[TheDimensioner]

This is great! Having an exclusive thread is much better! To commemorate (kinda XD) I made a video showcasing Medal of Honor in the latest WIP:

Spoiler

This game works great using "Memory only" mode on PGXP. Only the sky seems to be low precision, but I guess that's a skybox, maybe just a big 2D texture.

About the internal frames per second, I don't know if it's a bug with Pete's OpenGL2 2.9 plugin (which the TWEAK uses as its base), or if the plugin fixes a timing issue (?) with this game, because parts with no enemies run at 60 FPS, while parts with enemies run at 30 FPS. The corridors with leaf fences at both sides also run at 30 FPS. The OpenGL 1.78 makes the game run at a constant 30 FPS. This is the emulator running without overclock; with it, the parts that run at 60 FPS are more "constant", without common deeps to 55-50 FPS. This also happens on ePSXe's OpenGL 2 "core plugin", so maybe that's the correct behavior? And since people say Mednafen is the most accurate PSX emulator, I tried it with that, and it runs at a constant 60 FPS XD. I don't know what's going on, but at least it's very playable.

 

[TheDimensioner]

Here's Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped.

Spoiler

Although there's an issue, where at a distance "holes" will appear on the ground (like what the old GTE accuracy hack did on some games), the character models and the rest of the scenario are high precision, using "Memory only" mode.

This game does not work very well with the widescreen hack, but it's not as bad as Crash 1 and 2. I preferred to record this using the hack anyways, because that big overscan in the NTSC version is just stupid in 4:3, so the game will look kinda of "cinematic" in widescreen XD (XMedia Recode gives me an aspect ratio of 1.9692). I think since the Crash games are 3D "corridor" platformers, there was no need to create more scenario where the player would never get to explore, so the original PSX trilogy might never get a proper widescreen method, even if the widescreen hack is improved someday. Unless someone discovers a way to change the FOV, and also re-position Crash so that he is further on the field, than maybe a vert- method would work... just dreaming though.

I do hope Sony does a good job on remaking these games, because as emulation already shows, remasters might not work very well.

 

[TheDimensioner]

Hah, the "widescreen cheat" for Crash 3 works!

Spoiler

Although there are much more issues than with the hack XD. The area shows more on the sides on some parts, but there are those sudden stretches of the characters and camera hiccups. The UI is also stretched, unlike with the widescreen hack, although it's only for this game.

I "forced" 30 FPS for this recording, that's why the music plays faster sometimes. Isn't there a 60hz code for the PAL version of this game? Like I said in the Tweak's thread some times, PAL versions have less overscan, or none at all, generally showing a little more of the screen. But they're mostly 25/50FPS, which I'm not used to. So a hack or a patch for 60hz would be nice.

 

[TheDimensioner]

Showing Resident Evil: Survivor. This time I made 2 videos, one with PGXP and other enhancements (xBRZ and shaders), and another without PGXP and no enhancements (besides high internal resolution). I think this game is great for showing PGXP, because it has many detailed textures in the walls and floors. Without PGXP, the slightest movement of the camera distort everything, and on cutscenes, you can really see how bad the character models "tremble" (the last custcene in the no PGXP video is the worse). "Memory only" mode works very well here, although there are still some parts where the floors will "auto-align" as you walk on them, and also some "stair loading screens" with wobbly steps.

Resident Evil: Survivor, PGXP enabled

PGXP disabled, no enhancements

@iCatButler, if it interests, you could use these two videos on the first post, because I think they show really well what PGXP does. I know it would be best if it were one video showing each footage side-by-side, but I don't know how to do that XD. I'm not suggesting this for views or anything, I just think that PGXP is great, and it has to be known by its greatness (also you as the author )! A better game would attract more attention though XD.

 

[TheDimensioner]

GTA 2 doesn't work with PGXP XD. I was thinking if this was similar to DOOM, as it's not actually 3D, but using "Mem + CPU logic" mode stretches everything, like it did with most games I played before, so maybe the buildings are 3D.

PGXP "Memory only" mode:

Spoiler

PGXP "Mem + CPU logic" mode:

Spoiler

 

[TheDimensioner]

@Reventon2010 I don't know about GTA 1, but Perspective Correct Texturing, and PGXP in general, seems to have no effect on GTA 2. That's using "Memory only" mode, but using the more complex "Mem + CPU logic" mode, the building textures get stretched, like on the second couple of pictures.

