anti-aliasing is off.  Evne then you'll run into issues.  My desktop runs at 1600x900.  If I try to run p64 at 1600x900 the shaders look AWFUL.  Running the games at a 4:3 resolution fixes the shaders, but the aspect ratio is completely wrong.  The setting that worked for me was 1440x900, which is wider than 4:3, but when the aspect issues screw it up, it thins it back to 4:3. 

So put this one in the "working with issues" box. 

[isamu]

You may want to change the title of the thread so it'll get more traffic....  sweetfx doesn't really tell a person what it does just by the name alone. 

How about "How to add crt shaders to nearly any directX game"?

Good tip. Changed.

[isamu]

Well....huh....Mame works with this 

Can even be combined with HLSL.

Also some nice effects for vector games with a little effort.

Color me shocked! I tried it on my end and it didn't work here. Plus how is this possible since mame doesn't support hardware accelerated graphics?

[ZeroPoint]

I´m running MameUIFx32 0.148. Have to "run as administrator" for some reason. Same for OutRun and other games.

[Howard_Casto]

Well....huh....Mame works with this 

Can even be combined with HLSL.

Also some nice effects for vector games with a little effort.

Color me shocked! I tried it on my end and it didn't work here. Plus how is this possible since mame doesn't support hardware accelerated graphics?

Mame supports hardware accelerated graphics... it has for quite some time... it doesn't support hardware accelerated 3d..... which is totally different.  Shaders work on any d3d render target, so as long as d3d is doing the rendering it should work. 

[isamu]

Mame supports hardware accelerated graphics... it has for quite some time... it doesn't support hardware accelerated 3d..... which is totally different.  Shaders work on any d3d render target, so as long as d3d is doing the rendering it should work.

Ahh I see. Interesting. Any I just realized I'm using the 64 bit version of mame, and sweetfx doesn't support 64bit only 32. Oh well, I'm not sure I want to run the 32bit version of mame/mess and sacrifice some speed. But in all honesty my CPU should be able to handle most games in the 32bit version without issue. We'll see.

[Hunk_4TH]

Mame/Mess already use HLSL so might not be any point in using SweetFX at least for CRT simulation imo 

[isamu]

Mame/Mess already use HLSL so might not be any point in using SweetFX at least for CRT simulation imo 

Exactly. Good point. HLSL rocks.

[Howard_Casto]

It has limited use for vector games.  Via sweet fx you should be able to add the glow that everybody says mame doesn't get right.  Of course you can probably get just as close a effect via the built in hlsl...

[Hunk_4TH]

Has anyone tried this with the Saturn emu SSF? I just get a black screen no crashes though. I'm guessing this emu isn't directx?

[Howard_Casto]

Well due to the way a proxy works there wouldn't be any effect if it didn't use directx.  It probably just renders in a different manner.  I noticed that The Dragon King shows a blank screen as well, and I use pre-transformed vertices, which is rather unusual. 

[Boulotaur2024]

Good ol' Street Fighter Turbo in Mame using SweetFX CRT shader + a slight bloom to simulate halation




See the following post at Guru3D to get the required files

[Hunk_4TH]

Well due to the way a proxy works there wouldn't be any effect if it didn't use directx.  It probably just renders in a different manner.  I noticed that The Dragon King shows a blank screen as well, and I use pre-transformed vertices, which is rather unusual.

I'm not sure how it renders. I looked in the options/ini and these were the only screen settings I could find

Code: [Select]

[Screen]
Scanline="1"
ScanlineRatio="40"
AutoFieldSkip="1"
EnforceAspectRatioWindow="1"
EnforceAspectRatioFullscreen="1"
WideScreen="0"
VSynchWaitWindow="0"
VSynchWaitFullscreen="1"
FixedWindowResolution="1"
FixedFullscreenResolution="1"
BilinearFiltering="1"
StretchScreen="1"
FullSize="1"
FullscreenDisplay="0"
DisableFullscreenScanline="0"

[Gray_Area]

Far as I know, HSLS doesn't cover vector effects. The shader is still in process.

[isamu]

Can someone explain how vector effects work in sweetFX for mame? Does it turn the game's into vector graphics(lines only) or something?

[Boulotaur2024]

You better ask the guy who created the shader : cgwg
By the way, after hours of debugging I managed to make SweetFX work with SSF

 

See my previous post for details on how to download. By the way it doesn't work well in fullscreen and I don't know why right now... So keep it windowed mode

EDIT : (re-reading the thread) SweetFX will work with 64bits Mame if you use the d3d9.dll from the SweetFX_x64 folder, it won't otherwise.
About Bsnes/Higan, yup I wish I could make it work with this one but it won't load any other external dll even though it uses Direct3D... I never found t he trick... But it works fine in snes9x... although with a couple of minor issues with the CRT shader

[isamu]

You better ask the guy who created the shader : cgwg
By the way, after hours of debugging I managed to make SweetFX work with SSF

 

See my previous post for details on how to download. By the way it doesn't work well in fullscreen and I don't know why right now... So keep it windowed mode

EDIT : (re-reading the thread) SweetFX will work with 64bits Mame if you use the d3d9.dll from the SweetFX_x64 folder, it won't otherwise.
About Bsnes/Higan, yup I wish I could make it work with this one but it won't load any other external dll even though it uses Direct3D... I never found t he trick... But it works fine in snes9x... although with a couple of minor issues with the CRT shader

Great info Boulotaur2024! Good to see you here and welcome to the forums buddy 

Gotta couple questions for you:

1)I don't suppose you know anyone who is capable of writing an OpenGL to D3D wrapper compatible with the latest OpenGL 2.xx and OpenGL ES...do you? Wishing so so much to be able to use this with OGL emulators such as SuperModel and PPSSPP.

