Having trouble with converting my game (FFXII) to an image file.

[Helbereth]

PC Specs:
Intel Core2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.4 GHz
4GB RAM
Windows Vista Home Premium SP2 64-Bit OS
nVidia GeForce 8800GTS
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Or, rather, the problem is running the file.

I can play FFXII fairly well right from the disc, though I have framerate issues when the screen starts getting crowded (it gets down to 40 fps running around Rabanastre).

I downloaded imgburn as suggested on the forums here to see if I can get a better framerate from an image file. I used its lovely little image burner to make an image of my disc, but that's as far as I got.

When I then turn around and try to run that file through PCSX2, I get an error message stating that it's out of memory. Am I missing a setting somewhere in the configuration?

It may also be that the file created by imgburn (Final_Fantasy_12.ISO) doesn't show up on the regular file search. Are there supposed to be other file types available for play through the system (perhaps I'm missing plug-in), or am I missing a step in burning the file? None of the guides indicated any additional steps.

Any help would be appreciated.

[nosisab Ken Keleh]

The first step is to find the created ISO. It will be in the path shown at the "Destination" in imgburn, just fake/pretend making another image and look where it is doing it (you can change that destination at will).

Once you have the image located (you can move it to any preferred location if wanted) you select it from the "Browse" function in "Iso Selector" in the CDVD menu at PCSX2 GUI.

At this point you should not have whatever plugin seeing the game, let's say you should NEITHER have the actual disc mounted in the DVD device tray anymore, or the ISO mounted in some virtual driver... Actually you could set Gigaherz to "No disc" or use the CDVDnull plugin even, without problem.

make sure "Iso" is selected and not "Plugin" in the GUI. Start the game normally from the "Boot CDVD (fast)", and it'll work.

The point is question yourself: "Where is the actual image?"
If the answer is: it's seen by a plugin, even if Linus ISO plugin, you MUST chose "Plugin" in the GUI

Else, it is selected from the internal Browse function: Select "Iso" and make sure NO image is mounted elsewhere, neither in physical or virtual drive or any combination of it.

[Helbereth]

Awesome, thanks. I had to change the Cdvdrom from Gigaherz's CDVD Plugin to Linuz Iso CDVD. Now when I go to File > Run CD/DVD it brings up a file folder to select from instead of just defaulting to the DVD tray (which i evacuated as you reccomended).

Now it runs the file just fine but the frame-rate is still iffy. Is it my 2.4 ghz processor, or is there some way to get it to run right without upgrading? I thought about overclocking, but the returns likely wouldn't meet up with the 3.2 GHz recommendation (or even come close).

[nosisab Ken Keleh]

FFXII is reasonable easy to emulate, you should get some enhancement experimenting with the speed hacks.

As general recommendation start with those marked as "recommended" and afterward with the sliders in EE Cyclerate and VU cycle stealing, the less you use that gives acceptable playability the better. The VU cycle stealing is known to work nicely with the VU slider advance two steps for this game, many games do indeed although may lag at some points, others will just become unplayable then, try them. The bottom line is: What feels better to you is what is better.

If the above setup is not enough, things begins to become desperate and some compromises will need to be made, these compromises may work for the specific game and it's good but others games will need to have them redone, that is a wild field without common and universal advise.

[Dangerousd777]

Now it runs the file just fine but the frame-rate is still iffy. Is it my 2.4 ghz processor, or is there some way to get it to run right without upgrading? I thought about overclocking, but the returns likely wouldn't meet up with the 3.2 GHz recommendation (or even come close).

Actually they will. Without overvolting you should be able to reach 2.8 or 3.0 at the least, likely further those are almost worse-case scenarios.

Every processor overclocks differently, and you will gain quite a speed boost in any multithreaded tasks considering you have 4 cores, but since PCSX2 only uses 2, your still going to see a decent improvement from a 10% overclock (240 mhz).

You should expect to see anywhere from 10-30% without additional voltage. Don't overvolt... at the very least you shouldn't if you don't know what your doing and your using stock cooling.

A 20 or 30% overclock will put you up to a good framerate about anywhere but you should use Speedfan to monitor your temperatures. If anything your CPU is fine up to 67-75 celsius on load. I've seen a stock QX9650 that my uncle has get 75-80 celsius easily...

My uncle is pretty much anti-overclocking, from just about every point and perspective I've tried to put him into. Since it's too much for him to replace his crappy stock cooler and get something decent for 20 or 30 bucks he's going to waste up to 20% more time... and he'll end up replacing his processor 2 decades before it ever comes close to dying, so what's the point of wasting time if your processor is going to last you beyond your needs? You might as well have bought a faster processor to begin with if your worried about it.

I am 100% pro-overclocking because I have had nothing but pure success and great returns on every component I've tried. The only time I overvolted was with my other 8600GT and even though I managed great clockspeeds it was much of a challenge to keep it cool. Even though I overvolted and overclocked it to oblivion (and played oblivion ) it still took about 2 months to die off completely...

So I replaced it quickly with a 8600GT SSC and I've overclocked this one and everything without exceeding 100 celsius much. (which is childs play for nVidia GPUs, they can withstand up to 130-150 celsius before they spontaneously fail)

No damage done, and a lot of time saved for me... time is precious, and if you could just buy a cheap processor and overclock it to save yourself time and money... haha, all the better!