 

[TheDimensioner]

@Thirteen1355, @superjupi Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver works, but needs "vertex caching", because textures won't be "connected" without it. It's different from the initial issues Spyro had, though. Here the triangles are bigger, and it looks like a mosaic art of some sort XD. I've made videos (again XD), one with vertex caching (and enhancements) and another with OpenGL 1.78 and no vertex caching, just the intro, to show the issue. I used "Memory only" mode, because I really saw no difference using "Mem + CPU logic", aside from the slowdown.

Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver, "Memory only" mode + vertex caching (Pete'sOGL2 Tweaks 2.4)

"Memory only" mode, no vertex caching (OpenGL 1.78)

The slowdowns are due to my weak system, and also because this game has lots of details, and is also heavier for the emulator (probably). The weird thing about it, is that the internal FPS when using Pete'sOGL2 (Tweaks or not) is 30 on some scenes, but it jumps to 60 during battles or rooms with animated objects, like the flying souls the main character eats. It's very perceivable on the first video (I can't record at 60FPS on high resolutions), there's slowdown whenever an enemy appears, or after entering a big room. If I enable CPU overclock, the game "locks" at 30 FPS all the time, but animations are faster, and some cutscenes will break. Using OpenGL 1.78, the FPS is 30 all the time as well, without overclock. Maybe Pete's OpenGL2 2.9 really has some timing issue, because this is the second game that changes FPS like that (Medal of Honor was the first). But I have no way to measure the FPS on the real hardware, so I wouldn't know what's the correct behaviour of those games.

 

[TheDimensioner]

So, I got kind of nostalgic and decided to dust off my old PlayStation, see if still worked. It did, so I decided to play some Crash Bandicoot, in its original form, the way it was meant to be played. The disc I have has Crash 1, 2 and 3 in it, but 1 didn't worked, so I pressed reset, and now booted Crash 3. Besides my head now not being able to clear the feeling of "why everything shakes?" (I got too used with PGXP XD), I immediately noticed something. Those "holes" that appear at a distance, even with PGXP, happen on the real hardware as well! It's very weird actually, I don't remember that happening at all. Unless my PlayStation is too old (it only works when standing vertically actually), or maybe the disc I have has been compressed or had something modified to fit the 3 Crash games in it, but still, maybe this issue can't actually be fixed with PGXP. Some kind of ancient draw distance/LoD bias method? Here's some pics and video (got used to it now). I had to use a Windows Phone to record, and also sorry about my old 14" CRT, it sucks, but I still play my Wii on it XD.

Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped on real PlayStation. Original SCPH-1001 model, with the separate RCA inputs and parallel I/O port, if it interests. It also has that issue with the power supply being just under the CD drive, so over time it heated up the lens, its thin metal support dilated and shifted the lens focus, that's why it only works standing up.

Spoiler

Also some pics

Spoiler

EDIT: The pics were too big .

 

[TheDimensioner]

@unreal676 It is for me, after playing too much on PGXP . In the video, if you look at the hills on the sides with the purple flowers, as Crash moves foward, they start moving up and down rapdily. It's subtle on this game, but in other games with more detail, "wobblyness" is more noticeable.

 

[TheDimensioner]

@Reventon2010 I think it works as it should. PGXP mode shows a white circle around the jet ski, maybe that's the z-buffer part? Nevertheless, the moving water looks like what I think water would look like on the PSX...

Spoiler

 

[TheDimensioner]

@Thirteen1355 I've played the PC version of Soul Reaver, but it's just a port of the PSX version. Than I got the Dreamcast version running on nullDC (Demul is too heavy for my system) and it definitely looks like the best version. The PC version seems to "emulate" most of the PSX wobbliness, much like someone commented about the PC version of Final Fantasy VIII in the Tweaks thread, where character models would "snap" their vertices while still. But PCSXR-PGXP, being an emulator, has many options and "tweaks" that can be applied to the game, which the PC version does not have (it only has a bilinear filter option), and it runs better than Dreamcast emulators on my system, so I'll stick with the PSX version. Someone also made an "undub" for the PSX version. This game had an official Brazilian-Portuguese release, with dubs and all, and this hack works quite well, besides lower quality audio. The widescreen hack here also works better in my opinion.

