I wouldn’t be surprised if the average emulator uses Bitblt in window mode even today, so let that answer your question? They aren’t really “state of the art” and more “cross-platform wherever possible” so they often don’t use latest possible techniques if it isn’t widely supported or whatever.
Some of the emulators I would imagine are really good at this, Byuu and the BSnes/Higan project for Nintendo over almost two decades or more of work for example.
Others like Dolphin, Yuzu and the Playstation 3 one going with low-level API’s and work here using these and SpecialK might not be able to do much or even support the API in question if it’s Vulkan though it could help when D3D12’s involved depending on how it’s utilized.
Then there’s projects like PCSX2 which is problematic and has a ton of different plugin systems that more or less work, I would imagine SpecialK can do a bit here for these situations.
EDIT: Guess it’s a matter if the emulator is going for speed above accuracy and all the hacks and things of that nature too.
And even then how some stuff on Windows are managed might matter more than that.
Suppose development time and age is a thing too come to think of it, practices from Windows XP to Vista to Windows 7, 8 and now 10 and what’s standard and what’s the way to go forward compared to what’s compatible with earlier systems.
Come to think of it, that’s a good point…
My last foray into emulators was optimizing Snes9x for the PSP (man did it need a lot of optimization !!).
I got Tales of Phantasia working at correct framerate rather than 2-5 FPS 
This was in ~2005, and official development of Snes9x at this point had moved to cycle accurate portable emulation, it was up to third-parties to code to the metal for really weak hardware like the PSP.
A year or two ago I remember having used Special K to enable flip model in PCSX2, as well as the FPS limiter of SK since it was far better than PCSX2.
I don’t know if I ever got SK working in Dolphin, but I don’t remember it.
As for CEMU, that emulator is built using OpenGL and only has an experimental Vulkan renderer, so the benefit of using of SK in that is minimal.
Edit: Oh right, PCSX2 doesn’t even, if I remember it correctly, support exclusive fullscreen mode so using SK was literally the only way users could get G-Sync working properly in that emulator 
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Ugh, every time i see something to do with BOTW, i just want to spend a few days playing it again without distraction.
I am one of the top contributors for OpenGL on StackOverflow and even I cannot fathom how an application could cause that. That’s some very broken, non-compliant OpenGL code right there.
Rumour has it it’s built using code from the actual WiiU SDK and that’s the reason it’s not open source.
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I don’t know if this is the cause of it:
Oh… I suppose that could do it 
That changes the NDC coordinate space to match Direct3D, which is weird thing to do.
Come to think of it, not entirely that weird. There’s a trick you can do in D3D to increase depth-buffer precision that only works if NDC-space → window-space translation involves that upside down projection matrix.
Clip control makes it technically possible to use that trick in OpenGL.
Would be interesting to see what Sony does after Horizon Zero Dawn though I would imagine not much is happening until 2021 due to the Autumn and Winter months now being a bit packed with various new releases and the new console hardware too.
Ubisoft’s going at it at some weirdly fast pace especially, four high budget games I think between now and February.
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla - November 12
Watch_Dogs Legion - November 14
Fenyx Rising - December 3
Far Cry 6 - February 18
EDIT: And with the lack of third party key alternatives like Green Man Gaming that’s 60 Euro or LOL NO 90 Euro edition because surely the completely unknown upcoming content is worth almost as much as a game on it’s own followed by the WTF edition that bundles that and some minor pre-order stuff for I think close to 110 Euro.
Might be a way to push people to the subscription service though, 15 something Euro monthly.
Though picking that up for next Winter once these are all patched out and way better could be a thing.
Course they have FOMO for that or Fear of Missing Out of various time limited totally super important absolutely do not miss daily hour long grinding sessions for a (chance) reward that’s likely entirely cosmetic or another high-end item to go in the inventory pile ha ha.
Ah and somehow this exploitative stuff has just became more and more of a thing.
It works though, suppose that’s why.
Am i reading this right 
There’s been multiple back and forth rumors around God of War and Bloodborne but no actual reveal yet the various users with some insider info keep hinting at it and now also Ghost of Tsushima.
I’d say there’s a very high chance of further PC ports but with the soon to be released Playstation 5 it’s just a matter of timing and when plus the feedback/criticism on Horizon and how that was handled which could also have made Sony push back further projects.
