FFXII IZJS (ENG) questions
#1
Hi

I've started playing the English-patched version of FFXII Int. and generally PCSX2 plays it very well. However, I'm struggling to get rid of some strange shadow effects and figure out some weird slowdowns.

1. shadows:

I've read a few posts about strange shadows (notably, here), but that was posted last year. The shadow issue seems to disappear if I turn AA off in GSDX, but I kinda want to keep that on. Is there still no way to fix this issue?

2. slowdowns

I've also read in several posts that FFXII (not nec. IZJS or patched-IZJS) runs "perfectly," even at higher resolutions. I've experimented with several resolutions and lately I've just kept it at 1920 x 1080 (the res. of my screen). I usually have a consistent 60fps (or higher if I press F4), but I've noticed slowdowns (ranges between approx. 50-58 fps) specifically when I view certain enemies directly. It seems to happen with enemies that "glow," but I could be wrong. Actually it's happened almost exclusively with the bosses (Tiny Airship Remora at the very beginning, Bush Fire in Garamscythe Waterway, Mimick Queen in Barheim Passage). I've tried several combinations of internal resolution (incl. native and multiples of that, as well as custom 1920 x 1080 etc.) and the slowdown seems to be unaffected. I've turned AA on and off and fiddled with audio latency and still no change. Weird. Is there anything I can do about this?

Here are my PC specs and PCSX2 (SVN 5445) settings:

CPU: i5 2500K 3.3GHz, overclocked to 4.5GHz
GPU: GTX570, overclocked from 770/1540/2000 to 900/1800/2000

                   
           
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#2
In that particular game you can advance VU cycle stealing to it's first position and that will grant stead 60FPS all the time. Even the second position works fine with that game but you should not need it.

You should not play with F4 activated, what it does is disabling the frame limiter and then you'd see a lot of variation in the FPS. PS2 games expect to run at 60FPS (NTSC) or 50FPS (PAL), running above these values is NOT good, FPS works differently here than it does for PC games.

Same for TAB and Shift+Tab, they are meant for quickly bypassing boring parts (like cutscenes you already saw but are between the last save and that boss that keep killing you) Smile or slow motion that may help in certain minigames for example. They aren't meant as speedhacks.

If that mild speedhack is not enough to keep constant FPS at some places and situations, you can try advance VU cycle stealing another notch, that game is very tolerant with that hack. The more perceptible disadvantage of VU cyclestealin is the game may feel laggy sometimes but is still better than getting raw low FPS... well, "the game" is what dictates what settings works better, there is not a universal formula, so keep experimenting. Of course the best option is having no speedhacks at all, just sometimes they are needed.

PS: EE cyclerate can help more with certain games but I do avoid it always I can for it reduces the EE (the PS2 CPU) clock, what makes its emulation easier but can compromise seriously the timings, the most notable collateral effect from it is sound desynchronization.

The general guideline is EE cyclerate helps in those cases the main game's logic is bottlenecking at EE (you can tell it looking it's percentage at the tittle bar in windowed mode).

VU cycle stealing is more useful when decoding graphics for PC usage at the Vector Unities is the problem (notice that part is done by the CPU yet, not the GPU), normally associated with more intense graphics and graphic effects, like those when using magic and skills, as yourself noticed.
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#3
(11-26-2012, 02:41 PM)nosisab Ken Keleh Wrote: In that particular game you can advance VU cycle stealing to it's first position and that will grant stead 60FPS all the time. Even the second position works fine with that game but you should not need it.

You should not play with F4 activated, what it does is disabling the frame limiter and then you'd see a lot of variation in the FPS. PS2 games expect to run at 60FPS (NTSC) or 50FPS (PAL), running above these values is NOT good, FPS works differently here than it does for PC games.

Same for TAB and Shift+Tab, they are meant for quickly bypassing boring parts (like cutscenes you already saw but are between the last save and that boss that keep killing you) Smile or slow motion that may help in certain minigames for example. They aren't meant as speedhacks.

If that mild speedhack is not enough to keep constant FPS at some places and situations, you can try advance VU cycle stealing another notch, that game is very tolerant with that hack. The more perceptible disadvantage of VU cyclestealin is the game may feel laggy sometimes but is still better than getting raw low FPS... well, "the game" is what dictates what settings works better, there is not a universal formula, so keep experimenting. Of course the best option is having no speedhacks at all, just sometimes they are needed.

PS: EE cyclerate can help more with certain games but I do avoid it always I can for it reduces the EE (the PS2 CPU) clock, what makes its emulation easier but can compromise seriously the timings, the most notable collateral effect from it is sound desynchronization.

The general guideline is EE cyclerate helps in those cases the main game's logic is bottlenecking at EE (you can tell it looking it's percentage at the tittle bar in windowed mode).

VU cycle stealing is more useful when decoding graphics for PC usage at the Vector Unities is the problem (notice that part is done by the CPU yet, not the GPU), normally associated with more intense graphics and graphic effects, like those when using magic and skills, as yourself noticed.

Thanks for the explanations and advice, esp. on the VU stealing. Believe it or not, I think I've (already) figured out why I had the slowdown. There was a power-saving bios setting that I needed to change. I'd been playing the game with my CPU stuck ay 16X multiplier the whole time! FPS when looking directly at bosses is over 100 now (without VU stealing).

This doesn't answer my question about funny shadows though...

P.S. Oh, about pressing F4 etc. Yeah, I don't actually play with the framelimiter off, but I disable it just to see how my system is doing etc. So it's good to know that I can get 100+ fps even though I'll put it back to 60 fps.
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#4
AA is still experimental so it's pretty much normal to cause glitches...your only choice is probably to either turn it off or live with the glitches it causes
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