Random freezes / fps drops in GTA Vice City Stories (1.4.0)

[Lordani66]

Hi! I have a problem with GTA VIce CIty STORIES. From time to time (sometimes every 20 sec, sometimes after 3 minutes) there happens to be a random freeze - fps counter goes to 0 fps but only for one second and then it goes back to normal 60fps. This game normally works flawlessly in terms of framerate, it's constant 60fps, because I have a pretty powerful rig, but these random hiccups are annoying, and I don't know what cause them. I noticed they mostly happen soon after I exit a building/start a mission/steal a car/cops show up, IDK, it seems like it happens when game has to load something.

Also - this wasn't happening when I first played this game 2 days ago. In one sitting I had no such hiccups but I had "8 bit textures" unchecked, and fps counter liked to slow down while speeding (which I read on the internet is what happens on a real PS2 but IDK) because of those "8 bit textures" being unchecked, so I read that it's better to check it, so I did and the fps drops were gone, but now hiccups to 0fps occur, even when I try and uncheck "8 bit textures" in options... My rig and my settings (PCSX2 1.4.0):

Intel Core i5 2500K 4,6 GHz
8GB DDR3
Radeon R9 280X
Win 10, 64 bit

                   

[refraction]

Hmm are you playing from the dvd or iso? If iso where is it located?

[Lordani66]

To answer your question - I have been playing from iso through "iso" option first, now just tried "plugin" option (but still with iso), and it's the same. I even tried deleting EVERYTHING and downloading pcsx from scratch, to see if not selecting 8-bit textures will help, but no, it still does that, so I was really lucky that I got it playing without freezes the first try , 8bit textures have nothing to do with it it seems.

My iso is located in emulator directory, in another directory called "Games" and there it is sitting with a few other isos. Why? Does it matter? Should I burn it on a dvd?

Edit: https://youtu.be/qY7pOw1NJ5g?t=583
I know it's not pcsx2 emulator, it's PSP emu, but look at 9:46, it drops exactly like that. So maybe it's this game's flaw? But I played it back in 2007 on PS2, and last year or two on an emulator and I honestly don't remember such freezes... And it this video it happens more then it does to me.

[refraction]

My iso is located in emulator directory, in another directory called "Games" and there it is sitting with a few other isos. Why? Does it matter? Should I burn it on a dvd?

I meant more is it on a proper HDD or an external HDD or a usb stick or anything Especially if power saving is turned on with the HDD

Edit: https://youtu.be/qY7pOw1NJ5g?t=583
I know it's not pcsx2 emulator, it's PSP emu, but look at 9:46, it drops exactly like that. So maybe it's this game's flaw? But I played it back in 2007 on PS2, and last year or two on an emulator and I honestly don't remember such freezes... And it this video it happens more then it does to me.

Hmm it's possible it could be a game thing, however the PSP can just about run the GTA games, so I'm not sure that's a fair metric

[Lordani66]

I meant more is it on a proper HDD or an external HDD or a usb stick or anything Especially if power saving is turned on with the HDD


Hmm it's possible it could be a game thing, however the PSP can just about run the GTA games, so I'm not sure that's a fair metric

It's a HDD, IDK how to check if power saving is turned on really, it's a Western Digital Green Caviar 7500GB, it's speed varies between 5400 and 7200 rounds per minute, I think it has some power saving in it itself, but I may be wrong. I have both SSD and HDD in my PC.

[refraction]

hmm, can you try it on the SSD? I know the Green drives had an issue with the head aggressively parking which could cause the issue.

if you want to check your power settings you can go in to the control panel (if you're on windows 10, right click on the start menu then choose control panel) then "power options", then click "plan settings" next to the one which is selected, then click "advanced settings" you should see the hard disk setting there

[Lordani66]

Thanks for the tip. I will try with the SSD drive in a minute, but regarding that second option - are you talking about this?

   

Because the language differences make it a little hard to be 100% if I chose the right option path . Anyways, there is only one option for HDD there, it is to set if I want to turn off my HDD if it doesn't do anything for 20 minutes, etc. So I guess there is no option about power saving there or are we talking about this exact option?

[refraction]

That's the one 20 minutes should be okay. I would recommend making sure your performance plan is set to "high performance" though, just to be sure

[Lordani66]

I have copied everything into my SSD and it seems like everything is working excellent now . No freeze for 1 hour now, even on "8-bit textures", stable 60 fps. This seems to get ridd of the problem for good, although we will see if this changes in some time. Anyways, I'd like this thread to be opened for a day at least, and I will post results after some more testing. Maybe it was my HDD indeed, last year I played this game also on a HDD, but it wasn't THIS one, probably faster one which worked all the time in 7200 rpm.

[refraction]

ok well you can fix your Green HDD so it shouldn't be a problem, it's a bit of a task as you need to boot in to DOS to do it, which means making a bootable cd or memory stick or something.

Here's some instructions on how to do it http://www.storagereview.com/how_to_stop...th_wdidle3

Glad all is fine on your SSD