Pixel doubling

[prod]

I've just bought the product and although it looks great, it's too slow on my 1920x1080 res screen. I've read a few topics and heard about the pixel doubling on earlier versions.

So my question is where can I download the latest version that had pixel doubling as an option?

[juxtiphi]

I've just bought the product and although it looks great, it's too slow on my 1920x1080 res screen. I've read a few topics and heard about the pixel doubling on earlier versions.

So my question is where can I download the latest version that had pixel doubling as an option?

I watch GF on my HDTV and have the resolution set at 800/600 and GF looks just fine. it looks exactly the same at higher res but is more cpu intensive.


try this

dont do any other tasking while running GF

shut down any unecessary programs running in the background

stop antivirus from continuously monitoring your comp

and try running GF at a lower resolution use the m key while in fullscreen mode to choose a desired res. pick one and restart GF and see if any improvment occurs.

[prod]

Thanks for the reply juxtiphi.

I use GF as part of a HTPC setup using J River MC - at any point I/someone might want to go back and browse the music, video etc, and for that obviously a high res is highly preferable.

Pressing M does nothing, I can control the res from JRMC but that puts my whole HTPC menu setup into the lower res.

Changing my system setup for a display plug-in sounds much like the tail wagging the dog to me - I'll put up with the slowdowns if I have to, but I'd like to give an older version a try that offers pixel doubling.

Anybody point me in the right direction?

Thanks.

[gorus]

Pixel doubling was taken out because it didn't offer as much improvement as was expected. Unfortunately, the full screen functionality in JRMC that is made available to the visual plugins is limited, hence the way it currently works. You can try writing support to see if they have an older version around. But keep in mind that it could have other bugs and a lot of missing features from the current one.

[prod]

Hmm well I'll take your word for it that there isn't much improvement - prob not worth the trouble installing an older version, just thought I might give it a go.

Besides, I've found if I get rid of pretty much every background process including stuff like windows sidebar and objectdock, it runs quite well. In fact it looks flippin gorgeous, money well spent.

Thanks.

[Mad Chemist]

I find pixel doubling to be quite useful when running at 1920x1080. Something really needs to be done with the current/future versions to take into account people running higher resolution monitors/TVs these days. The lowest resolution TV/monitor in my house is 1680x1050. I just picked up some 1440x900 monitors for work for $129 each. Saying to drop down to 800x600 is a poor solution IMO as the display is now scaling which reducing quality in my experience. Plus, for people running MCE, JRiver, Media Portal, etc, running lower resolutions defeats the purpose of a HTPC. Having G-Force change screen resolution when entering full mode also just tends screw things up and doesn't even work in MCE or JRiver. My license expired June 30 and I have no intention of renewing until this issue is addressed.

[prod]

After using G-Force for a week, I'm inclined to agree with you. Simply being told to reduce resolution seems lazy, and setting a limit and having a letterbox effect just looks poor.

I'm already tired of closing everything down just so it will run at half speed instead of quarter speed.

[andy55]

I find pixel doubling to be quite useful when running at 1920x1080. Something really needs to be done with the current/future versions to take into account people running higher resolution monitors/TVs these days. The lowest resolution TV/monitor in my house is 1680x1050. I just picked up some 1440x900 monitors for work for $129 each. Saying to drop down to 800x600 is a poor solution IMO as the display is now scaling which reducing quality in my experience. Plus, for people running MCE, JRiver, Media Portal, etc, running lower resolutions defeats the purpose of a HTPC. Having G-Force change screen resolution when entering full mode also just tends screw things up and doesn't even work in MCE or JRiver. My license expired June 30 and I have no intention of renewing until this issue is addressed.

Consider modern games on PCs... How well would first person shooter or WoW run if you ran them at 1920x1080? Unfortunately, the reality is that high resolutions ultimately mean an even higher number of pixels to calculate every frame. Unlike 3D games, G-Force can't even offload most of its load to the GPU since it needs to use the CPU.

My best recommendation is to use letterboxing for now (since a lot of players/systems don't even support different res modes, such as JRMC and WMP).

We'll have better support in the future but for now we're focused on releasing our new products and getting G-Force to DirectX.

[andy55]

Ok, you guys got me! Your arguments have been sitting on my shoulder chanting to me (like the angels and devils in cartoons) wearing me down, so I broke down and spend the last couple days adding pixel doubling to G-Force. I've just posted the latest G-Force beta with pixel doubling, so if you want to try it out, you can add yourself to the beta list and download it:

http://www.soundspectrum.com/support/beta_list.html

Guys that were asking for this, please test the feature out and give me any feedback. You toggle pixel doubling via SHIFT+D or by using a new checkbox that I added to the G-Force Toolbar.

Andy

[prod]

Many thanks for the work Andy - I've had a good look at this and it seems to work quite well speed-wise. However I can now see why this feature was removed - the pixelation is quite noticeable and when showing track info it reminds me of my old C64. Bit of an exaggeration I know but it amused me.

I've now managed to get around this issue with a bit of tweaking. I set the frame width limit to 1400 and frame height limit to 800, then put the TV aspect ratio to "Zoom". That works well for me now, though because I'm limited to the predefined values (200, 400, 600, 800, 1000, 1400, 1600) I still have small black borders to the left and right of the TV screen. Being able to set custom values here would be useful.

Thanks

Pete

[Mad Chemist]

Thanks! I renewed my license and signed up for the beta testing. I'll test ASAP.

[Mad Chemist]

Nevermind about the beta testing, I guess it made it to the current version.

All I can say is right on! The thing screams now. Great with EDM. Text looks fine to me also. I don't know what the frame rate is though because MCE 2005 locks you out. All the improvements are welcome as well. I look forward to another year of G-Force.

Thanks you so much for adding this feature back in.

[prod]

I've just re-visited this feature, and you're quite right - the text looks fine. In fact, on my 1920x1080 screen there is hardly a discernible difference with the option switched on! Except for the amazing speed-up and the PC fan as quiet as a mouse.

Thanks, again.