Problems with Final Fantasy XII

[Mosquitoblue]

Hey guys, I just downloaded this emulator to play my beloved FF XII once more. The problem is that even though the emulator tells me that the FPS of the game is locked on 60, it doesnt look like it. I mean, it is playable, but it's easy to see that the FPS is around 30-35 rather than 60. Can someone give me an insight on what may the problem be?

Sorry for any english that the text may contain, english is not my main language.

System specs:
CPU: I5 2310 @2.9GHZ
GPU: GeForce GTX 650
RAM: 2x2GB Kingston @ 1333mhz
Windows 7 ultimate

[Saiki]

um... no text..?

[Koji]

Framerate as it's shown can be misleading, it's really an indicator of speed than framerate.

NTSC games run at a refresh rate of 60hz, PAL at 50hz. If a PS2 game is running at 60fps in pcsx2, it's running at full speed of 60hz... but the game itself may be designed to only run at 30 fps (with each frame rendered twice, to make 60hz). This is how real games worked on the PS2 (and every system currently out for that matter).

So, if you mean the frame rate feels at about 30, this is what you'd expect from FF12 since it was designed to run at 30fps with each frame rendered twice to reach 60hz. If you mean the game feels SLOW (like it's not really going full speed, even though it's at 60hz) it means you've enabled too many speed hacks, specifically, VU cycle steal is likely your culprit.

[nosisab Ken Keleh]

Without knowing your machine specs is hard to tell specifics about what to do the increase the FPS. Still your best bet is putting the EE cyclerate and VU cycle stealing speedhacks at the middle point, BTW they should read 2.

Edit: Ahh, if the emulator says it's locked at 60 FPS and the game feels laggy and sluggish, the problem is actually excess of speed hacks, return those two mentioned above to the middle point. If the FPS falls bellow 60 even then, so your machine is too much bellow the minimal requirements to play most games with the emulator since FFXII is not among the most demanding.

[Mosquitoblue]

Framerate as it's shown can be misleading, it's really an indicator of speed than framerate.

NTSC games run at a refresh rate of 60hz, PAL at 50hz. If a PS2 game is running at 60fps in pcsx2, it's running at full speed of 60hz... but the game itself may be designed to only run at 30 fps (with each frame rendered twice, to make 60hz). This is how real games worked on the PS2 (and every system currently out for that matter).

So, if you mean the frame rate feels at about 30, this is what you'd expect from FF12 since it was designed to run at 30fps with each frame rendered twice to reach 60hz. If you mean the game feels SLOW (like it's not really going full speed, even though it's at 60hz) it means you've enabled too many speed hacks, specifically, VU cycle steal is likely your culprit.

Thanks. Yes, I meant that the game feels at 30 FPS, but I didn't remember the game being so "laggy" when I played on the console.

[Mosquitoblue]

Without knowing your machine specs is hard to tell specifics about what to do the increase the FPS. Still your best bet is putting the EE cyclerate and VU cycle stealing speedhacks at the middle point, BTW they should read 2.

Edit: Ahh, if the emulator says it's locked at 60 FPS and the game feels laggy and sluggish, the problem is actually excess of speed hacks, return those two mentioned above to the middle point. If the FPS falls bellow 60 even then, so your machine is too much bellow the minimal requirements to play most games with the emulator since FFXII is not among the most demanding.

Sorry, I just added the machine specifications.

[nosisab Ken Keleh]

Sorry, I just added the machine specifications.

Those specs aren't so bad, you should be able to play that game with the speedhacks set as said and every other option at the defaults.

Possibly the game will run at correct speed even at 2x or 3x upscale (at the video plugin config), avoid going above that and if still experiencing problems, mainly in cities with lots of NPCs. Try native if still getting slowmotion.

[Mosquitoblue]

Those specs aren't so bad, you should be able to play that game with the speedhacks set as said and every other option at the defaults.

Possibly the game will run at correct speed even at 2x or 3x upscale (at the video plugin config), avoid going above that and if still experiencing problems, mainly in cities with lots of NPCs. Try native if still getting slowmotion.

First of all, thanks for the help. I just put the FPS on Benchmark mode and it got to 160 FPS with no lag at all (but the game runs very quickly). Since it can run so fast, I strange the fact it can't run on normal speed without FPS drops... This is on Native x3 resolution and Direct3D11...

Oh, and when I put native resolution, even with the graphics ugly as hell, the performance was the same as with the Native x3 res

[nosisab Ken Keleh]

The game running too fast could be caused by involuntarily pressing F4 (toggles frame limiter) and/or TAB (toggles turbo).

The game running almost the same with upscale or native was expected since the video card is good enough for PCSX2.

PS: As a rule of thumbs, use the minimal speedhack (or none) needed to keep the FPS stable at 60 for NTSC or 50 for PAL games. Unlike PC games, higher FPS does not translate as smoother but fast motion, so the ideal is keeping it at the TV standards as the original.

[AeronSinski]

Trying to get games to run at steady FPS are always tough to do. They can easily change just by the size of the area, or how many things on screen. Before you do ajustments on the PS2 Emulator you first want to do a few things on your PC to help with your speeds.
1. First if your virus software has a silent mode like Norton does , turn it on for the hours you will be playing, updating or active virus program slows stuff down stuff alot.
2. Keep your internet closed while playing along with message programs, if your using any guides, going online and copy the information to a text document, close and use the document instead.

3. Last open windows task manager and review all users running processes, other then the ps2 emulator, your open browser, and some of your svchost, nothing should be higher then 50,000k, if something is high its eating up a lot of memory , you should find what it is and close it, unless you really like to keep whatever it is running.

Now for the ps2 emulator.
1. Speeds hacks vary from game to game, will be up to you how to manage that. EE at 3, Vu at 2, and check on enable intc, enable wait loop, mvu flag hack should be ok.
2. As for GS, should keep it on disable.
3. Sound will depend on game, I actually like Async Mix for regular gameplay, it keeps the sound in line , but when people talk like in FFXII, or Suikoden 5, it will cause issues, MGS3 works fine with it, at least for me. The normal sound setting of Timestretch will need tinkering or you may have people talk in slow motion depending on PC.
4. Video set to DX11, with custom resolution of 1024 1024 , and check on smoothing, 8 bit, hacks, works great for me, interlacing on auto is ok, needed on games like Wild Arms F to prevent most menu shaking.
As for game's themselfs, if you still feel FFXII is running to slow for your liking, removing members off screen gives a great speed up, it's not hard to play with just 1 guy. It gets slower for 2 then all 3. And for some games what the player is wearing can change speeds a lot also, for example MGS3Sub, wearing the Tux uses less textures and will make things faster, but wearing the stelth camo causes a slow down and sound skipping. Of course this all depending on your computer in the first place.
Last of all keep your plugins updated, downloading new versions of the emulators every few months is good but will require you do redo settings, what I like to do, is download a updated SVN every week, then I only go to the plugins folders, to copy that and paste into the current plugins folder of the version being used, and change the plugin for video and sound if there are newer versions, then every few months I will actually just use a complete new SVN, but you will have to update all your memory card saves first, since save states cant be carried over. And redo all the other settings, but like I said if that's to much then just do the plugins.

Well sorry to give all that to take in, only giving you what helps me and my pc, in the end your own personal tinkering with the settings on each game will help you determine the settings that give the best FPS on each game.