My first game was Alex Kidd in Miracle World (reason of my profile picture). The Sega Master System was an amazing console, not only the design, but the controller felt much better than a NES controller, that my father bought later. In the NES, I don't remember playing Mario so much, because it felt "repetitive" for me. The levels were similar, the castles were all equal, and the bosses were all the same. I don't actually remember beating Super Mario Brothers on the NES, I played Duck Hunt much more XD (I had that Duck Hunt/Super Mario combo cartridge). The first 3D console I came in contact with was the N64, and I did play Super Mario 64 a lot on it. But it was borrowed from my older brother, and eventually I had to part ways with, without ever beating it as well. But than my father bought a PlayStation, and the first game I played was Crash Bandicoot. I liked that immediately, and it sticked with me until this day. I played all the N64 games on Project64 as well, and even most of the games that I didn't have, like the classics Banjo, and even Zelda, but today, I've beaten more PSX games than N64 games. And like I said in the Tweaks thread maybe, I didn't perceive what the PSX did with textures at all initially XD. It was only after PGXP started that I could really see the PSX did things differently from the likes of N64 or Dreamcast, so now I like "non-wobbly" textures better. Different experiences develop different tastes...

 

[TheDimensioner]

Not much the wobbliness, but I guess the same character models, without some kind of rework to fit the PC. And I agree, N64 has the best games, but I'm more drawn to PSX games for some reason.

 

[TheDimensioner]

@Thirteen1355 Raziel (the main character) seems to be changed:

Spoiler

The Dreamcast version is 60 FPS also, which is cool XD.

But the PC version is the same as the PlayStation:

Spoiler

There is a widescreen hack and 60FPS "hook" for this game as well, but it's vert-, and my CPU seems not to handle the higher FPS, even for a 17 year old game XD.

 

[TheDimensioner]

@cloudbill You're welcome XD! I haven't been doing any videos lately, because of other stuff, but I'll try to find some games that work great with PGXP and get to show them!

 

[TheDimensioner]

@iCatButler Yout never fail to impress me! Alundra 2 is practically "fixed" (the quotes are because PSX wasn't meant to be like that XD). Some of the performance issues I had with "Mem + CPU Logic" also seems to be improved. Soul Reaver is also "fixed" with this WIP, no gaps on "Mem + CPU".

Although, other games I've tested still seem to have "false positives" using "Mem + CPU" mode, like the Duke Nukem and Bugs Bunny games. GTA 2 still doesn't get any PGXP "recognition", the windows in the buildings are unaligned and the floor is wobbly, and on PGXP debug mode everything is red. "Mem + CPU" mode causes texture stretching.

Alundra 2 intro, WIP_PGXP_build_16_08_31, OpenGL 1.78, "Mem + CPU Logic" mode + PGXP debug. The slowdowns can be fixed using x1.5 CPU overclock, but not while recording XD

Spoiler

GTA 2, WIP_PGXP_build_16_08_31, OpenGL 1.78, "Memory only" mode.

Spoiler

GTA 2 in "Mem + CPU Logic" mode

Spoiler

 

[TheDimensioner]

@LuismaSp89 In the main screen, under "Configuration...", click on "CPU...". In the window that appears, check "Widescreen (GTE Hack)" and widescreen will be enabled. Keep in mind that the hack works only for full 3D games, with 2D games or 3D games with 2D backgrounds (Final Fantasy series, Resident Evil series, etc), 2D elements will get stretched, and 3D characters will be misplaced over the background.

I always make sure I have the .cue sheets with my bins, I always had errors when launching only .bin images, even on ePSXe.

 

[TheDimensioner]

@totoff28 PCSX2 is a Sony PlayStation 2 emulator, it's open source and being actively developed... It also does not work properly in my old as hell computer XD. That's my knowledge on PCSX2 !

 

[TheDimensioner]

@LuismaSp89 Try "SPUAsync > Smooth", the "simple" setting doesn't sound right for most games. The "scratching" might be due to a high xBRZ setting, or when framebuffer effects happen. Any sound plugin will have "chops" and "scratches" with the slightest frame drop, so lowering your video settings might help the audio as well.

 

[TheDimensioner]

Showing Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back, just to complete the trilogy with PGXP (I believe I haven't posted a video of Crash 1 here, but there is one on my channel). @Hiteryan said on the Tweaks thread that PGXP wasn't working on Crash 2 for him, but his issue was fixed. So I decided to show the game through a video now:

It works very well, and for some reason I think that PGXP "improved" the widescreen hack for this game. This was the first PSX game I saw being played with the hack when it was added to PCSX-R, and I remember the severe culling on the sides. Now only the "sideways" section of that snow level seems to be affected badly by the culling. The "holes" in the distance are present here as well, but are less noticeable, since the levels were designed with more curves. Straight levels have the camera positioned slightly upwards, so you can't really see forward. So the holes are more visible in the end level warp room, in the gem pedestal, or the warp itself.

