FFXII Intermittent Freezing [RESOLVED]

[thebulge]

Hello,

I am having problems playing FFXII on PCSX2. The game plays and looks great, but it will freeze randomly for 2-3 seconds and then return to normal. It happens when accessing menus, new areas/doors, and when just running around in general. I have tried using the both thew stable release and the latest SVN. I have also tried re-dumping the game twice to no avail.

My Machine:
i5-3570K @ 4.6GHz
Gigabyte Radeon 7950 1075/1450
8GB 1600MHz DDR3 RAM
Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB Drive
I just did a clean install of the newest graphics drivers and they work perfectly with all other games. (13.2 beta6)

Needless to say, my machine can run the highest settings at a stable FPS without going over 45 Celsius on either the CPU or GPU. (Yes, I keep frame-limiting on)

I am using all the recommended settings from this guide.

I am using GSdx 5559 with 4x scaling and texture filtering and MSAA. Turning these on an off does not make a different in the quantity or length of the freezes. I have tried different ISO plugins with no improvement. Am I missing some simple setting?

[miseru99]

ISO plugins? Or CDVD plugins with DVD?;p I ask couse you don't have to use any plugin for iso's(from main menu CDVD>Iso selector) and running the game directly from DVD results in what you describe(thanks to pc dvd-roms short spin down time as they're used differently than on the consoles).

Also for the site you linked, if you also use version of EmuCR that's not supported, they're modded and doesn't even share the source of those changes.

If you're using official pcsx2 version and using iso's off hdd, then I kind of have no clue;p have much weaker system and it runs without any problems even on default settings.

[thebulge]

ISO plugins? Or CDVD plugins with DVD?;p I ask couse you don't have to use any plugin for iso's(from main menu CDVD>Iso selector) and running the game directly from DVD results in what you describe(thanks to pc dvd-roms short spin down time as they're used differently than on the consoles).

Also for the site you linked, if you also use version of EmuCR that's not supported, they're modded and doesn't even share the source of those changes.

If you're using official pcsx2 version and using iso's off hdd, then I kind of have no clue;p have much weaker system and it runs without any problems even on default settings.

Yup, I am using an official PCSX2 build with isos off of HDD. I have not tried any plugins yet for my ISO loading. Will try next and report back. I wasn't aware that the site I linked used any non-kosher builds. I was mainly just reading through and using it as an informative tool.

[miseru99]

I only mentioned plugins couse such behaviour would happen when running directly off DVD and that needs plugins, playing off hdd shouldn't matter between iso plugins and built-in iso selector.

There could be one more thing to check, by theory, same thing as with dvd's could happen with hdd as well, especially if it was some slow power saving drive, but unless it's faulty or tries "too hard" to be power efficient it's unlikely. I doubt 7200RPM barracuda does that, but never had that model soo I dunno really how green it wants to be;]. You could easily test that by moving the iso to pendrive and trying running the game off it;3. USB2.0 and any newer is already much faster than ps2 dvd drives soo if that would eliminate those pauses they could be hdd fault.

[thebulge]

After switching to LinusISOCDVD versus just plain ISO-selector I have noticed a considerable improvement, but it does still happen from time to time. I do not think my drive should have problems with latency, it has a 64MB cache and is a performance drive, but I will try running from a usb stick as well.

Ugh, I need to buy an SSD.

[thebulge]

Well, I feel dumb. Here I was thinking I am running the game off of my internal 7200RPM HDD, when it was actually on my external USB 3.0 drive. I moved the ISO onto my internal drive and all of the freezing and stuttering went away instantly. I've been playing for 2 hours without a hitch.

Thank you Miseru99, you pointed me in the right direction. This more than likely would be a problem associated with running any game off an external drive. I've done it in the past without issue, but not with this particular drive (Toshiba Canvio Basic 3.0)

Thanks for the help.

[Topken]

If its a 2.5inch external most are only 5400rpm and that can easily cause the issue as I found out the hard way with my 2.5inch external drive.

[Bositman]

That issue should be fixed with the latest SVN build of PCSX2 BTW