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Some minor MGS graphical problems

4K views 40 replies 9 participants last post by  frostcircus 
#1 ·
No, not those problems. :) I made a point of browsing through here before I even tried to run the game, to make sure things ran as smoothly as possible. After reading some very helpful threads, I managed to get the game to look very nice, run at a steady framerate, never crash, and basically prove to me that it wasn't the nostalgia talking - it really is massively superior to Twin Snakes in every conceivable way. All was well!

Well, aside from a few minor things. They weren't enough to stop me from playing the game through, but if I could get rid of them before my next playthrough, it would be pretty awesome.

#1. Some of the 2D screens are not aligned correctly. The codec screen in particular stands out as being very off-centre (it's shifted to the right). This seems to happen regardless of what internal or external resolution I'm running the game at. Obviously, I can align these screens using my monitor's controls, but then the 3D screens are off-centre.

#2. (probably a side effect of #1) The farthest-right section of the FMV scenes displays on the far-left of the screen. So it's like the whole screen has been shifted to the right, and it's wrapped around to the other side. This doesn't happen with Silent Hill's FMV, which displays perfectly.

#3. All of the game's fancy camera/motion blur effects display correctly, and look very nice, except for one - the 'focus' effect. It looks absolutely horrendous. A similar effect occurs in Silent Hill, during the loading screens with Harry running (his motion blur is very blocky) and whenever one scene fades to the next (the entire screen becomes very blocky during the fade-out). I can see the logic behind why this happens, but if there's a way around it, I'd love to know it.

#4. I only ever do this by accident, but whenever I load a game and choose to view the mission log, arbitrary lines of text are missing completely. This really doesn't affect me, since I don't actually use the screen, but I thought it was kind of strange.

My main computer specs:
Gigabyte GA-7VA, AMD Barton XP2500+ (1.83ghz), 768mb RAM
Leadtek GeForce 6600GT
SB Audigy 2 ZS

My plugin info:
Plugin: Pete's OpenGL2 Driver 2.6
Author: Pete Bernert
Card vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
GFX card: GeForce 6600 GT/AGP/SSE/3DNOW!

Resolution/Color:
- 1280x960 Fullscreen - NO desktop changing
- Internal X resolution: 2
- Internal Y resolution: 2
- Keep psx aspect ratio: off
- No render-to-texture: off

- Filtering: 3
- Hi-Res textures: 0
- TexWin pixel shader: off
- VRam size: 128 MBytes

Framerate:
- FPS limitation: on
- Frame skipping: off
- FPS limit: Auto

Compatibility:
- Offscreen drawing: 0
- Framebuffer effects: 3
- Framebuffer uploads: 2

Misc:
- Scanlines: on [100]
- Mdec filter: on
- Screen filtering: on
- Shader effects: 0/1
- Flicker-fix border size: 0
- GF4/XP crash fix: on
- Game fixes: off [00002000]

---

This is EPSX 1.6.0, by the way.

Thanks in advance! These are all problems I've not heard about on these forums, and it could easily be that I'm simply expecting too much from an emulation, but again - if I could squash these problems, I would love to do so. :)
 
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Discussion starter · #3 ·
I shall give this a try shortly! Thanks. :]

Also, speaking of Integral - I've come to live with the fact that MGS really doesn't like me doing anything that I wouldn't be able to do on a regular PSX, i.e. using savestates, or pausing the emulation - does this mean I won't be able to play the VR Missions disc? Because as far as I remember, it asks you to insert the original MGS disc during bootup. Switching ISOs requires the emulation to be paused...

I dunno, this is a question I could probably find the answer to easily, but I am now running away from my computer instead.

(and you're right about the GeForce4 fix; God knows when and why I switched that on)
 
Discussion starter · #5 ·
Okay, I tried your settings, hushypushy - I generally prefer the look of mine, though yours did emulate that focus effect a bit better. I didn't get a chance to reach any FMV sequences, though the misaligned codec screen was still there (I just tried it on my PS2, and this is definitely not normal)... strange.

Oh, I also got a lot of random flickering on the codec and memory card screens. Sound familiar at all?

Also, while poking around the settings for OGL2, I noticed the special game fix for Capcom games to 'expand screen width,' and tried it out. As far as I can tell, this gives the codec screens the correct alignment, but also gives me glitchy flashy rainbow colours on the far right of the screen. Again, I didn't get a chance to try any FMV sequences (this game has far fewer than I remember it having).

The moral is HMMMM
 
Discussion starter · #17 ·
Is there any one in particular that you're thinking of? I've tried quite a few, and while they usually make the game look nice in general, the moment that filter is triggered, it turns to hell.
 
Discussion starter · #19 ·
Perhaps it's a problem specific to my videocard or drivers? Next time I play I'll get pics of the same scene with it on and off. Sadly, I can't get a pic of how it looks on a real PSX, but from the sounds of things, that's what you might be getting. We shall see!

Could you post a picture yourself?
 
Discussion starter · #21 ·
Rats, I'm PAL.

If you can spare the time (you'd have to wait around the dock for that damn elevator to arrive), this effect first appears after Snake goes up the elevator and onto the heliport. It's used quite a few times in that sequence, and also in the next one, when Snake looks at the Hind D.

