Original author(s) | ||
Developer(s) Mudlord (post 6.1.1 beta 10)
Aristotle (post 6.1.4)
Various (current) Initial release March 30, 2006; 10 years ago (2006-03-30) Stable release 6.3.0 "1964Video r35" / April 4, 2009 (2009-04-04) Operating system Type Nintendo 64 Emulator Plug-in | ||
Rice Video is an open source DirectX and OpenGL graphics plug-in for Nintendo 64 emulators that support the Zilmar-Schibo video plug-in specifications. The project became open source at version 6.1.1 beta 10 on March 30, 2006 when Rice posted the source code at the EmuTalk forums.
Contents
Features
Since version v6.1.1 beta 1, the plug-in has been able to load custom user-made textures that replace the original game art. The only other N64 plug-in with this capability is Glide64. Custom textures can potentially improve the graphics quality of games by using textures with higher resolutions than those that ship with the games. Replacement textures can also be purposed for altering a game's aesthetics as well, allowing end users to implement their own textural designs, thus being able to create a different graphical style for the game. Also custom textures can be used for translation purposes.
Rice Video supports scaling filters such as 2xSaI, Scale2X or the HQXX (HQ2x/HQ3x/HQ4x) filters, and has many options available, making it a very customizable plug-in. It can also can be used to dump games' original textures in PNG, JPEG, and BMP formats.
Performance
Rice Video performs differently depending upon the graphics it is processing. Using high resolution textures and texture filtering techniques will degrade the performance.
Current state
The Rice Video plug-in was written in C++ and compiled with Microsoft Visual C++ 2005. The 5.2.x versions use DirectX 8.0, while versions 5.6.x use DirectX 8.1 and the current 6.1.0 release uses DirectX 9. It has since reverted to DirectX 8.1.
Rice no longer maintains the plug-in, and has stated that he would like to see someone make use of the source code. An unofficial build of Rice Video, with various enhancements and bug fixes, was being developed by Mudlord and later developed by Aristotle. Now the plug-in is maintained by the community and is housed as part of the 1964 project, being referred to as 1964Video.
The Mupen64Plus project maintains newer versions of the Linux port made from the original Mupen64 port by Hacktarux. Considering the developments made to the port, the current 1964Video team is attempting to adopt any portable fixes and enhancements.