texture filtering on games that were designed for software rendering

[Anonymous No.5158056]

Yes/No?

In my opinion it destroys the look of the original art and assets of the game, just like motion blur does

[Anonymous No.5158057]

>>5158056
Motion blur doesn't do that.

Filtering off except when a game was designed with it on to begin with and the art assets show it.

Next thread.

[Anonymous No.5158067]

>>5158057
My indicator personally is if the game had a software mode upon release.
In your opinion, what is the lowest resolution of texture for a game to be considered worthy of texture filtering?

[Anonymous No.5158073]

>>5158067
But isn't texture filtering precisely more of a fix for lower texture resolutions to soften visible pixels?

I do like the look of unfiltered textures, but I acknowledge it's more of an accidental look than a conscious artistic decision, specially as the mapping is kind of all over the place in terms of scale (see sword hilt)

[Anonymous No.5158082]

>>5158073
I like my pixels
Also, his sword hilt looks fine to me!
The thing is, an artist had to make pixel art for the textures. It's just like nes/snes/genesnes sprites. They had a limitation on pixel count and made the best image they could with it.

[Anonymous No.5158184]

>>5158056
>unfiltered>filtered
To me the blockfest looks a lot better. Maybe it's a "brain filling in the details" kind of thing. High resolutions and filtering just make the bad textures and meshes obvious and turns the otherwise decent graphics into blur soup.

[Anonymous No.5158185]

>>5158082
Sure, but in sprite art, even when there's scaling and rotation going on, the size of the pixels in each sprite is the same, allowing for some consistency in the look.

In 3D, artists find out pretty soon it's almost impossible to get consistent texture map density even over the surface of a single model, and things could get out of hand easily; once hardware allowed for higher resolutions this wasn't critical, but back when they were working with just a handful of pixels (48x48 texture maps were a thing, specially for console hardware), having a relatively detailed character face next to just a handful of huge pixels defining his hat was an issue, and texture filtering was a lifesaver since it smudged everything into an illusion of coherence.

We might find the pixellated look appealing now, but back then for the mainstream gamer it was simply an indication of sloppy quality

In the case of consoles like N64 in which the devs knew they didn't need to offer a full range of graphic options like with PC games, they got lazy as they could just do whatever with the texture mapping knowing that the final result would look sort of OK. Most N64 look horrifying with the filtering removed in emulation

[Anonymous No.5158189]

>>5158056
I just play each game with the filters I find more fitting... Without any if it seems better! I rarely tolerate blur tho!

[Anonymous No.5158251]

>>5158067
>My indicator personally is if the game had a software mode upon release.
Or an indicator that it was made in a time when dedicated 3D cards where still in their infancy and weren't that widespread yet? IIRC, didn't Quake 1 originally ship out with only software rendering support?

[Anonymous No.5158273]

>>5158185
>forcing nearest on games that were intended to run in hardware mode

OP here, N64 games should be filtered - as the art was created with that in mind. I'm also a firm believer that N64 games should be emulated in LLE, to keep the authentic look (pic related)

I also believe that PS1 games should be played in software mode, as hardware mode often creates holes in the floor. As for resolution, as far as it goes before menu corruption or shaky polygons are visible (Usually about 2x or 3x)

[Anonymous No.5158275]

>>5158185
>>5158273
forgot to add pic

[Anonymous No.5158463]

>>5158067
>In your opinion, what is the lowest resolution of texture for a game to be considered worthy of texture filtering?
If anything you should be thinking the opposite. Filtering looks worst at low resolutions because the blurring is so obvious. When the texture is more high-resolution the filtering is barely noticable except up-close.

[Anonymous No.5158476]

>>5158463
I'm asking what the point is when a texture should be filtered, alas - what is the LOWEST resolution a texture has to be for it to be in the range of when texture filtering is appropriate
or what is the highest resolution of texture that wouldn't need filtering?

[Anonymous No.5158497]

Don't have any pictures handy but half-life looks imo better in software rendering. I believe it also has certain water effects that don't exist with hardware rendering.

[Anonymous No.5158517]

>>5158275
Here's a bad pic of my 26" CRT running MM through s-video for reference. The filter looks blurrier than the real thing but actually pretty close. Depends also how it looks in motion but that's not a bad approximation.

[Anonymous No.5158539]

[Anonymous No.5158958]

[Anonymous No.5158962]

>>5158476
You're not understanding my point. Filtering is the worst on low-res textures because you can still see the pixels, just obviously blurred. On higher-res textures the blurring is barely noticeable even up-close, so the texture just looks better. Later games like Fear look like this.

[Anonymous No.5159065]

>>5158056
>I don't know how motion blur works but i'll complain about it anyway.
Good for you, kid.

[Anonymous No.5159085]

[Anonymous No.5159086]

>>5158273
>emulated in LLE, to keep the authentic look (pic related)
low level emulation? what does that have to do with visual authenticity?
N64 blur everywhere looked disgusting then, and now.
and wouldnt LLE aso mean slowdowns? theres no need to replicate that aspect.

[Anonymous No.5159109]

>>5159085
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_Assault
wow, looks fun, ive never heard of this
is the metropolis dawn expension released for free still downloadable somewhere?

