Shattered Memories frame pacing issue solution required

[uncaged]

Greetings!
Looks like the game has an unlocked frame rate on the real hardware. Though VPS shows a stable 60, the "internal" FPS is 32-55 fps in open areas (white numbers in OSD), which makes the game very stuttery. This is the case when the next-gen game was shoehorned into an old console without taking care of its smoothness and stability.
There are 2 possible workarounds each with its problems.

1. Increasing the cycle rate to 180% makes the game butter smooth both VPS and FPS become 60.
BUT staying in the same location for a few minutes, without entering doors the animation becomes increasingly jittery, which can be clearly seen on the flashlight, but it affects all animation. Can be temporally fixed with entering the door, but come back very soon. Looks like animations are tied to the EE PS2 frequency and sadly 180% Cycle Rate is no go : (

2. Locking to 30 FPS. I didn't find a way to trigger the internal 30 FPS lock via changing Cycle Rate or Cycle Skip. It can be done via the emu settings, but FMWs become 15 fps and I will have to press TAB every time. That breaks loading the gameplay with 50\50 chance. However, during the gameplay - it plays very smooth (as for 30 fps) and overall is a way better experience than that jittery laggy native behavior. But sadly still a buggy solution. They just should have locked it to 30 in the first place.

So there is a theoretical option to properly cap the FPS with the cheat code that keeps FMWs at 30 FPS and hopefully doesn't break anything else. But I have no idea how to do this and hope that someone is able to do this or let me know if that is impossible or makes no sense.

What do you think guys?
Thanks!

[felixthecat1970]

Greetings!
Looks like the game has an unlocked frame rate on the real hardware. Though VPS shows a stable 60, the "internal" FPS is 32-55 fps in open areas (white numbers in OSD), which makes the game very stuttery. This is the case when the next-gen game was shoehorned into an old console without taking care of its smoothness and stability.
There are 2 possible workarounds each with its problems.

1. Increasing the cycle rate to 180% makes the game butter smooth both VPS and FPS become 60.
BUT staying in the same location for a few minutes, without entering doors the animation becomes increasingly jittery, which can be clearly seen on the flashlight, but it affects all animation. Can be temporally fixed with entering the door, but come back very soon. Looks like animations are tied to the EE PS2 frequency and sadly 180% Cycle Rate is no go : (

2. Locking to 30 FPS. I didn't find a way to trigger the internal 30 FPS lock via changing Cycle Rate or Cycle Skip. It can be done via the emu settings, but FMWs become 15 fps and I will have to press TAB every time. That breaks loading the gameplay with 50\50 chance. However, during the gameplay - it plays very smooth (as for 30 fps) and overall is a way better experience than that jittery laggy native behavior. But sadly still a buggy solution. They just should have locked it to 30 in the first place.

So there is a theoretical option to properly cap the FPS with the cheat code that keeps FMWs at 30 FPS and hopefully doesn't break anything else. But I have no idea how to do this and hope that someone is able to do this or let me know if that is impossible or makes no sense.

What do you think guys?
Thanks!

Code:

gametitle=Silent hill shatteret SLUS_218.99;1) Game CRC = 0x61A7E622
comment=cap variable fps to 30fps test by felixthecat1970

patch=0,EE,00446E30,extended,01 //cap fps to 30

that game is heavy in EE, test this and let me know if work ok.

[uncaged]

Code:

gametitle=Silent hill shatteret SLUS_218.99;1) Game CRC = 0x61A7E622
comment=cap variable fps to 30fps test by felixthecat1970

patch=0,EE,00446E30,extended,01 //cap fps to 30

that game is heavy in EE, test this and let me know if work ok.

Thank you very much for your effort!
I tested the cheat and it seems to do what I asked it shows G:30 and V:60 and doesn't affect FMVs. But... I think I gave some misinformation in my post : (
I tested the 30 fps lock as described in my post in 2 places where it looked smooth. So that made me sure that a proper cap is a way to go. But then starting the new game with the cheat it was jittery almost everywhere and I thought that the cheat may be incorrect. I went back and started the new game without the cheat but with the cap via settings and the behavior was the same as with the cheat - a very jittery look with but with smooth frametimes and framerate charts. And even jittery animations start showing.
Looks like the 30 fps cap is not an option here anymore.
Well, at least now I know this for sure.
felixthecat1970, I probably wasted your time, I am really sorry about that.
If there is nothing else can be done to make the smooth 30 fps cap in the game, I believe the topic can be closed.

[felixthecat1970]

Thank you very much for your effort!

that code always pass unique val to some main function change intervals of frames (theory) maybe is in sync with other global functions like segssyncv and dsynccache (yes framepacing looks bad) maybe take another look for this game. luckily i finished some codes some days ago for all silent hill series so my notes are recent; maybe something can be done.

[uncaged]

that code always pass unique val to some main function change intervals of frames (theory) maybe is in sync with other global functions like segssyncv and dsynccache (yes framepacing looks bad) maybe take another look for this game. luckily i finished some codes some days ago for all silent hill series so my notes are recent; maybe something can be done.

Sounds like there is hope : ) Looking forward then! Let me know if there is anything to test here. I am not a super advanced user, but may be helpful a bit.
Thank you : )