Wouldn’t be too surprising if a more positive reception and reviews for Horizon might have seen some hinting at future developments but now it’s being reviewed a bit and I am expecting the Sony and Microsoft console launches to be the main focus for now so Q1 2021 perhaps.
Or a surprise reveal and near immediate release but I don’t think that’s going to happen, QA and testing being done could still have the release pending to whichever launch time feels best for the publisher after all.
There’s also the oops with Demons Souls Remaster where someone made “Also for PC” on the splash screen had all that go through approval and OK and then after that entire process and the trailer was out then Sony backtracked a bit so there are things happening that’s pretty evident but time and now also the issues around Horizon.
Hmm wonder if BB, GoW and GoT are done by the same studio or outsourced to others or even moved internally after that backlash.
“Do everything.”
This one studio with limited manpower, resources and time schedule for said ports.
Yeah it feels like Sony will re-evaluate and delay launch a while for other planned PC port projects though if they are already at the end of QA then whatever is next out for release could also be fairly close.
Kinda weird that, would be additional testing and verification that it’s release ready yet apparently the info coming out is that some of these projects or all of them are going through the final QA process.
Hmm.
Hope they do arrive. I still haven’t played through Bloodborne just because of the frame-pacing issue. As for the PS4 itself, i have one sitting on my desk collecting dust, only there if i ever want to boot up Gow again.
The abbreviations are reminding me of a couple of good shows XD I really miss Game of Thrones, still.
Big news for Special K HDR
I have radically overhauled Special K’s HDR Tonemapping to allow independent control of luminance and color saturation, here’s a preview of 0.11.1.0:
SpecialK64.7z (7.7 MB)
This should dramatically improve HDR highlights in many games without requiring you to do much of anything.
Color saturation adjustments are experimental and not saved as part of HDR presets, just a bit of a distraction for you guys while I implement more advanced color grading functionality.
Expect to reset gamma in any presets you may already use to 1.0 for things to appear normal. I’m going to be swapping the gamma / non-std SDR luminance options and most use-cases will not involve gamma anymore, but rather selecting middle-gray luminance.
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Also, I’m changing up SK’s Luminance Heatmap…
Those profiles (HDR400, 500, 600, 1000, 1400) will be the visualization targets (and something more advanced will be used for OLED’s darker-than-SDR spectrum analysis – shadow detail’s an interesting topic that needs its own visualization)
This won’t be a drop-in replacement to perform comparisons against the heatmaps generated by other software, rather it’s for validating signal constraints vs. visualized display profile (shown here, pixels brighter than DisplayHDR 500 displays are capable of).
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Here are 32- and 64-bit builds of 0.11.1.0:
SpecialK32.7z (6.3 MB)
SpecialK64.7z (7.6 MB)
+ Saturation is now saved per-HDR preset
+ Middle-gray is a new calibration target for adjusting game UI-level luminance curves
+ Moved the gamma adjustment to advanced, it has little to no remaining use
The Tonemap mode options are currently not implemented, and all other colorspace options have been removed.
Here’s a sample video in HDR showing some very impressive HDR results. The new tonemapping framework is night and day when it comes to getting HDR highlights to contrast.
Remember to reset any HDR image presets you may have had prior to using this new version, the entire process of calibrating HDR is different and you need to do it from scratch for all games. Doesn’t take much time at all.
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This does amazing stuff for NieR: Automata’s HDR support too, BTW. This basically fixes a whole bunch of colorspace problems without requiring the user to do that complicated selection between Rec709/CIE XYZ and makes virtually every game I have tested look like it is HDR native.
Of course … when you look at games with official HDR support and they look worse than this automated solution does, automatic HDR has reached god-tier status. This should be an NVIDIA driver feature, I’ve proved it can be done.
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I couldn’t manage any decent results with the latest build, the best i managed was 1800 nits for middle gray, and 2000 for max luminance, just to be able to make out the image - though everything is still high in contrast. I had SDR gamma left at 1. I tested Rise of the Tomb Raider, which is my go to game for testing.
With previous versions, i could always max the luminance out at 800 and leave it there. My monitor is calibrated and i believe it tonemaps 1000 nits down to it’s level (350-450 nits) so i’m not sure what’s going on now. I’ll be testing more games.
I deleted my previous Rise of the Tomb Raider profile as well before installing the latest. And interestingly, i took a screenshot but it’s a broken jxr
