Setting up Windows version: Difference between revisions

*By selecting ''"Direct3D10 (Hardware)"'' or ''"Direct3D11 (Hardware)"'' '''(only selectable in Vista/Windows 7 with DX10/11 graphics card)''', GSdx will use its Direct3D10/11 mode which is usually the fastest mode and sometimes even more compatible as well. It is '''highly recommended''' if your system supports it.

*''Enable Shade Boost'': This option will help you to adjust saturation, brightness and contrast of any game to your liking. You can click the reset button on the lower left to set the sliders to their initial positions.

*''Enable FX Shader'': Since version 1.2.0, PCSX2 is able to use [[external shader]]s to add various effects and visual improvements. By default, PCSX2 comes with 4 simple scanline shaders (which you can cycle through ''while playing'' with F7). For a huge set of shader effects which include UHQ FXAA, Bilinear FS Filtering, Bicubic FS Filtering, Gaussian FS Filtering, High Quality Blended Bloom, Per-Channel Gamma Correction, Scene Tone Mapping, RGB Colour Correction, S-Curve Contrast Enhancement, Texture, Sharpening, Pixel Vibrance, Post-Complement Colour Grading, Cel Shading, Scanline Emulation, Vignette and Subpixel Dithering you can download Asmodean's shader file [http://forums.pcsx2.net/Thread-Custom-Shaders-for-GSdx?pid=334766#pid334766 from the PCSX2 forums]. Open the zip file and extract the PCSX2Fx_Settings.txt and shader.fx files in the same directory the main ''pcsx2.exe'' is located. You can change some shaders' settings by editing the PCSX2Fx_Settings.txt (the file contains all the needed instructions). External shaders should be used with caution because some of them may have an enormous impact on speed. Note that you can '''use''' external shaders even with a GSdx '''software''' renderer, which is the best way to get higher visual quality with this rendering mode.  

'''Hardware mode Subsection'''

Only available if a Hardware Renderer has been selected above. Here you can change some settings for extra performance or video quality.

*''Texture filtering'': This tickbox has 3 states. Checked, grayed and unchecked.

**When checked, everything on screen both 2D and 3D will be bilinearly filtered.

**When grayed, filtering will be done as on a PS2. This is the preferred setting.

**When off, bilinear filtering is disabled completely. Lowers video quality but may help some slower graphic cards.

*''Logarithmic Z'': This setting may help when some of the games graphics are "see through". Can be toggled only with graphics cards that do NOT support a 32bit Z-buffer.

*''Allow 8-bit textures'': Uses more efficient "palletized textures" for all rendering which reduces the graphic card RAM requirements. On the other hand it increases the processing load and can cause visual bugs. Recommended to try both and see which gives you the most performance.

*''Alpha Correction (FBA)'': (DX9 mode only) Keep this enabled as it fixes some blending problems that the DX9 mode has. Can also cause some issues.

'''Hacks Subsection'''

{{Warning|The following settings are ONLY for advanced users that know what they are doing.<br />These settings can and WILL cause serious glitches if used in games that don't need them! (only affect hardware modes).}}

'''Software mode Subsection'''

Only available if a Software Renderer has been selected above. Here you will find options to tweak how many threads the renderer will use and turn on/off the software AA.

*''Extra Rendering threads'': This box is only usable when having selected a software rendering method. Here you can specify how many threads GSdx will use while software rendering, to take advantage of all cores your processor might have, e.g. set it to 3 for quad core processors. Boosts speed significantly in multi-core systems for software rendering with more than 2 cores.

*''Edge anti-aliasing (AA1)'': This box is only usable when having selected a software rendering method. When checked, the plugin will try to apply a form of anti-aliasing on the game improving the visuals. Use with caution, pretty much experimental at this time.

This is a hidden feature. By pressing F12 while running PCSX2 with GSdx a message box will appear. In the first field you must show the plugin where the captured video will be stored, and type the file name too. In the second field you can choose a compression codec like [http://sourceforge.net/projects/x264vfw/ x264vfw] or "Uncompressed" which will not compress the video at all. If you choose a compression codec, you will be able to change its settings by pressing the "Config" button. Note that only codecs already installed in your PC will show up.

Press F12 twice at any time to stop the capturing. The video produced will be automatically sped up to 100% for your viewing pleasure Smile If using SPU2-X, the audio file will be saved as recording.wav in the same folder pcsx2.exe is in.