About Render plugins

Render plugins are third party components which provide various display effects when the Spectrum screen is magnified (at least 2x).

Most Render plugins are designed to smooth out the ZX Spectrum's low resolution pixels when they are scaled up on a high resolution monitor, eliminating any perceived 'blocky-ness'.

The Render plugin concept was originally designed by Steve Snake for his Kega Fusion emulator to allow third party developers to write their own scalers.

Render plugins are emulator agnostic - they work on any emulator that supports the Render plugin API.

Spectaculator supports all Render plugins that provide 2x scaling. Plugins that provide 3x and 4x scaling are not supported - using them will result in a black screen.

Sample Render plugins

Original ZX Spectrum output

hq2x (Maxim Stepin)

Super 2xSaI (Derek Liauw Kie Fa)

DDT2x (Hyllian/Jararaca)

What would you like to do?

• Install a Render plugin for use with Spectaculator

• Use a Render plugin

Note

• If the zoom size for the window is less than 200%, Render Plugins are automatically disabled.

• A selection of Render plugins and Overlay filters which work with Spectaculator are available to download from here.