Hacking Possible to Disable the Wii's (De)Flicker Filter?

[grandosegood]

I was thinking about it so a few days ago I asked Maeson about it in DMs and figured it wasn't worth the effort given his thoughts (@Maeson I hope you don't mind me quoting this DM snippet, I cut out the personal bits)

thanks for your reply, so it seems like only a handful of games on wii actually use dithering? According to that post, games that render in 6 bit or less (GX_PF_RGBA6_Z24 or GX_PF_RGB565_Z16), actually use dithering, but how would i determine that? by looking at the dol via hex, and text string searching for those two parameters?

to prevent having to re-patch/re-inject multiple times, i'm trying to determine if it's worth it to do "remove dithering" on the handful of titles that have it, or if i should just do it to every title for posterity. if i could determine if the game is actually using dithering, then i could decide to pass on it if the feature isn't there.

 

[Maeson]

Well, my only way to see dithering in a game is just play it without deflicker.

In any case, for these modern games dithering is not used constantly like in ps1 can be, sometimes is temporal use for special effects, like a cloud of smoke. RE 4 does have it constantly (maybe because it is a GC at heart).

I personally never put much thought about it, but again, just try RE4 with the deflicker off and decide.

 

[KelSolaar]

Wait so you guys are telling me that there are Gamecube games where you can remove deflicker on Wii?
I thought it only worked on Wii games using USB Loader GX.
I play all my Gamecube games on my GC. I suppose it's better to load them in USB Loader GX and remove deflicker to get even sharper image?

 

[Maeson]

You can remove the deflicker from most gc games by simply forcing NTSC or PAL60 video modes on nintendont, only a handful need to be modified as their filters persist even with that option forced.

Even better, on Nintendont games have framerate improvements thanks to the extra power of the wii so games like Sonic Adventure 1 run at stable 60 frames, and others like Timesplitters Future Perfect run a hell of a lot better, so those two things combined are pretty neat.

 

[KelSolaar]

You can remove the deflicker from most gc games by simply forcing NTSC or PAL60 video modes on nintendont, only a handful need to be modified as their filters persist even with that option forced.

Even better, on Nintendont games have framerate improvements thanks to the extra power of the wii so games like Sonic Adventure 1 run at stable 60 frames, and others like Timesplitters Future Perfect run a hell of a lot better, so those two things combined are pretty neat.

If I link Nintendont to USB Loader GX and boot the GC games from USB Loader GX. Will those improvements such as deflicker and better performance apply then?

 

[Maeson]

They should, yes, if the setting for video mode is one of those.

You don't have to do anything for he frame rate part, it's part of Nintendont.

 

[CheeseBurgerwithLove]

An important note.

PAL games with 50/60hz selector you must to select 50hz (having the forced mode set to PAL60 previously selected in the Nintendont settings before starting the game) since if you select 60hz the filter is reactivated. It's an issue that I don't think they will fix it... NTSC games are not affected.

 

[KelSolaar]

An important note.

PAL games with 50/60hz selector you must to select 50hz (having the forced mode set to PAL60 previously selected in the Nintendont settings before starting the game) since if you select 60hz the filter is reactivated. It's an issue that I don't think they will fix it... NTSC games are not affected.

Can you please rephrase that?
Should one set Pal60 in Nintendont for it to take effect?

 

[CheeseBurgerwithLove]

Can you please rephrase that?
Should one set Pal60 in Nintendont for it to take effect?

Yes, first you have to force the video mode to PAL60 and when you start the game during the hz selector screen choose 50hz. This will not make the game go at 50hz since Nintendont prioritizes the video mode that you have forced in the settings and this way the filter will remain off.

 

[ZestyTS]

I've read over this a few times, and I'm still slightly confused on some things. Is there a solution to remove deflicker from all Wii games, and if so what bytes need to be changed? In addition for vFilter, what exactly are the benefits to removing that or changing the value to something like DKCR's?

 

[Maeson]

The Deflicker filter comes in a variety of types. It's like a gradient, in the sense that each one is stronger than the previous one, blurrying the picture more and more, and in fact the vast majority of games use the strongest one because it's the default option.

If you copied the filter values of one game, let's say Super Mario Galaxy that has a lesser one and put them another, like I don't know Twilight Princess, you will observe a gain in sharpness because TP uses the strongest one.

If you did the inverse, Mario Galaxy would get blurrier.

The solution to remove it from all games is simply to disable GXSetCopyFilter, again quotes in post 710. Look for the hexadecimal string on the first box, and edit the last 4 bytes. Otherwise just load them on USB Loader GX, with the deflicker removed.

 

[ZestyTS]

The Deflicker filter comes in a variety of types. It's like a gradient, in the sense that each one is stronger than the previous one, blurrying the picture more and more, and in fact the vast majority of games use the strongest one because it's the default option.

If you copied the filter values of one game, let's say Super Mario Galaxy that has a lesser one and put them another, like I don't know Twilight Princess, you will observe a gain in sharpness because TP uses the strongest one.

If you did the inverse, Mario Galaxy would get blurrier.

The solution to remove it from all games is simply to disable GXSetCopyFilter, again quotes in post 710. Look for the hexadecimal string on the first box, and edit the last 4 bytes. Otherwise just load them on USB Loader GX, with the deflicker removed.

Well, I'm asking the way I am because I'm trying to see how to add this to UWUVCI, so I'm trying to see if what I'm doing makes sense.

For deflicker, I'm matching on the long pattern, and replacing "41 82 00 40" with "48 00 00 40"

For dithering, I'm matching on
"3C 80 CC 01 38 A0 00 61 38 00 00 00 80 C7 02 20 50 66 17 7A 98 A4 80 00 90 C4 80 00 90 C7 02 20 B0 07 00 02 4E 80 00 20"
And I'm changing the four bytes that preceded that with "48 00 00 28"

For VFilter, I'm matching on 08 08 0A 0C 0A 08 08 and every time that pattern is matched, I'm replacing it with "04 04 10 10 10 04 04" to get "half strength" on the VFilter since Dithering usually causes issues if it's removed.

I'm just trying to see what options I have, and how I can make it as simple for a user to pick what they want. This is what it currently looks like.

 

[Maeson]

If you do the deflicker change, there's no need to remove or edit the type filter itself because it's no longer being read. What you do disable GXCopySetFilter, that's it, it no longer continues to where the strength of the filter is.

So if you want it gone, that's the only thing to modify.

If for some reason you want to still have the filtee but want to alter the strength of it, then you leave GXCopySetFilter, and just alter the string that defines the blurriness of the filter.

 

[HardBoiled1992]

I guess the deflicker patch doesn't work in call of duty 3 either. The game still looks blurry to me.

 

[N7Kopper]

Well, my only way to see dithering in a game is just play it without deflicker.

In any case, for these modern games dithering is not used constantly like in ps1 can be, sometimes is temporal use for special effects, like a cloud of smoke. RE 4 does have it constantly (maybe because it is a GC at heart).

I personally never put much thought about it, but again, just try RE4 with the deflicker off and decide.

Making dithering colour blend is in fact the only proper use case for the 480pSoft mode, since progressive signals don't flicker even on old EDTVs.

 

[TheBeverage]

What wad manager are you using?

Sorry for the delay! I am using yawmME. I'm getting nervous to continue trying to install my own broken WADs, though.