Custom Textures (Rough Draft)

New Custom Texture Format

Starting with Dolphin v4.0-xxxx, a new custom texture format has been introduced. The old method hashed textures and renamed them to something like: GAMEID_4cba2510_14.png

There are several problems with the old format...

- Paletted textures are dumped multiple times when their tlut changes resulting in many duplicate textures.
- Custom textures only work for the Texture Cache Accuracy they were dumped in.
- Textures dumped in Fast/Medium have a higher chance of hash collisions (two textures sharing the same name).
- Dumped texture names contain the Game ID so packs are region specific unless all textures are renamed.
- There is no way to identify what the original dimensions of a texture are if it was retextured without redumping it.
- There is no way to identify if a custom texture requires mipmaps if the author did not supply them with the texture.
- Dolphin is limited to the level of mipmaps a texture can use (I think 6?).

The new format corrects all of this, and will dump textures in a way that looks like this:

mostdumps: tex1_36x36_4653193aaa14d048_0.png
paletted: tex1_200x40_63f3408997969cd6_9a81ceb434acb873_8.png
mipmapped: tex1_256x256_m_efef240984783a47_14.png

First let's look at the texture names...

- No Game ID in the texture name! When converting the pack for another region, you only need to rename the texture folder.
- Notice "tex1", which means that if the texture format is changed in the future, it can be incremented to "tex2".
- The dimensions of the original texture are now in the file name so you have a reference for your custom texture's dimensions.
- If a texture requires mipmaps, the dimensions will be followed with an "m" flag. Mipmap levels can now and should be created all the way down to 1x1 to prevent aliasing.

And improvements in the new format include...

- Paletted textures are now only dumped once, and once retextured, load up correctly everywhere in the game! This will ultimately benefit games like Zelda:WW, Xenoblade Chronicles, and probably many more.
- Finally, you can dump textures with ANY accuracy setting, and they will always be dumped with "safe" so the hash will always be the same! This ensures your textures are always compatible with every setting!


Dolphin also has a built-in Converter!

If your pack is in the old format, then Dolphin not only retains compatibility for it, but also has a built in converter to convert your custom textures to the new format! To convert your textures is as simple as changing a setting and playing the game.

1.) Navigate to -
C:\Users\UserName\Documents\Dolphin Emulator\Config
2.) Now you must modify graphics ini settings.
- If you use Direct3D, edit gfx_dx11.ini
- If you use OpenGL, edit gfx_opengl.ini
3.) Find the setting ConvertHiresTextures and set to True.
4.) Now you just play the game, and whenever Dolphin hits a texture that you have retextured, it will automatically rename it! If it finds duplicates (such as paletted textures), it will automatically delete them!

I think that is everything that needs to be known, thanks to degasus for this great change!