2)In your humble opinion, why do you suppose CeeJay has been avoiding the question on whether or not he will eventually attempt to write a version of SweetFX that is compatible with OpenGL? Do you suspect he is simply disgusted with all things OGL or something?

[Boulotaur2024]

Because it's a ton of work. Writing an OpenGL to D3D convertor is no trivial task. And no, I'm not willing to do that, there aren't a lot of OpenGL games so it's absolutely not worth it imo. For emulators yeah, it could be interesting but you'll most likely get a DirectX plugin for PPSSPP somewhere in the future (I already linked the thread to you, it was announced). Supermodel looks like it's going to be very good but they're aiming for portability first (hence OpenGL) so necessarily you'll have to wait a little for a DX plugin.

Ceejay didn't reply because he already replied a thousand times to that question (search the forum), and for the above mentionned reason(s)

NB : typing the verification letters *really* is obnoxious

[Howard_Casto]

Coming from someone who has being "going" to make a proxy dll for some time now, I can tell you it's a buttload of work and I'm amazed this works as well as it does. 

Windows always checks the root folder first for dlls before checking the system folders and a proxy dll takes advantage of that.  It intercepts all calls that would normally go to the real d3d9.dll alters them and then passes them along to the real deal.  That means that every single possible function for d3d9 has to be defined in the proxy dll so that it gets passed along.  There are a lot of functions. 

Generally how they work is whatever your proxy is going to do happens at the "d3d present" function, which is normally when a d3d app draws to the screen.  This isn't the only way to render though and depending upon the original apps little tweaks and tricks, particularly with the present function itself, altering this function can lead from anything to a corrupted display, to a blank screen, to a crash. 

I just mention this because if you think that is hard, opengl has totally different functions and render techniques... it's like comparing apples and oranges.  So opengl support just isn't going to happen.  Neither is 100% compatibility. 

[Boulotaur2024]

Yup exactly took me quite a few months just for DirectX 9
Good news I fixed the fullscreen issue with SSF ( I was about to write SSF4 :/ )

 

Also I tried to play with FXAA but the aliasing is so huge it doesn't help much, it does add a bit of blur though, which is nice for old games imho

[Hunk_4TH]

Sweet man thanks for getting this working with SSF!!! How did you get it working in fullscreen?

[Howard_Casto]

I'm terrible with shaders, so I'm wondering if you take requests. 

You know the features where you do a split screen and only half of the screen gets effects?  Could you make a similar option where only the 4:3 portion of the screen gets effects?

Been working with the lua scripts in m2 to give the emulator mame-style bezels.  It works great but when I apply sfx, obviously they get distorted along with the actual gameplay area. 

Check it out:

[Howard_Casto]

It doesn't look that bad for top skater because it just has some flashy light bulbs, but for a true bezel it would probably look pretty weird. 

Actually defining a screen area might be a good option if it's possible.... I know mame games use a lot of artwork. 

[Howard_Casto]

I just wanted to point this out:

http://www.mameworld.info/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Number=308967

184u5 was just released and it adds, vector shaders and crt bloom to mame. 

[Hunk_4TH]

That looks pretty cool Howard! I also tested this with Dreamcast Nulldc and it seemed to work great and in fullscreen. Though a lot of Dreamcast games looked great in VGA this is still pretty sweet!

[Howard_Casto]

Also it appears that MAME now how LUA scripting? 

It entirely depends upon what functions they've added, but if this is the case I can hack the hell out of mame (adding pop-up move lists, ect) without having to maintain a custom build, which is fantastic news!

[isamu]

Also it appears that MAME now how LUA scripting? 

It entirely depends upon what functions they've added, but if this is the case I can hack the hell out of mame (adding pop-up move lists, ect) without having to maintain a custom build, which is fantastic news!

Interesting! Does it make it easier to add force feedback?

[Howard_Casto]

I don't see how.  I do FF officially via the output system... there's no reason to resort to lua. 

Lua is generally used for graphics manipulation and sometimes game logic manipulation. 

[isamu]

I don't see how.  I do FF officially via the output system... there's no reason to resort to lua. 

Lua is generally used for graphics manipulation and sometimes game logic manipulation.

Oh I see. Pretty fascinating stuff nonetheless.

[isamu]

Just tested out the latest mame. Geezus...the bloom and over-blurryness is simply too much for my taste. I set all those related effects to 0.0 in the ini, but now the screen is just dark. What setting do I use to go back to the "regular" mame look? This is annoying please help.

[isamu]

EDIT : (re-reading the thread) SweetFX will work with 64bits Mame if you use the d3d9.dll from the SweetFX_x64 folder, it won't otherwise.

I don't have SweetFX_x64 folder. Is this perhaps contained a newer build that was released more recently? I'm still on 1.4