Dark Cloud Problems

[TheRandinator211]

Hey guys,

I'm new to PCSX2, but I've done my fair share of reading and watching youtube videos so I don't believe I'm making any noob mistakes but who knows....

So here it goes: I'm trying to play Dark Cloud on PCSX2. I own the game so I'm running it from disc instead of using an ISO. I've checked the compatibility lists and it's supposed to run just fine. I also checked the settings given there for it to run stable.

However, despite all this, I'm still having issues with the game. The game starts up and during the start menu scenes it will lag a bit, then play perfectly, lag again, play perfectly, lag horribly, play perfectly. It can be any combination of that, lol (Same thing happens when I start a new game and it's in the opening scenes).

I've have tried everything I can think of in the settings (disable/enable speedhacks, try various plugins, use native video settings) and no matter what the game still gives me the same problem.

This bugs me so much because I've seen other people on youtube running older versions of PCSX2 with Dark Cloud and it runs just fine!...and they have weaker PCs than mine to boot!

I also tried older versions of PCSX2 and it stayed the same.

My PC specs-
CPU: Intel Core i7-3770K @ 4.0Ghz
GPU: Nvidia GTX 660ti x2 in SLI
RAM: 8GB DDR3 2000Mhz

I'm pretty sure my PC has more than enough power to handle anything PCSX2 throws at it.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[miseru99]

All of us have to own the games(and the console) to use PCSX2 legally:]. Using disc image has nothing to do with it.(well at least as long as your country law allows having backup;p, but nobody here cares what laws you have in your country, in fact most people don't even know their own xD)

Simply speaking DVD drive in ps2 is pretty much constantly running at very slow speed, PC DVD drives on the other hand are top speed fast, but they are stopped after few seconds of not used and then need a moment to spin-up again. Whenever the disc stops the game will need to wait a moment when it desire to read some more data. That generates short freezes every few moments depending on game it can be totally awfull. That's exactly why we don't use our dvd directly, but dump it to ISO or similar format and that's probably also what you're experiencing.

It could also be speedhack abuse ~ slider speedhacks can and commonly do cause an actual slowdown apart from increasing fps since they're basically underclocking the emulated console or some problems with the hardware, but since you noted you play directly from dvd firstly get an Imgburn and copy the dvd to your hdd(edit: "Read" option in imgburn, also don't use other programs, many popular programs fail to recreate 100% ps2 backup since they all assume reading pc native dvd which differs slightly, that's pretty much why we advertise this program soo much:]).

[TheRandinator211]

All of us have to own the games(and the console) to use PCSX2 legally:]. Using disc image has nothing to do with it.(well at least as long as your country law allows having backup;p, but nobody here cares what laws you have in your country, in fact most people don't even know their own xD)

Simply speaking DVD drive in ps2 is pretty much constantly running at very slow speed, PC DVD drives on the other hand are top speed fast, but they are stopped after few seconds of not used and then need a moment to spin-up again. Whenever the disc stops the game will need to wait a moment when it desire to read some more data. That generates short freezes every few moments depending on game it can be totally awfull. That's exactly why we don't use our dvd directly, but dump it to ISO or similar format and that's probably also what you're experiencing.

It could also be speedhack abuse ~ slider speedhacks can and commonly do cause an actual slowdown apart from increasing fps since they're basically underclocking the emulated console or some problems with the hardware, but since you noted you play directly from dvd firstly get an Imgburn and copy the dvd to your hdd:].

Thanks! I'll give this a try and see what happens!

[TheRandinator211]

YES! You're a pimp! Works perfect now! *thumbs up*

[hellbringer616]

Not to hijack, but TheRandinator211 what version of PCSX2 are you using? I loaded up my DC the other day and i am missing all sorts of textures and geometry, even in hardware mode. I redumped my ISO but it still is messed up. So it's PCSX2 or my Disc drive isn't dumping right.