@LuismaSp89 Those are xBRZ artifacts, or what I call "dirt effect". A higher xBRZ setting or the "Texture filtering" option (not Hi-res textures) in the plugin's GUI help smooth those a little bit. And does MGS have that motion blur effect all the time? I feel that that's what's causing the dirt.

 

[TheDimensioner]

@Hiteryan I also use FRAPS, and it's actually the fastest recording software for my PC (for reference: AMD Athlon II x2 2.8Ghz, 5GB RAM, NVIDIA 9600GT 1GB, yeah, old XD). It "dumps" practically raw frames though, with very slight compression, so I can only record at very low resolutions to not kill my 6 year old HDD (only around 50MB/s write speeds, ugh). Any other sotware uses the CPU to compress the video while recording, so it will be much slower. The second fastest was BandiCam, but I don't like the interface.

But I get to record gameplay at [email protected] FPS mostly no problems with FRAPS. Some games have 60FPS menus or loading screens, like Resident Evil series doors, so I record at [email protected], to keep an average quality while not slowing down the doors opening XD. For full 60 FPS games (Vigilante 8, most 2D games) I record at [email protected], but fraps only recognizes 848x480, so there will be small black bars, those can be cropped. I then use XMediaRecode to compress and upscale the videos to 1920x1080, mostly to keep a high bitrate, because YouTube does not keep the same bitrate you upload your videos at; if a 720p video has a bitrate of 8000kbps, YouTube will lower it to around 2000kbps, but at 1080p, that will be around 5000kbps, so the quality will be better. And since it's an upscale, I try to keep a high "ResHack" as well, to diminish aliasing. High xBRZ also helps on keeping a higher quality, but my system can only handle around x3 while recording, so the "dirt" will be more visible (and like I said, higher xBRZ, smooths the dirt slightly). Also, if a game has big overscan, like Crash 2, I crop those now, and also lower the resolution a little (this case was 1980x976), since I only got rid of the black bars, the image quality is practically the same, but the encoding will be faster, and the file size will be smaller. That helps a little, since my upload speed is around 100KB/s (yes, that slow). It took around 1h40min to upload this 622MB video, but I guess it was worth it . YouTube will still keep the video at 1080p.

My current Pete'sOGL2 settings (although I set my fullscreen resolution to 1920x1080 when not recording):

Spoiler

The Tweaks 2.4 .ini settings:

[Options]

#Fixes VRAM size detection
FixMemoryDetection = true

#Enables VSync, paramater specifies the minimum number of video frames that are displayed before a buffer swap will occur
VSyncInterval = 0

#Hides cursor in window
HideCursor = false

#Use Playstation Emulation Cheater plugin
UsePEC = false

#Disables PEC and emulator save states (ie. F1/F2/F3 keys)
HardcoreMode = false

#Fixes fullscreen aspect ratio, default disabled because it's buggy
FixFullscreenAspect = false

#Disable sound plugin FPS auto limit
DisableSetFrameLimit = true

[GTEAccuracy]

#Enables GTE Accuracy Hack
GTEAccuracy = true

#Clears GTE vertex cache on VRAM reads, fixes some 2D screens
GTECacheClear = true

[Window]

#Moves window to X position
WindowX = -1

#Moves window to Y position
WindowY = -1

#Set window on-top flag
WindowOnTop = false

[ResHack]

#Internal resolution X multiplier, recommended max: 8
MulX = 6

#Internal resolution Y multiplier, recommended max: 12
MulY = 5

[xBRZ]

#xBRZ scale, max 6
xBRZScale = 3

#Number of texels in batch for xBRZ scaler
BatchSize = 1024

#Maxium number of threads
MaxSlicesCount = 12

#Deposterize, usefull for games with heavy dithering like Silent Hill
Deposterize = true

#Use nearest neighbour scaler for FBE, requires "2: Standard" setting for FBE!
FastFBE = false

#Forces nearest neighbour scaler
ForceNearest = false

#Texture Cache size (in textures count!) for upscaled textures so texture is upscaled only once - fast!
TextureCacheSize = 256

[Version]
Config = 240

That's it, I guess XD.