God, I've watched that first elevator sequence SO MANY TIMES. I've got it memorised almost frame-for-frame. :(

(if you decide to do this, save a state at the beginning of the elevator sequence. The game will be screwed up and unplayable whenever you load from it, and the codec screen will scream at you (turn your volume down), but it'll give you a better chance of getting screenshots)
 
Discussion starter · #23 ·
It certainly looks like your setup is emulating them correctly... perhaps it's a video card/driver issue.

Are you able to check if the effect works with settings similar to mine? Just the ridiculously high internal resolution and texture filtering.

I know I'm trying my luck by expecting it to work when I push the graphics far above what the production team ever expected the game to look like, but I really do love how it looks with my settings. I can easily deal with the FMV glitch, but this one can be quite jarring, and I would LOVE to solve it. :)

(also, thanks a lot!)

Here's a before and after pic of the Hind D shot... unfortunately, on the effectless version, there's still the remnants of the motion blur... but you can definitely see what's wrong.
 
Discussion starter · #27 · (Edited)
Okay, it seems I was -much- too quick in my dismissal of hushypushy's settings. With a bit of tweaking, they're pretty great. In fact, I'm pretty sure I've managed to solve all of my problems. Let's recap:

Misaligned 2D Screens: Turn on the Capcom Fighters special game fix. When using OGL 1.75, this doesn't cause garbage. (edit: wait, yes it does, but only when you go to to the codec screen yourself - mandatory codec calls have no problems. Guess I'll have to lose this fix. :( )

Misaligned FMV sequences: Haven't had a chance to test, but it's a fair bet that this has been solved with the above fix. The amount that the codec screen has shifted to the left is pretty much the amount of the FMVs that played on the other side of the screen.

Screwy Focus Effect: I eventually figured out that the fix for this was using 'Graphics Card Buffer' to store the framebuffer textures (and I really should've figured this out sooner). OGL2 doesn't fully support this, I guess.

Weird Mission Log Screen: Gone. Probably an OGL2 issue.

I also noticed that hushypushy's FPS calculation special fix made the game boot much faster. There used to be a wait of about 10-15 seconds before the Konami logo, now it's 2 or 3. Was this the reason for it? Or a pleasant side effect. :)

HOWEVER

hushypushy's settings also introduced a new problem :( The memory card and codec screens are now quite glitchy. The names/times of savegames flicker like crazy, and the MEMORY button on the codec screen has weird glowing green shapes moving over it, and I'm pretty sure the 'interference' effect on the character portraits doesn't look as it usually does.

I've tried all kinds of things to solve this (including the halo'd downgrade-to-1.5.2), and can't make a dent in it. Does this happen on your setup, hushypushy? I'm about to try PSXeven, but if that doesn't work (edit: it didn't) I'll probably just give up and play the game with these settings anyway. Those shapes are pretty distracting, though... (putting the framebuffer texture setting up by one fixes this, but breaks the focus effect. agh)

My CURRENT settings:

Plugin: Pete's OpenGL Driver 1.1.75
Author: Pete Bernert
Card vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
GFX card: GeForce 6600 GT/AGP/SSE/3DNOW!

Resolution/Color:
- 1280x960 Fullscreen - NO desktop changing [32 Bit]
- Keep psx aspect ratio: off

Textures:
- R8G8B8A8
- Filtering: 4
- Hi-Res textures: 0
- VRam size: 128 MBytes

Framerate:
- FPS limitation: on
- Frame skipping: off
- FPS limit: Auto

Compatibility:
- Offscreen drawing: 2
- Framebuffer texture: 2
- Framebuffer access: 4
- Alpha multipass: on
- Mask bit: on
- Advanced blending: on

Misc:
- Scanlines: off
- Line mode: off
- Unfiltered FB: off
- 15 bit FB: off
- Dithering: off
- Screen smoothing: off
- Screen cushion: off
- Game fixes: on [00002080]
 
Discussion starter · #30 ·
Strange indeed. :( Not that I was expecting a miracle, but the new Pete plugins made no difference to my problems with OGL2 and OGL.

I've found that if I set Framebuffer Textures to 3 (instead of 2), the codec screen no longer glitches, but the focus effect gives me the same blocky mess as before. Grah. [edit: wait, I already knew/said this]

And TheMaister, thanks anyway, but those settings don't work at all for me.
 
Discussion starter · #32 ·
You did, and I did, and I discovered that I do indeed have nView settings! Guess that means all is well.

Seriously, that's a ridiculously vague command. What am I supposed to be looking at/for? I made sure the 'break codec and memory card screen in MGS' slider was set to 0; other than that, I'm totally out of ideas. Nothing looked suspect.

(also, I have nView disabled entirely, but I guess you meant the nVidia settings in general - I don't see how multiple monitor capability (disabled) could relate to this)
 
Discussion starter · #39 ·
me said:
AA and AF settings made no difference, aside from (obviously) AA making the game look generally nicer.
Thanks anyway. Incidentally, I've kinda put my replay of MGS on hold for now; I've got a few other games going on, and I've got an album I need to record before August, so I don't want to bog myself down with too many games at once.

Of course, despite this, if anyone comes up with a magical solution, I'll still worship the ground they walk on. And probably start playing again. :(
 
Discussion starter · #41 ·
I find it strange too! Could easily be a card thing, I guess; I'll see if the next drivers nvidia release make a difference - I'd rather not do a rollback, since everything else seems to be great... though 71.89 is the only driver I've ever used on my card (it's still quite new).
 
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