Dear Zenju, first of all thank you for your awesome scaler. Old games have never looked better, truly. Secondly, I, like you have been desperately wanting to see xBRZ implemented in DOSBox for quite some time. It would really enhance my retro gaming experience to new levels.
Thirdly, I'm not sure what the status of such a project is but recently I've been discussing with some people on the forum, people that are actually tech savvy and can code and stuff, and in particular ant_man22 with his pixel perfect scaling patch has offered to help in making a patch possible. If such a desire is still present, I would like to direct you to the following threads, in particular their last pages. Now I know that there's a 0.74 DOSBox build with save states and xBRZ ready for downloading here, but from what I understand the original 0.74 released 6 years ago is very old compared to the latest SVN DOSBox builds, with many developments having happened since then.
Thank you kindly for your time both now and for developing such an awesome scaler. I am hopeful that the future will finally see xBRZ in all its glory in DOSBox. One last noob question: is for instance 2xBRZ the same as 5xBRZ in terms of the operations performed on the pixel, just scaled to a higher resolution or is 6xBRZ for instance the highest quality xBRZ out of the bunch?
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I don't have influence on xBRZ or save states being integrated into the official DosBox. Instead I'm quite surprised that there is actual resistence which boils down to personal visual preference. Not just with this emulator, but for others as well. That would at least make sense if not the outdated HQx scaler would then be shippped instead. Same thing with the save states. For some reason people believe the possibility of save states may weaken their gaming experience, even if they don't use it.
Personally, I don't have interest in any such discussions, or even the slightest wish to convince anyone that he should like either xBRZ or save states. I programmed both for my personal fun with some old games and I have basically achieved that.
I realize some people may dislike scalers as a whole and that xBRZ might not make it into the main DOSBox trunk but I don't think the developers of DOSBox are against scalers, I mean they do have the horrible looking (in comparison) HQx scalers in there. I myself am not against save states, but if I had to choose the order of importance between the two features, I'd prefer that xBRZ got into DOSBox first and then we could argue in favor of save states.
My issue is that while you do offer an xBRZ-enabled DOSBox, it's based on the basic 0.74 release that is 6+ years old now, and the SVN has advanced quite a lot. I've also read the xBRZ thread on DOSBox, I was under the impression that it would be easily achievable to have your code reviewed and it gotten into the main trunk based on what Dominus said on the first page. Now bear in mind I myself am totally clueless about all the super technical stuff or there's something else I don't know, so maybe that's why I thought that.
However I was excited that there was someone who offered to help on vogons in one of the threads I linked so I was hoping maybe through some collaborative magic we could have a patch submitted that satisfied the DOSBox devs, or perhaps an idiot's-guide method to patch a DOSBox folder with xBRZ so I could do it manually whenever I change the SVN build I'm using.
I am sad that it doesn't seem like it would happen though, although I do have hope for the future. Please have mercy on us plebs and bless us with your pixel scaler magic. Don't hog all the fun for yourself :D
Is the scaler considered complete or will there be updates? Secondly some guy in the xBRZ thread said that there's a new(2 year old post) xBR in town that does what xBRZ does but is better? I'm not sure I understood how though, if any explanation was there, but he did provide a download link
Lastly what happens when 6xBRZ, being larger in screen size usage, is stretched to monitor size or lower? Does it keep the quality? I ask because using the ScalerTest I observed that 6xBRZ takes up more of my screen that is available to display.
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The scaler is pretty much complete and has achieved its goals quite well I would say. Yes, there's always some rivalry between different scaler (developers) and naturally everyone thinks his is best :D If you don't want to believe hearsay you need to compare the scaled images yourself.
xBRZ (or any other scaler) should be used at the scale factor that stretches the input image roughly to the size of the output monitor for best quality.
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Zenju, the one true goal is to implement a stable interface in DOSBox that will allow device-independent implementation of different software scalers and let them peacufully coexist without any rivalry so that the users might choose whichever they wanted via the config file.
The author of the pixel-perfect patch.
