Upscayl - Increase Resolution of Images/Textures?

[GeorgeH]

Matey, I barely do any 'gaming' anymore that involves more than the power of a calculator. Haven't you seen my many posts about the kinds of things I like? You know, simple web games and ancient MAME games?

To the point-- I have a physical disease that gets a little worse every year, and replacing my whole rig just to run a single dang program is indeed a puzzler in my situation. Like, I mentioned the word "paralysis" above, no?

If I were you, I would just let the end user perform their own upscale and forget about it.

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

If I were you, I would just let the end user perform their own upscale and forget about it.

But George, don't you get it?

I'm not talking some hypothetical 'special user' out there in lala-land.

I'm talking about how, when I have some free time here & there, I have the opportunity to do some useful work for various projects, for example ranging across pinball backglasses & MAME artwork files.

And as you may recall from the time I shared my sketches publicly, I'm not exactly starving for inspiration, it's moreso a question of... well, the quandary I posed above, yeah?

 

[AnonTet]

I know. I read.

But in your 1st paragraph, you did mention both options and I did not say it has to be a "gaming" PC. You don't need to spend 2k€ to upgrade if your PC is THAT old.
And the way I read it is that you're paralyzed by "these kind of decisions", still in the same paragraph.

In any case, if you mentioned that before I did forget it but since I'm not running to be younger I do understand your situation. You might recall me saying my right wrist is a problem, especially after my last motorcycle crash?

But now that I'm thinking, I did a quick search and anything that can use Vulkan is probably enough to find the cheapest Vulkan capable GPU, maybe even second hand.

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

@AnonTet,
I think you're right.

The cost to upgrade in almost any scenario is only a couple hundred US$ at most, and it's always good to have a backup machine. Plus, if it comes with Win11 (i.e. a new rig) then it's one less thing I need to worry about down the line.

Guess I'll just have to be careful about making sure it's got a Vulkan-compatible GPU, eh?

Thanks again for the advice, and let's not forget that when I said "bitching & moaning," I wasn't just speaking metaphorically. :D

Btw, how's your right wrist doing after all all these months?

 

[AnonTet]

It will never recover fully unless I do surgery (probably, I won't do it any time soon :D). It's the problem of being in front of a PC all day using a mouse... But it was that last motorcycle crash that I think ruined it once and for all.

 

[redbone]

I have attached version 1.5.5. I had a problem with version 2.0 always producing decryption errors on every image. The only way I was able to use version 1.5.5 after uninstalling 2.0 was to unplug my connection to the internet because it would automatically update to the current version. I never got the Vulcan error so it may not work for you. The problem went away when I upgraded to v2.0.1.

I discovered by accident that you can extract the "Upscayl-Setup-1.5.5.exe" file to a folder and it runs like a mobile app. So you can leave the current version and run 1.5.5 like a mobile app and just say later to the message asking if you want to upgrade.

Only time I've seen decryption errors was when trying to upscale an entire folder where I exported all image files in the vpx. The errors occur on .hdr files.
I'd recommend not sticking a zip up like this... You may not have any bad intentions, but something like this shouldn't' be trusted when there are official sources to get them.

 

[GeorgeH]

I have never used .hdr files. Upscayl can only process png, jpg, and webp files.

 

[FireDragon76]

.

 

[GeorgeH]

Some of the guys have had trouble importing upscaled images into Future Pinball tables. I have not experienced this myself but the following link reports success in rotating the image 360 degrees using an image editor which fixes the image:

Problems importing upscaled images

I am having problems with FP importing upscaled images, specifically those upscaled with AI art models. Usually FP won't display them, or it crashes altogether. I have no problem viewing these files in all sorts of other programs, however. The file format doesn't seem to matter, it's...

pinballnirvana.com

 

[HZR]

I used to tell everyone that it is impossible to increase the resolution of an image or texture without increasing artifacts. Then artificial intelligence started being used which changed everything. I first tried it on this website which I thought was good at the time until I tried the Upscayl program which is much better:

Upscayl - Free and Open Source AI Image Upscaler

Upscayl - Free and Open Source AI Image Upscaler

upscayl.github.io

The interface is very simple. I normally use the "Digital Art" option and "Double Upscayl". The "General Photo (Real-Esrgan)" has more shading whereas "Digital Art" has crisper edges. "General Photo (Real-Esrgan)" would probably be better on photos although most pinball art is digital (with a few exceptions). I don't use the other options that are available. Upscayl produces quite large images that you will need to downsize. Sometimes "Double Upscayl" produces images so large that my normal image editor won't open them. I have found that Paint.net seems to be able to open anything so that you can downsize with it. The following textures show the original image on the left that I found on the internet and the image on the right shows the same image after the Upscayl was applied using the "Digital Art" and "Double Upscayl" options:

Topaz GigaPixel... if you want it I can send to my cloud