Star ocean 3 problems....

[fade2black001]

EH???

OK SO1 was released for the SNES which was only out in Japan.

Later it got world wide release for the PS1. Then SO2 came out on the PS1 as well.

Then Star Ocean till the End of Time came out for the PS2. Which is the third installment.

Then Star Ocean 4 (The Last Hope) was released for the 360.

Theirs only four installments man. What are you think of?

[nosisab Ken Keleh]

I found something when taking snapshots of that Airygliph's outskirts, It's a snowy field with falling snow flocks.

In the first screenshot the flocks do have a solid nucleus with translucent body, that thing killed the performance with FPS falling to 38-40.

With just the first step of VU cycle stealing the flocks became solid (as no post processing was done) and this was enough to push the FPS to steady 60.

I didn't notice the effect till taking the snapshots (although it is perceivable if you look to the image seeking for it).

I winder if any other place that eventually could make the game fall bellow 60 FPS has something in common with it.

Edit: to the moment I could not find problems with any other kind of translucency in the game, let's see what comes next. Yet, not all but some FMVs do hit the performance as well).

[fade2black001]

In common with what. The bleeding of color of the image? I don't think so. I think its just a thing with the hardware settings. I passed the falling part not too long ago and I stayed at 60fps at 5x native res. However I did have fps dips in other places though at 5x native but nothing to worry about. And at those parts when i did dip in fps their was no image bleeding.

[nosisab Ken Keleh]

In common with what. The bleeding of color of the image? I don't think so. I think its just a thing with the hardware settings. I passed the falling part not too long ago and I stayed at 60fps at 5x native res. However I did have fps dips in other places though at 5x native but nothing to worry about. And at those parts when i did dip in fps their was no image bleeding.

Good to know, the i7 CPU can keep the FPS at 60, it does not surprise me much.

I meant in common with the snow flocks. since your FPS is being clamped you have no way to tell how it is affecting the performance other than removing the framelimiting and comparing with other areas. But that is not important since the game is working fine for you there.

Notice that what I'm pointing is not a graphical problem so should nor matter if at 3x or 5x or something else. I mean, it is processed at the VU and not at the GS.

The problem with the colors could be due to the MSAA, tested without it?

Edit: Not all graphical processing is done at the GPU and that is specially true in emulation where there is no way to know a priory how the specific game will treat the image. The video card can facilitate the life of the CPU making most of the processing and so is how it normally works, but even then what is to become the image (the vectors) are delivered by or generated at the CPU first. How efficient the program is to relieve the CPU of more than just delivering the vectors to be processed by the GPU or attempting to process them at the CPU is outside the control of the emulator's developers. Hence a lot of games "misbehave" for not following the canon.

The physics behind those falling snow flocks are good example of the CPU making active part of the image creation. Someday these physics calculations will be done by PPUs or integrated into the GPU, the time may say, but for now, other than PhysX is up to the CPU to do it.

This said, be aware that a problem with the image may not necessarily be a problem from GSDX alone or may not be resolved by the video card at all. On the other hand, something that is beyond the emulation itself but a particularity of the emulator's plugins (like upscaling, antialiasing, for example) may not work as expected if what comes from the emulator is out of standard because the game itself is out of standard.

[fade2black001]

Yes I have and the conclusion is its still their even without AA. I think its just a hardware mode thing which could be a problem with the emulator itself. Refraction or Rama or could easily clear this up if they were here. Since they're not we're on our own for now. I think we did all the testing that we could do. What do you think?

[nosisab Ken Keleh]

Actually I'm liking to play the game now instead just testing it hooked me!

Sorry, I included an edit in the previous post trying to explain superficially how the image is treated in the CPU first and how it depends on a specific program.

Sometimes one may be lead to think a problem is in the graphical engine when actually it might just be something going astray before getting there.

[fade2black001]

So you're saying that that theirs nothing to be done about this? Well except for using software mode? Oh well. I'll live with it then.

[WarWeeny]

EH???

Theirs only four installments man. What are you think of?

someone doesnt know their gaming lore, there was a gbc version as well

edit: i see you have a 6990, that explains alot,

1 its an amd/ati card, you didnt listen to me but maybe you do now, so3 doesnt like radeon cards.
2 you have a dual gpu solution which pcsx2 doesnt support so your stuck with a downclokced version of the 6950.

there problem located.

[fade2black001]

huh? I think the game likes my card just fine. 5x native res looks awesome for it.

I got a 6950 not a 6990. Slightly less powerful card.

[nosisab Ken Keleh]

someone doesnt know their gaming lore, there was a gbc version as well

edit: i see you have a 6990, that explains alot,

1 its an amd/ati card, you didnt listen to me but maybe you do now, so3 doesnt like radeon cards.
2 you have a dual gpu solution which pcsx2 doesnt support so your stuck with a downclokced version of the 6950.

there problem located.

Now we have something to ponder about.

1 - Is that problem affecting the 4000 and 5000 series still present?

2 - about the crossfire you are right, is the same for SLI as well but honestly it is not something a much weaker GPU could not do.


But, for all that I observed till now, those symptoms are not of GS problems. Much easier to verify is looking at EE and GS values when the issue arises.

The game is really taxing on GS, I imagine that to aleviate it the VUs are specially taxed in that game and then probably EE gets it's share of the load as well.

This is not an unknown solution even on more modern consoles which tend to have more CPU power than graphics power. One good example of that console solution affecting even a PC game can be seen in Skyrim.

The game was clearly developed for the consoles and then ported to PC. Then does not push on the video card(s) all the work that should be theirs and then we get a strongly CPU bound game, fails the CPU in doing the job in due time and the whole performance drops.

But we are talking about emulation... I don't know how well the VU emulation deals with this particular case but the fact is it's thread screams and struggles a lot trying to process all those translucency and post processing this game has and should be done by the GPU.

Keeping an eye on EE and GS usage may be the most useful information to help pinpoint where the problem really is.