Last edit: Anton 2017-04-02
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I second this, unfortunately I was totally unable to even to begin to understand where to start adding this to DOSBox as I got discouraged fairly early into the process as can be seen in my post on vogons: http://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=52414&p=573656#p573656
I am still holding out hope that one day I will be able to enjoy this scaler in DOSBox. Recently I played some Doom with the GZDoom source port and it allowed me to set up to 4xBRZ, it looked so beautiful and really got me fired up for playing it, but at the same time I could not help but wish this was in DOSBox as well.
Now the point of my post here is twofold:
To show you that there is a special DOSBox build called Enhanced Community Edition that is being maintained by Yesterplay80 here: http://blog.yesterplay80.net/?page_id=515 and in that link I gave above, to which many authors have contributed their patches, like Anton above (thank you btw, pixel perfect is also great!). Many authors and users have gotten a bit gray haired waiting for an official DOSBox version these last years, myself included, not to mention that many of the features in the ECE build may or may not make it in the end.
Secondly, to please ask you if you would consider implementing an xBRZ that could be included in either DOSBox ECE. From what I understand there are many conflicting issues with the current implementation due to the fact that the SVN has gotten quite a lot of changes since 0.74 from years ago. Yesterplay80, I am sure of it, would be quite happy to include it and cooperate with you on this endeavour. His DOSBox ECE is always going to be SVN up-to-date and will always include all these patches, so for end-users like me, this would be a dream, and he also always provides the updated source of his builds on the blog.
Pretty please with a cherry on top and apologies if I sound like an annoying twit, I just really want this scaler so badly.
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Sorry to have missed you reply, Taiyoumaru. I did not receive any notification about it. You had better contact me at anton dot txt at gmail dot com. Do you have a simple interface to your code that upscales a rectangular image fragment with given integer scales? How many dependencies does it have and is it fast enough to run in a single thread? Please, reply to my e-mail.
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
Dear Zenju, first of all thank you for your awesome scaler. Old games have never looked better, truly. Secondly, I, like you have been desperately wanting to see xBRZ implemented in DOSBox for quite some time. It would really enhance my retro gaming experience to new levels.
Thirdly, I'm not sure what the status of such a project is but recently I've been discussing with some people on the forum, people that are actually tech savvy and can code and stuff, and in particular ant_man22 with his pixel perfect scaling patch has offered to help in making a patch possible. If such a desire is still present, I would like to direct you to the following threads, in particular their last pages. Now I know that there's a 0.74 DOSBox build with save states and xBRZ ready for downloading here, but from what I understand the original 0.74 released 6 years ago is very old compared to the latest SVN DOSBox builds, with many developments having happened since then.
Yesterplay88's enhanced DOSBox: http://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=9306&p=527758#p527758
ant_man22's pixel perfect patch: http://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=49160&start=120
And lastly, your thread that you started years ago has had some recent questions regarding the inner workings of xBRZ, although I'm sure you've been following this one. http://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=34125&hilit=Zenju&start=100
Thank you kindly for your time both now and for developing such an awesome scaler. I am hopeful that the future will finally see xBRZ in all its glory in DOSBox. One last noob question: is for instance 2xBRZ the same as 5xBRZ in terms of the operations performed on the pixel, just scaled to a higher resolution or is 6xBRZ for instance the highest quality xBRZ out of the bunch?
I don't have influence on xBRZ or save states being integrated into the official DosBox. Instead I'm quite surprised that there is actual resistence which boils down to personal visual preference. Not just with this emulator, but for others as well. That would at least make sense if not the outdated HQx scaler would then be shippped instead. Same thing with the save states. For some reason people believe the possibility of save states may weaken their gaming experience, even if they don't use it.
Personally, I don't have interest in any such discussions, or even the slightest wish to convince anyone that he should like either xBRZ or save states. I programmed both for my personal fun with some old games and I have basically achieved that.
PS: NxBRZ is higher quality than (N-1)xBRZ, but see for yourself: http://sourceforge.net/projects/xbrz/files/ScalerTest.zip
Last edit: Zenju 2016-09-23
I realize some people may dislike scalers as a whole and that xBRZ might not make it into the main DOSBox trunk but I don't think the developers of DOSBox are against scalers, I mean they do have the horrible looking (in comparison) HQx scalers in there. I myself am not against save states, but if I had to choose the order of importance between the two features, I'd prefer that xBRZ got into DOSBox first and then we could argue in favor of save states.
