Need setup help with Rogue Galaxy

[Borellus]

Hello! I am in need of some assistance with some PCSX2 settings but before that here's my hardware.

i7-4820k 3.70GHz

12GB RAM

GTX 770 

Windows 8.1

This is my first time using PCSX2 and I have watched a few videos for setting it up. I'm a little overwhelmed by how many different settings you can change. I've mainly stuck with default settings except for graphic and sound plugin settings. For the most part I have the game looking sharp and audio sounds good. I've also installed the wide-screen patch for the game. It runs smoothly but my problem is it does experience some audio slowdown when starting a battle or exiting the menu. I'm sure it can be fixed by changing some settings but I have no clue what would affect it. I'd like you guys to take a look at my settings and let me know what I can change to improve this. It will also help me to know what settings make a difference so when I switch to another game I'll know what to change.








Here's a few graphical errors I've noticed at the beginning of the game.
It's odd that during the beginning of the game the subtitles will also appear at the very bottom of the screen. Is there anyway to fix this?




This image also shows some graphical error at the bottom and right side of the screen. 




Any help would be appreciated.

[Eiodalin]

Change your resolution from 4x to 3x and lower the latency to somewhere between 50ms to 75ms might help with audio slowdowns if you are approaching 60FPS, increase the buffersize as well. Graphical glichs are normal in some games i recommend checking out the compatibility list for additional tips fro configuration of your game.

[Ryudo]

For sound try using XAudio 2 instead.

For plugin, use either AVX2 or SSE41, both will be faster than your current AVX.


You also might want to consider updating to the most recent PCSX2 build found here.
I haven't run into those specific graphic glitches myself. The only ones I ran into were mostly distant textures being glitchy from time to time.

[willkuer]

it does experience some audio slowdown when starting a battle or exiting the menu

At least according to the dev's this can happen if the recompiler have to compile a large new block. And there is no way to avoid this. (Assuming your HDD is not slow as hell)
Using Async Mix instead of Timestretch seems to be the only reasonable fix for the audio hiccup.

You can consider using MTVU as speedhack if you ever observe slowdowns.

[Borellus]

Change your resolution from 4x to 3x and lower the latency to somewhere between 50ms to 75ms might help with audio slowdowns if you are approaching 60FPS, increase the buffersize as well. Graphical glichs are normal in some games i recommend checking out the compatibility list for additional tips fro configuration of your game.

Where do I go to increase the buffersize? 
I noticed that once I load my game I go from 60 down to 35 for a few seconds before going back to a stable 60. When I get into a battle for the first time in a session I go down to 55 before going back to 60. After it occurs those times the game has no issues.

For plugin, use either AVX2 or SSE41, both will be faster than your current AVX.


You also might want to consider updating to the most recent PCSX2 build found here.
I haven't run into those specific graphic glitches myself. The only ones I ran into were mostly distant textures being glitchy from time to time.

I switched the plugin to SSE41 because for some reason AVX2 shows as an error and I can't pick it as an option.

[willkuer]

There is no graphics buffer. Only audio. This is adjusted by the latency setting.

What are ee/gs values during slowdowns?

[Coornio]

Start by enabling MTVU since your CPU is a quad-core. Fast CDVD is also safe for most games with some rare exceptions (tried nearly 200 games and none of them had problems, very few rely on precise load times).

SPU2-X is recommended for audio, unless you turn out to be one of the few suffering emulator crashes from it. Also recommended to set it to Async Mix as this will, in most cases, allow for the music and audio to play properly even if your framerate is lower than it should, without "flickering" and cut-offs. It should be safe to set the latency to 50ms. Your system is far stronger than mine and i've never had any problems with that value myself so i'm just going on a limp on that one.

As for the GSdx, switch to SSE4.1 for hardware rendering, or AVX2 if you are planning on running on software rendering (which i doubt you do). It will give a decent little boost to performance. Additionally, lower the internal resolution to x3, it should still look crispy smooth without placing a burden on your GPU.

As for the minor visual glitches, try experimenting with the hacks section of GSdx. I am unsure myself if they can be fixed but it's not something you can't test yourself

[Borellus]

There is no graphics buffer. Only audio. This is adjusted by the latency setting.

What are ee/gs values during slowdowns?

Gotcha. I figure it didn't exist since I couldn't find it.
My EE/GS vaules before the slowdown is anywhere between  30-36/20-27.
When the slowdown happens it goes around 49-55/27-35.

Start by enabling MTVU since your CPU is a quad-core. Fast CDVD is also safe for most games with some rare exceptions (tried nearly 200 games and none of them had problems, very few rely on precise load times).

SPU2-X is recommended for audio, unless you turn out to be one of the few suffering emulator crashes from it. Also recommended to set it to Async Mix as this will, in most cases, allow for the music and audio to play properly even if your framerate is lower than it should, without "flickering" and cut-offs. It should be safe to set the latency to 50ms. Your system is far stronger than mine and i've never had any problems with that value myself so i'm just going on a limp on that one.

As for the GSdx, switch to SSE4.1 for hardware rendering, or AVX2 if you are planning on running on software rendering (which i doubt you do). It will give a decent little boost to performance. Additionally, lower the internal resolution to x3, it should still look crispy smooth without placing a burden on your GPU.

As for the minor visual glitches, try experimenting with the hacks section of GSdx. I am unsure myself if they can be fixed but it's not something you can't test yourself

Thank you for all this information and explaining more in detail what each setting does. I have enabled MTVU, switched to Async Mix, and set latency to 51ms (slider won't let go to 50 haha). It saddens me that I must go from x4 to x3, both still look better than the original resolution but x4 looks superior. After all that it seems like the issue has subsided. Now I can play the game and see if any other issues arise. 

Thanks everyone for their advice and I'm excited to revisit some PS2 games I haven't played in years!

[Coornio]

Thank you for all this information and explaining more in detail what each setting does. I have enabled MTVU, switched to Async Mix, and set latency to 51ms (slider won't let go to 50 haha). It saddens me that I must go from x4 to x3, both still look better than the original resolution but x4 looks superior. After all that it seems like the issue has subsided. Now I can play the game and see if any other issues arise. 

Thanks everyone for their advice and I'm excited to revisit some PS2 games I haven't played in years!

Weird that it won't go lower than 50. In my case it can go as low as 3 ms
The internal resolution places a burden on the GPU primarily afaik but since you have the GTX 970 it should be fine even in x4. Just remember to try lowering it if some game appears to slow down for no good reason.

And on another note, keep in mind of the glitches occuring on Vedan

[willkuer]

I think avih just reduced the lower limit. You need a newer git build though.