Persona 4 Fixes?

[BaconDoesEverything]

Well, it's not guaranteed to work and it's not guaranteed to not break stuff.

First make sure you are using the latest SVN version of PCSX2. Get it from http://buildbot.orphis.net/pcsx2 (You will need it as this is a recently added feature.)

Then go to the PCSX2 folder, and then the ini subfolder. Open the pcsx2_vm.ini in notepad. Find the [EmuCore/Speedhacks] section and then in that the
EECycleRate setting.

The main UI only lets you set the EE hack to 3, but in the INI, a recent change was made where you can set insane amounts up to 99. Of course 99 is largely useless as you end up with like 1 FPS.

So what you should do is this. Make a savestate in battle for easy testing. Turn OFF the VU hack for now, to make testing more stable. In the ini, set the EE cycle rate hack to 5, save the ini and then start PCSX2, run the game, load your state and test. Then try a bigger number. If it's still seriously slow increase by 5 each time. So 10, 15, etc. Basically keep bumping it up to see if you can find a sweet spot. Note you need to close PCSX2 each time you edit the ini.

So:
Edit ini and increase EECycleRate value
Save ini(you don't have to close it)
Run PCSX2
Test
Close PCSX2
Repeat.

This will likely only help if the CPU EE thread is slowing the game down. In the game window are EE and GS%, if the EE% is the high one, then this may help, if the GS is, prolly not. Once you find a decent spot, you can turn VU stealing back on if you need it. Of course not if you don't!

And again this may cause serious weirdness and or instability, that's why you can't do it from the UI. But worth a shot. Good luck. Persona 4 is one of my favorite games ever.

Edit: As for your option 1, in config->video->plugin settings you can try enabling hardware hacks, then configuring them and try various skipdraw values. You might get lucky and one might disable an effect and get you a speedup. Not too likely though.

Well, I DEFINITELY wasn't using the most recent version of pcsx2, so thanks for that, but sadly, I'm gonna have to restart, not that I was doing very well on my first save xD. So i'm not sure if this new version will still have problems and if so, i have your solution to fall back on, so thanks for all that.

[Blyss Sarania]

Why do you have to restart? Were you only using savestates to save? If you were, don't. Savestates can and do break and aren't compatible between versions. Always use regular save points when you can, in case something happens. However, if you were using only states, just run your old PCSX2, load the state and save at a proper save point. Memcards ARE transferable, just copy the memcard.ps2 files from the memcard folder.

[BaconDoesEverything]

Why do you have to restart? Were you only using savestates to save? If you were, don't. Savestates can and do break and aren't compatible between versions. Always use regular save points when you can, in case something happens. However, if you were using only states, just run your old PCSX2, load the state and save at a proper save point. Memcards ARE transferable, just copy the memcard.ps2 files from the memcard folder.

There's no memcard file in the version I was using, i was savung regularly though, besides, I really do need to start over, I rushed to shadow yukiko without finding/training any good personas.

[Blyss Sarania]

Dude pcsx2 has had memcard support since like forever. What version were you using lol? Any version with VU hack also has memcard support I'm pretty sure. If you are using installer version the file is likely in My Documents/PCSX2/memcards or Program Files/PCSX2/memcards (I don't use installer version so I'm not sure which). In the standalone, its in the /memcard subdirectory.

[BaconDoesEverything]

Dude pcsx2 has had memcard support since like forever. What version were you using lol? Any version with VU hack also has memcard support I'm pretty sure. If you are using installer version the file is likely in My Documents/PCSX2/memcards or Program Files/PCSX2/memcards (I don't use installer version so I'm not sure which). In the standalone, its in the /memcard subdirectory.

Yeah, i have an installer version, but I'm still gonna go ahead and start over, 4 hours ain't much if i just speed through the opening stuff.