My issue is that while you do offer an xBRZ-enabled DOSBox, it's based on the basic 0.74 release that is 6+ years old now, and the SVN has advanced quite a lot. I've also read the xBRZ thread on DOSBox, I was under the impression that it would be easily achievable to have your code reviewed and it gotten into the main trunk based on what Dominus said on the first page. Now bear in mind I myself am totally clueless about all the super technical stuff or there's something else I don't know, so maybe that's why I thought that.
However I was excited that there was someone who offered to help on vogons in one of the threads I linked so I was hoping maybe through some collaborative magic we could have a patch submitted that satisfied the DOSBox devs, or perhaps an idiot's-guide method to patch a DOSBox folder with xBRZ so I could do it manually whenever I change the SVN build I'm using.
I am sad that it doesn't seem like it would happen though, although I do have hope for the future. Please have mercy on us plebs and bless us with your pixel scaler magic. Don't hog all the fun for yourself :D
Is the scaler considered complete or will there be updates? Secondly some guy in the xBRZ thread said that there's a new(2 year old post) xBR in town that does what xBRZ does but is better? I'm not sure I understood how though, if any explanation was there, but he did provide a download link
Lastly what happens when 6xBRZ, being larger in screen size usage, is stretched to monitor size or lower? Does it keep the quality? I ask because using the ScalerTest I observed that 6xBRZ takes up more of my screen that is available to display.
The scaler is pretty much complete and has achieved its goals quite well I would say. Yes, there's always some rivalry between different scaler (developers) and naturally everyone thinks his is best :D If you don't want to believe hearsay you need to compare the scaled images yourself.
xBRZ (or any other scaler) should be used at the scale factor that stretches the input image roughly to the size of the output monitor for best quality.
Zenju, the one true goal is to implement a stable interface in DOSBox that will allow device-independent implementation of different software scalers and let them peacufully coexist without any rivalry so that the users might choose whichever they wanted via the config file.
The author of the pixel-perfect patch.
Last edit: Anton 2017-04-02
I second this, unfortunately I was totally unable to even to begin to understand where to start adding this to DOSBox as I got discouraged fairly early into the process as can be seen in my post on vogons:
http://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=52414&p=573656#p573656
I am still holding out hope that one day I will be able to enjoy this scaler in DOSBox. Recently I played some Doom with the GZDoom source port and it allowed me to set up to 4xBRZ, it looked so beautiful and really got me fired up for playing it, but at the same time I could not help but wish this was in DOSBox as well.
Now the point of my post here is twofold:
To show you that there is a special DOSBox build called Enhanced Community Edition that is being maintained by Yesterplay80 here: http://blog.yesterplay80.net/?page_id=515 and in that link I gave above, to which many authors have contributed their patches, like Anton above (thank you btw, pixel perfect is also great!). Many authors and users have gotten a bit gray haired waiting for an official DOSBox version these last years, myself included, not to mention that many of the features in the ECE build may or may not make it in the end.
Secondly, to please ask you if you would consider implementing an xBRZ that could be included in either DOSBox ECE. From what I understand there are many conflicting issues with the current implementation due to the fact that the SVN has gotten quite a lot of changes since 0.74 from years ago. Yesterplay80, I am sure of it, would be quite happy to include it and cooperate with you on this endeavour. His DOSBox ECE is always going to be SVN up-to-date and will always include all these patches, so for end-users like me, this would be a dream, and he also always provides the updated source of his builds on the blog.
Pretty please with a cherry on top and apologies if I sound like an annoying twit, I just really want this scaler so badly.
Sorry to have missed you reply, Taiyoumaru. I did not receive any notification about it. You had better contact me at anton dot txt at gmail dot com. Do you have a simple interface to your code that upscales a rectangular image fragment with given integer scales? How many dependencies does it have and is it fast enough to run in a single thread? Please, reply to my e-mail.