Pushed: [GSdx Hardware] Smash Court Tennis Pro Tournament 2 [PAL]

[.r5]

***PCSX2 versions used:*** 
pcsx2-v1.3.1-1307-g8700132-windows-x86
pcsx2-v1.3.1-590-gcd8e31d-windows-x86
pcsx2-v1.3.1-294-g6166c95-windows-x86
pcsx2-1.2.1-r5875-binaries

***Emulation settings:*** "Safest" preset, no hacks.
***Plugins used:*** GSdx-AVX2, GSdx-AVX cddvdGigaherz
***Plugin settings:*** CRC Hack Level "None"

#### Hardware Specifications 
***CPU:*** Intel® Core™ i5-4690K CPU @ 3.50GHz
***GPU:*** GeForce GTX 970 (Driver: NVIDIA 358.50)

#### Description
Some text in the game is missing when using any hardware renderer. The bug is not present when using the software renderer.
None of the FPU/VU/VIF/EE gamefixes help the bug. Different VU clamp/round modes have no effect.

Also worth noting is that in the latest tested version, player shadows are rendered but seem to be improperly blended when compared to software mode.

#### Screenshots
Software mode
   

OGL HW renderer, Ultra blending unit accuracy. Notice the missing player names, elapsed time on the lower left corner
and the missing match type on the lower right. The player shadow is improperly blended and there's a missing fullscreen dot pattern/dithering effect 
   

***GS dump*** 

  SCTPT2-GS-MissingText.7z (Size: 1,79 MB / Downloads: 744)

[gregory]

Here the explanation of the missing letter. In order to save some memory, texture and RT are located at the same destination.

Initial RT is cleared whereas is ought to load GS memory. Next draw call will read back the RT to get the input texture so it will get 0 instead of the letter.

[ssakash]

please try the build above the following page : https://github.com/PCSX2/pcsx2/pull/911

check whether "preload data frame" option fixes the bug, seems like those sort of issues.

[omnikam]

Not trying to crash the thread, but no that build with said option doest correct the problem

[ssakash]

Not trying to crash the thread, but no that build with said option doest correct the problem

Thanks for testing, It worked through GS dump using that option but haven't checked the game since I don't have it.

@gregory38

do you know why this seems to only fix these kinds of stuffs while replaying the dump ? (Excluding the Armored core game )

[gregory]

With a quick hack to upload some data, I managed to get an alien language translator

[gregory]

Hum I know potentially the remaining issue. RT is draw with a width of 10 blocks (640 pixels). The texture is read back with a width of 8 blocks (512 pixels).

It kinds of breaks the scaling of the texure. The letters have a different positions. Of course it will be a nightmare to fix and it would be even worst with upscaling enabled.

[gregory]

Thanks for testing, It worked through GS dump using that option but haven't checked the game since I don't have it.

@gregory38

do you know why this seems to only fix these kinds of stuffs while replaying the dump ? (Excluding the Armored core game )

Because it changes the cache content, maybe you need to replay the dump several times. You can do it on linux with "linux_replay = 100". Dump aren't perfect. In particular for texture cache issue.

I create a new PR with an extension of preload data option https://github.com/PCSX2/pcsx2/pull/927

But game stills suffers of texture size rescaling.

[.r5]

Because it changes the cache content, maybe you need to replay the dump several times. You can do it on linux with "linux_replay = 100". Dump aren't perfect. In particular for texture cache issue.

I create a new PR with an extension of preload data option https://github.com/PCSX2/pcsx2/pull/927

But game stills suffers of texture size rescaling.

What can a user do to better help the developer? Longer GS dumps? Multiple ones?
Also feel free to post this as a github issue.

[gregory]

Nothing gs. Longer GS will just explode the 4GB limit. There are tons of issue that can already be fixed with current dump. Potentially I can buy some game to reproduce some issue but it is very time consumming and can't debug it properly. I mean I dump all gl state for each frame and I compare to the SW renderer. However it require a testcase that is reproducible easily.