VI Noisedither - which games make use of it?

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Gadget
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VI Noisedither - which games make use of it?

Unread post by Gadget »

Hi everyone,

playing around with the astonishing N64 MiSTer core I was curious which games make use of Noisedither. As you know VI Noisedither can be toggled on and off in the video settings menue.

I already stumbled across two games in which Noisedither was visible. In F1 World Grand Prix it was used on the very first screen which shows some legal information. Noisedither gives the black screen sort of film grainy look to it. Same can be noticed in Chamelon Twist on the black bars to the left and right side of the screen. It is also visible on the black eye of the main character on the title screen. Honestly I think it looks kind of annoying ;) Maybe it was a CRT related feature? Can someone provide more information on that matter?

Also I wonder if there are examples in which Noisedither was used in a rather different way.

Thank you!

palito000
Posts: 4
Joined: Tue Jan 23, 2024 5:03 pm

Re: VI Noisedither - which games make use of it?

Unread post by palito000 »

https://ultra64.ca/files/documentation/ ... ither.html

It sets (or disables) various types of color dithering. The RDP pipeline keeps individual color component values in 8-bit precision until the Memory Interface. The framebuffer can only accept color components in 5-bit precision when using 16-bits-per-pixel framebuffer format. Therefore, dithering may be necessary to remove Mach bands.

It's a way to reduce color banding. There are other dithering options, and there's the dither filter above everything to make dithering less noticeable. So: dither = reduce banding, but introduce other artifacts. Dither filter = reduce those artifacts.

Test the various modes with this small app: https://mattpierce.info/n64-dither

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