GEMFX - Development Progress (UPDATE 11/24/2016)

[Ganossa]

GEMFX - Development Progress

Dear GEMFX Users,

After temporarily contributing to another shader project, I am now back for quiet a while to develop an update to GEMFX. Since I made some notable progress, I would like to share some key features with you which I aim for in this cycle:

1. NEW UI ByPass Compatibility for Warhammer (40%)
2. NEW Configuration Tool (70%)
3. CHANGE to Layered Effect Processing - like Photoshop - (10%)
4. CHANGE SweetFX effect stack to photoshop effect stack (20%)
5. NEW Alternative option to configure presets/effects that neither requires a Configuration Tool nor a in-game Overlay (70%)
6. NEW injection alternative that allows to apply GEMFX to almost any windows application, incl. DirectX 7-12 and OpenGL (90%)

Some bonus facts:

1. CHANGE to new injection option allows a more secure (less messy process) which will be very (99%) friendly to competitive online gaming
2. CHANGE to new injection option forces/upgrades post-effect rendering of any application to DirectX 11 (might lead me to scrap the original DirectX 9 implementation)

- GEMFX applied (ON / OFF) to ancient Outcast game -

- GEMFX applied (ON / OFF) to ancient Gothic 1 game -

[Warlord888]

Great news! Hopefully I can look forward to using it on Shogun 2 again, since it hasn't worked for me since a very long time ago.

[Caius Bingerus]

Thank you for this early christmas gift, thank you very much!

[Ganossa]

Thanks for staying excited

One main goal of this update is to support applications that have so far not been (well) supported by GEMFX or any other effect injector.

- artifact free GEMFX on Rome I -

[Caius Bingerus]

so it seems so this tool grows in technical might, supporting old and new games/progz alike, i mean all API`s, this turns out to be a gloriously future for us GEM addictives ;-)

[Ganossa]

Added progress update to the universal injection option plus some more facts and here two more examples:

- GEMFX applied (ON / OFF) to ancient Gothic 1 game -


- GEMFX applied (ON / OFF) to ancient Vampire Bloodlines game -

[IamOdysseus]

Amazing. Good job!

I have a question. Are Nvidia laptops GPU compatible with GEM?

[agent 47]

Great stuff. I was wondering what you had been up to, haven't seen you on the reshade forums or here for a while. Will the new Gemfx still be able to inject reshade as well?

And if so would it be possible to use gemfx in directx12 and have reshade still work even though it doesn't officially support it? Maybe thats impossible...was just wondering since its a shame crosire has no plans to support dx12.

Amazing. Good job!

I have a question. Are Nvidia laptops GPU compatible with GEM?

Every graphics card is compatible as long as it supports the directx version of the game its running on. So if you can run the game you can run GEM.

[Nelduin]

Great news! Keep this project up.

[Ganossa]

Great stuff. I was wondering what you had been up to, haven't seen you on the reshade forums or here for a while. Will the new Gemfx still be able to inject reshade as well?

And if so would it be possible to use gemfx in directx12 and have reshade still work even though it doesn't officially support it? Maybe thats impossible...was just wondering since its a shame crosire has no plans to support dx12.



Every graphics card is compatible as long as it supports the directx version of the game its running on. So if you can run the game you can run GEM.

I will likely change the injection method exclusively to the new one (would mean no UI-ByPass but faster) which means there will be no base to hook ReShade as before, plus it is known to cause conflicts with other injectors. Further, to be on the secure side with competitive/online games, it will be better too keep GEMFX independent of other tools/modifications. A good example is Watch Dogs 2 which currently flags ReShade and disables the online mode. With depth acces ReShade has to go deeper and not doing only post-processing. GEMFX will be pure but secure and universal post-processing (also different from its previous implementation which did go deeper just not as much as ReShade).

I will soon show you a short video sample with the basic functions in action but here already a picture that shows how the new injection method will work:


It will not be necessary anymore to install GEMFX locally but from the central configurator/mediator you can select (click on) the running application and with that alone inject the post processing effects


Here another picture of GEMFX applied to Watch Dogs 2 while securely working with its online mode:



To have more time with GEMFX, I was by the way thinking of starting GEMFX at KickStarter or similar, please let me know your opinion on that idea guys!

[agent 47]

To have more time with GEMFX, I was by the way thinking of starting GEMFX at KickStarter or similar, please let me know your opinion on that idea guys!

I'd definitely donate, but how/where would you advertise your kickstarter? I don't think you'd get a lot of support from twcenter since the focus is mainly on the total war games and not so much graphics enthusiasts, though there is some overlap of course.

You could also consider using Patreon, since its a weekly/montly donation instead of a lump sum.

Tiered donations might work well...I'd donate higher amounts if for example the higher donation tiers gave the donator the choice of an effect or something similar.

[Ganossa]

I'd definitely donate, but how/where would you advertise your kickstarter? I don't think you'd get a lot of support from twcenter since the focus is mainly on the total war games and not so much graphics enthusiasts, though there is some overlap of course.

You could also consider using Patreon, since its a weekly/montly donation instead of a lump sum.

Tiered donations might work well...I'd donate higher amounts if for example the higher donation tiers gave the donator the choice of an effect or something similar.

