Xenosaga Episode 3 - 0.9.8 - Horrible Emulation
#1
Instead of writing a bug report (as most of this is not suggested to be put on a bug report) I'll just write down my comments on this game.

Menus - Menus are incredibly resource heavy on the GPU. I can get them anywhere between 25 and 35 FPS while running the regular game at 60FPS 90% of the time. 8-but textures are either broken (other game menus have similar issues with them) in 0.9.8 or there's another reason for this lag.

E.S. Battles - Most E.S battles are exceptionally laggy. This is a regular thing through out the Xenosaga Series

Glitched Movies - There are a number of movies that don't play right. Usually a black screen and glitched graphics can happen. Also, any scene with U-DO suffers from a huge slowdown.

Also, the crystal dungeon below Michtam (last story dungeon) has glitched graphics on the moveable walls. Will post a pic of this any anything else later.

Also, the lighting flickers as you move around. This is an old problem however.

System Specs in Sig, also 0.9.8 Default Plugins, DX10 Hardware, Native Internal Resolution, No Speed Hacks.
[Image: 1817164.png]
E8400 @ Stock, 4GB DDR3-1066, XFX HD4670, Windows 7 Pro 64-bit
E5700 @ 4GHz, ASUS P5Q-EM DO, 2GB DDR2-1002, Coolermaster Elite 460W

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#2
You're saying the 8-bit textures option in GSDx isn't working in Xenosaga 3? Have you compared this to an earlier version of GSDx?

For the graphics issues does it work correctly in software mode (f9)?
[Image: 2748844.png]
#3
all 3 Xenosaga games mass spam directx drawprimitive calls, which in its current form, GSDX submits to a single thread.

the ability to record these draw calls to multiple command buffers (via multiple cores) and play them back in the main thread. is not at all possible with emulation so that leaves us screwed or getting more efficient processors.

this means your Pentium E 3.5Ghz processor is the limitation point.

setting the speedhack slider to safe balanced would net you some improvement immediately for the menu's.
#4
(05-16-2011, 06:11 PM)Secret Dragoon Wrote: Instead of writing a bug report (as most of this is not suggested to be put on a bug report) I'll just write down my comments on this game.

Menus - Menus are incredibly resource heavy on the GPU. I can get them anywhere between 25 and 35 FPS while running the regular game at 60FPS 90% of the time. 8-but textures are either broken (other game menus have similar issues with them) in 0.9.8 or there's another reason for this lag.

Yeah, menus are laggy, though with a stronger card, it is not that noticeable.

(05-16-2011, 06:11 PM)Secret Dragoon Wrote: E.S. Battles - Most E.S battles are exceptionally laggy. This is a regular thing through out the Xenosaga Series

Cannot confirm, battles always ran very smooth for me. The only exception is the Anima awakening effect of the E.S., it causes slowdown, but not that much.


(05-16-2011, 06:11 PM)Secret Dragoon Wrote: Glitched Movies - There are a number of movies that don't play right. Usually a black screen and glitched graphics can happen. Also, any scene with U-DO suffers from a huge slowdown.

The garbage in movies is fixed like this:
set skipdraw=4 and tick "offset hack" in GSDX. You have to enable hacks in you ini first.

(05-16-2011, 06:11 PM)Secret Dragoon Wrote: Also, the crystal dungeon below Michtam (last story dungeon) has glitched graphics on the moveable walls. Will post a pic of this any anything else later.

It's not gamebreaking.

(05-16-2011, 06:11 PM)Secret Dragoon Wrote: Also, the lighting flickers as you move around. This is an old problem however.

Yes it is. Just ignore it, not gamebreaking.

In general:
Enable the recommended speedhacks, they should be safe.

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#5
Quote:Yeah, menus are laggy, though with a stronger card, it is not that noticeable.

unrelated to card.

Quote:Cannot confirm, battles always ran very smooth for me. The only exception is the Anima awakening effect of the E.S., it causes slowdown, but not that much.

you're either lying or were using the software renderer, no AMD processor is strong enough to summon ES units at 3.5 Ghz, when a Intel core i has lag at 4Ghz.
#6
Menu slow down mostly only happened on AMD graphic card,nVidia doesn't really been affected that much.

ES battle is really a pain, even on 4g intel CPU, like i5.The only way is to lower the resolution, sometimes you need to set it to native to get a smooth fps.

Like SamSoNight mentioned , skipdraw=4 or 5 and offset hack is certainly needed for this game.
But there's little difference between DX9 and DX10.
You get darker screen on DX10, and for DX9, color is normal with just some blurry text. Tested yourself and you'll know.

Last dungeon is truly buggy even you use software rendering, nothing can do about it at the moment.



#7
Also, pics of buggy final dungeon:
[Image: 28u34tf.jpg]

Anyways, yea no AMD CPU is going to run this game at under 3.5 GHz, I'm sorry. I know that there's a huge performance decrease between AMD and Intel. I also know that only having 2MB of L2 and no SSE 4.1/4.2 also hurts me to a degree with my E5700 even if it runs at 3.5.

Also, I had a feeling that PCSX2 was more in favor to Nvidia GPUs. Tried OCing my Core clock from 600 to 800 and that boosts maybe 5-6 FPS. It's good when it makes a difference on the lag. ES battles the lag isn't really visible most of the time and you can tell it's really using all of the PS2s capabilities. (Hell I think it may have lagged on the real PS2)

Did not know about the skipdraw hack.

Being finicky but I'm trying to contribute as much as I can. Going through Episode 2 right now as well to see if there are any problems.
[Image: 1817164.png]
E8400 @ Stock, 4GB DDR3-1066, XFX HD4670, Windows 7 Pro 64-bit
E5700 @ 4GHz, ASUS P5Q-EM DO, 2GB DDR2-1002, Coolermaster Elite 460W
#8
(05-16-2011, 06:11 PM)Secret Dragoon Wrote: Menus - Menus are incredibly resource heavy on the GPU. I can get them anywhere between 25 and 35 FPS while running the regular game at 60FPS 90% of the time. 8-but textures are either broken (other game menus have similar issues with them) in 0.9.8 or there's another reason for this lag.

E.S. Battles - Most E.S battles are exceptionally laggy. This is a regular thing through out the Xenosaga Series

Tick "Native", both issues are actually fine with cards with better memory bandwidth or using lower res.


Yes, there are some glitches but I wouldn't call it "horrible emulation"... especially when almost all of those glitches are gone with software renderer... and the others are just cause of slow hardware...
Core i5 3570k -- Geforce GTX 670  --  Windows 7 x64
#9
Anyways, Skipdraw 5 (Skipdraw 4 causes bad shadows periodically) fixed multiple problems (Think it fixed the flickering too). I'm going to go through the game again to see what else I can find that's wrong.
[Image: 1817164.png]
E8400 @ Stock, 4GB DDR3-1066, XFX HD4670, Windows 7 Pro 64-bit
E5700 @ 4GHz, ASUS P5Q-EM DO, 2GB DDR2-1002, Coolermaster Elite 460W
#10
(05-17-2011, 08:10 AM)Squall Leonhart Wrote: you're either lying or were using the software renderer, no AMD processor is strong enough to summon ES units at 3.5 Ghz, when a Intel core i has lag at 4Ghz.

"Summoning" E.S units? Are you talking about Xenosaga Episode 1? If yes, then you are right, summoning your mechs in XS 1 causes heavy, heavy slowdown which cannot be fixed.

In Xenoaga 3 though, the robot battles ran really smoothly for me, only the special effects of the awakening causes minor slowdown.

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