[Anonymous No.5159117]

>>5159109

At one point I used to post on these forums: https://forums.metropolisdawn.com/ didn't actually expect them to be still around. They have a download section where you can get the game and the expansion plus more. Never played the expansion myself but the main let down of the game is that the AI is pretty dumb, it's still a decent game with good atmosphere.

[Anonymous No.5159191]

>>5158056
>texture filtering on games that were designed for software rendering
ok, these games more often than not were designed for hardware and software

back then they put in these things as a service to everyone who may want to play. good decision making

[Anonymous No.5159391]

>>5158962
oh my god you dont get it do you
I'm asking at what point is a texture worth filtering? the minimum pixel quality it can be before filtering ruins it (i.e. at what resolution of texture should i start filtering)
example answer (not real numbers):
LOWEST: 512x512
below that (lowres): dont filter
above that (highres): filter

I don't even want your answer to the question anymore because you've proven to be a brainlet

[Anonymous No.5159395]

>>5158497
OP here, you're right. Half-life is one game i refuse to play with texture filtering (although running in hardware w/ emulated software look is pretty good - sharp visuals and sharp textures, best of both worlds - see xash3d FWGS goldsrc port)

[Anonymous No.5159403]

>>5158539
thats still software in both instances? look at the pixels on the right.

[Anonymous No.5160230]

>>5159395
Half-Life is a special case, the developers used non-power-of-two textures that needed to be downsampled before being sent to hardware renderers, losing detail or distorting them in the process. This is especially noticable on health chargers etc.

[Anonymous No.5160304]

>>5159391
>ask question
>get answers
>orghmarghghodimautistic
You can state a misunderstanding without being a piece of shit!

[Anonymous No.5160341]

>>5158056
filters are cancer. especially when textures are already in the lowest resolution possible to fit ram or other requirements.
>>5159391
this filtering nonsense is a product of pc games and emulators that do filtering based on entire frames.
>>5160304
some people on this board are insufferable fools. sooner this board gets IDs, the better. that way we can filter out their ridiculous shitposting.

[Anonymous No.5160362]

[Anonymous No.5160548]

How the fuck do you even run Quake unfiltered/software rendered? All the sourceports force glquake or whatever. I've love to play it unfiltered.

[Anonymous No.5160551]

>>5160548
>How the fuck do you even run Quake unfiltered/software rendered?

Install the game onto your PC off the disk?

Its how I played the game back in the day. Only 90s shooter I think actually looks better with texture filtering is Hexen (N64 version has this). Quake, Unreal, Halflife, Quake 2, all look way better software rendered. Texture filtering a low res texture just destroys the illusion of detail. Very unappealing to me.

[Anonymous No.5160607]

>>5160548
gl_texturemode GL_NEAREST_MIPMAP_LINEAR

[Anonymous No.5160616]

>>5160551
Unreal software filter was ace, I wish it get implemented in source ports of older FPS, like GLDoom and such

[Anonymous No.5160620]

Been playing Sin without bilinear filtering and it looks unequivocally better in my opinion. Looks less washed out and smudged together and texture seams are virtually non-existent.

[Anonymous No.5160664]

>>5158067
Above 256x256 IMHO. Lower than that and everthing looks soft.

[Anonymous No.5160681]

>>5158056

Personally I prefer the pixelated look. Also Quake software rendering have prettier colors.

[Anonymous No.5160684]

>>5160620
sin is godawful. good luck son

[Anonymous No.5160819]

>>5160684
It's actually sweet desu. Good atmospherics and great music. Level design is solid with lots of interactive elements and objective-based missions a la goldeneye.

Gunplay is probably its weak point. Getting headshots feels good as there is a big damage multiplier but there is a serious lack of exposive weapons and weapons in general considering I'm halfway in.

The soundtrack is really awesome and dynamic. Beats the shit out of half-life's. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLCeEzyPHak

Easily the most overlooked shooter out of the 90s considering people here act like Shadow Warrior is some classic. Sin got great reviews at the time but was completely overshadowed by half-life.

[Anonymous No.5160876]

>>5158056
Unfortunately it just appears that Quake was 'designed' to be played with linear filtering only. Guys at iD software toyed around with SGI workstations and the opengl version they had running was 3d accelerated... It was only after voodoo came to market they desided to release the gl quake which they already had working ages ago.
Because the texture resolution is so low it is just a coincidence as such the game looks better when it's not bi/linear filtered.
FACT.

[Anonymous No.5160880]

>>5160876
>correction: bi/trilinear filtered not bi/linear filtered

[Anonymous No.5160885]

>>5160819
sins biggest problem is no health packs. everything you get is armour. plus yes i agree the guns are weak and you have to be pixel perfect to not die and progress in the game. if it wasnt for these things maybe the game would be more fun to play. otherwise playing it reminds me of kingpin aka quoting the great lord himself ITS PICKLE SHITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT

[Anonymous No.5161045]

>>5160885
Enemies drop stim packs that you pick up with the use key. There's also the occasional but rare stim pack in the game world. I think you've barely played it!!!

[Anonymous No.5161057]

>>5161045
Oh and you can also eat food and shit off of tables for hp which is cool.