Yeah, I had also problems to fit this project into the KickStarter framework due to the fact that GEMFX is already in development for quiet a while and will be, even without support (since it is my personal interest).
Therefore, after checking out Patreon (which I did not hear about before), it sounds actually like a good fit.
Tiered donations sounds like a good idea as well, it would give enthusiastic followers the chance to have more impact on what is developed and/or focused on.

Concerning "marketing", I would hope that an interesting project that is realizing an interesting idea, will advertise itself (from mouth to mouth). The people I would like to see support GEMFX are only those that would like to see it succeed.

Also, I only though about a support system for GEMFX, because I have quiet a few plans with it which undoubtedly will need a lot of time and commitment.
However, I would like to make sure that (given enough time/resources) I can achieve what I want to achieve.
E.g., while the new injection method is currently working perfectly for DirectX 7 - 12, I now had some difficulties with OpenGL and Vulkan.

Here a video showing how the injection will work, though very conceptual (a "proper" video will replace this one in the near future)


(I think I should have installed Shogun 2 and show that it works there too, since it seems some people would like to see that )

[agent 47]

I like the look of that. Do you have a rough ETA for the first release? Maybe early access could be one of the donation tiers?

And a few questions...

1. How will the fps hit scale at larger resolutions? I've been using gemfx again recently and noticed it has a lower fps hit than reshade at resolutions higher than 1080p, but maybe it was just that i had more demanding effects in reshade.
One of my biggest gripes with reshade is how big the fps hit is with downsampling, it makes it really hard to add post processing to games with no anti aliasing after downsampling, reshade gets pretty unplayable at anything above 1440p in my experience.
Is there a way to optimize for larger resolutions or is it just what happens due to the larger amount of pixels?

2.Speaking of anti aliasing, do you have plans to put on the usual fxaa, smaa post process aa? And what about the experimental settings that you never got around to finishing in the old gemfx, like T2xsmaa, 4xsmaa etc? Do they not work as well in reality as they do in theory?

3. Will there generally be replacements for everything you can find in reshade, minus the ao and dof?
I'd really like to see something like the improved film grain shader in the customfx suite in reshade instead of the sweetfx or old gemfx one. I have a soft spot for the sharpening shaders as well. Adaptive sharpen has a really nice subtle cartoon outline effect that i like especially at higher settings and it generally has a nice effect on isometric 2d.

4. Do you have any plans for lo fi effects? Like dithering, upscaled blocky pixel effects etc
I'd love to see something like this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLqXmMLCJDg

5.Will there be default presets along the lines of your truecolour and realistic shader presets? I've always liked how these go over almost any game and improve the look of them dramatically with only a little tweaking here and there. At the moment i use them as a base with reshade on top and the results are always great.

Thanks

[Ganossa]

I like the look of that. Do you have a rough ETA for the first release? Maybe early access could be one of the donation tiers?

And a few questions...

1. How will the fps hit scale at larger resolutions? I've been using gemfx again recently and noticed it has a lower fps hit than reshade at resolutions higher than 1080p, but maybe it was just that i had more demanding effects in reshade.
One of my biggest gripes with reshade is how big the fps hit is with downsampling, it makes it really hard to add post processing to games with no anti aliasing after downsampling, reshade gets pretty unplayable at anything above 1440p in my experience.
Is there a way to optimize for larger resolutions or is it just what happens due to the larger amount of pixels?

I am currently working on a proper solution for OpenGL and Vulkan as those will also determine further implementation decisions. Once those work, I will need to finish the configuration tool (could be a basic version to start with) and (re-)implement all shader I would like to see in the initial release.

In the current implementation, GEMFX post-effects will run in a separate thread to not influence the target application. This might or might not give you some performance improvements (especially with SSL).
Concerning raw effects, most effects in GEMFX have not been optimized 100%, so also there is space for improvement.
If DirectX 12 is moving forward, I might also change from DirectX 11 rendering of effects to DirectX 12 for more performance.

2.Speaking of anti aliasing, do you have plans to put on the usual fxaa, smaa post process aa? And what about the experimental settings that you never got around to finishing in the old gemfx, like T2xsmaa, 4xsmaa etc? Do they not work as well in reality as they do in theory?

Definitly FXAA, probably SMAA. I might try if temporal AA is possible with only post-processing and how well it works but somewhere in the future

3. Will there generally be replacements for everything you can find in reshade, minus the ao and dof?
I'd really like to see something like the improved film grain shader in the customfx suite in reshade instead of the sweetfx or old gemfx one. I have a soft spot for the sharpening shaders as well. Adaptive sharpen has a really nice subtle cartoon outline effect that i like especially at higher settings and it generally has a nice effect on isometric 2d.

There will be plenty of shader from the start that are based of Photoshop/GEMFX/SweetFX/Reshade, including some that have so far only been prototypical (you would not find in anywhere else). I will however try to keep the list clean from (sort of) duplicates.

4. Do you have any plans for lo fi effects? Like dithering, upscaled blocky pixel effects etc
I'd love to see something like this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLqXmMLCJDg

I tried several times to come up with something new and will have at least one dithering effect present. Part of some fast prototypical shader are also those that are something between paint and AA shader to improve visuals.
BEFORE


AFTER


Not sure though if that is what you are looking for.

5.Will there be default presets along the lines of your truecolour and realistic shader presets? I've always liked how these go over almost any game and improve the look of them dramatically with only a little tweaking here and there. At the moment i use them as a base with reshade on top and the results are always great.

Thanks

I might include presets that represent my personal opinion on values and effects but those would be separate from shader this time around.