(see my signature for a link to my main opengl post)
First, the settings I recommend:
- - offscreen drawing - required
- alpha multipass - mostly required
- advanced blending - optional
- adjust framebuffer access - recommend on - see notes below.
- mask bit - recommened off
- 32-bits - recommended to use if having gfx issues (garbage / artifacts)
- FF7 cursor fix (added in a later update)
- Qualcomm fix - if you have a Qualcomm chipset
general opengl game info and testing criteria:
- - restart fpse after every change except frame limit / frame skip.
- always load from mem card - save states often don't use options properly if you've changed them
- initial "sony computer entertainment america presents' screen (I have NA ntsc version) - this screen was always 30 fps until the opening credits begin
- opening credits - good test for shadows and foreground ~80 fps
- choose mem card screen
- screen to choose save game that shows character portraits ~62 fps
- inside initial mako reactor, after setting bomb. walking around 75-105 fps
- battles -
- - never shows battle swirl
- sometimes it slows down to 12-20 fps for about 5 seconds. frameskip seemed to not help this
- sometimes it loads battles almost immediately.
- after pausing for the 'battle swirl' that it doesn't show, when it was drawing the actual battle fps were ~60
- the hand icon which is used to select enemies that you will fight has a black box / shadow under / around it, fairly small
- fps for actual fighting
- - general fighting was ~70-80
- when killing something, if it just turned red and faded away fps drapped to ~50 till it was gone. if it blows up fps doesn't change
breakdown of opengl settings
- - frameskip & old framskip - usefulif using a setting that lowers fps, or if your device needs it. use with frame limiter. didn't test old frameskip.
- frame limiter & special frame limiter - both seemed to work the same. both kep fps ~58-59.
- original screen size - I tested this a little. I liked the picture better with the original size, but then it was too small . Didn't notice any real fps difference, but I didn't test extensively.
- adjust framebuffer access - made for FF7. I didn't see a difference . Supposed to help with battle transitions / swirls. I wonder if schtruck did something to just cut out the swirls all together as I never saw one. However - I have not been outside yet, and this may make a difference in the outer world. I'll try to update later.
- special upload detection - didn't make a difference. can break things in some games (possibly, see my spreadsheet). recommend not to use.
- offscreen drawing - needed for battle menus & likely other items
- advanced blending - affects color brightness and lighting. specifcally, noticed it made the yellow floor much brighter in battle. also put a 'box' around the white letters in the initial credits. Fixed black shadow/box under hand icon in battles. Supposed to make colors more true to original. Caused FPS to drop 10-15%. As most of my fps were > 70 this was fine. Undecided if I want to use it, but I think I will.
- alpha multipass - needed to show hand cursor, (most noticeably on the 'new game / load game' screen) and shadows, and other transparent objects. Specifically, makes shadows mostly transparent instead of huge blocky black boxes. May cause black lines around objects, haven't tested enough of game - I never saw any.
- mask bit - showed additional gfx - specififcally blinking red lights on walkway in reactor. Most likely will show other gfx in rest of game. Dropped fps by 50% - requires way too much power.
- 32-bits - breaks alpha multipass. I saw no difference, though I believe it's supposed to help with colors. I tested this in multiple combinations with the above items, but saw no real difference. It has been reported that for some people it can help fix issues with 'garbage' (or 'artifacts') on screen.
- anti-aliasing - I saw no difference. Supposed to make gfx better (from my research, it recuces color to make better gfx, see my spreadsheet linked in main opengl post). drops fps 15-30% for me.
- texture filtering - I saw no significant difference. On opening credits the white letters had a halo / box effect on them. Other parts of game may have been 'softer' possibly. The pc plugin has 6 options for this settings so I don't know how schtruck implemented it. I saw no significant difference. It did lower fps by ~5-10%.
- frame texture - from the 11.14 update notes, and from some of pete's release notes, I thought this might fix the slow down on the initial opening screen. it didn't. It did fix the black shadow under the hand icon in the fight screen when choosing monsters to fight. but, it casues a 30-40% fps drop when hand is on screen. I don't know what else it may do. I'm keeping it off.
- busy fix - noticed no difference.