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[potatohead]

That's good to know, the same applies for Dolphin too right? I've read that Dolphin also benefits from OpenGL than rather Direct3D now. I will keep that in mind when I play games on PCSX2.

It's more variable on Dolphin performance wise between DX and OGL, but PCSX2 OGL has nothing to do with how Dolphin OGL works.

Typically Dolphin is "ahead" of PCSX2 in emulation quality anyway so it usually doesn't matter as much which backend you use so much as using the right emulator settings. DX11 and OGL are more or less equivocal in Dolphin, just use whichever one gives you better performance in whatever game.

 

[Novum_Veritas]

It's more variable on Dolphin, but PCSX2 OGL has nothing to do with how Dolphin OGL works.

Thanks for clearing that up, and I'll keep that in mind .

 

[Dragon1893]

Got this urge to replay the the first 2 Shadow Hearts games (for me the best non-SMT rpgs on the PS2) but I had never tried emulating them.
Disappointed that the first game only runs well in software mode, but it's better than nothing.

 

[Elixist]

PCSX 1.4.0 released today

http://pcsx2.net/273-1-4-0-release-end-2015-report.html

nice. downhill domination seems improved, sound wise for sure at least . man the game is so good, love to see sony remaster it, improve its rough edges.

 

[dogen]

So here is my system:

I7 5820K@4.3GHZ
GTX 980 TI G1
16GB DDR4@ 2133MHZ
Windows 10 64-BIT

Is there a consensus on what the best software render is? DX11 or Open GL?

Also I used AVX2 as I heard it is better for software mode, was that wise?

For Hardware mode I assume DX11 all the way right?

Thanks.

Not with an nvidia gpu. Go with OpenGL to benefit from the new higher accuracy options.

You can also increase the number of cores the software graphics renderer uses in the GSDX plugin.

Technically threads. Not the same as cores, and even in practice you don't necessarily want to go 1:1. My dual core haswell runs faster with 2 extra rendering threads than only 1.

Everyone should be using OGL in GSDX now.

Except AMD users, they should stick to DX11 generally.

 

[Dalibor_San]

Not with an nvidia gpu. Go with OpenGL to benefit from the new higher accuracy options.

Wow I've been doing it wrong then, OGL it is from now on then I wasn't sure what blending accuracy to put it on so I chose High(High-end PC).

I enabled Accurate date option and left Hardware depth off and 8-Bit textures to off as well.

 

[bomblord1]

Except AMD users, they should stick to DX11 generally.

Why?

 

[RedFox85]

So I have kind of an odd issue im running into with PCSX2.. I am currently trying to use my steam link + ds4 which has presented its own hurdles let me tell you. First of all, when you make a shortcut in steam for the app your controller is treated as "desktop" mode which means it defaults to mouse and keyboard. To get around this I had to make sure the program booted in fullscreen and disabled mouse cursor.

The problem I am running into now is that the circle button on the controller is still coming up as "escape" thanks to steam.. and the steam link does NOT allow you to change the default desktop config. Is there any way I can do one of the following?

A) Disable all keyboard presses while in game on PCSX2
B) Change they function of the escape key within PCSX2 (I cannot make my changes to the keys ini stick.. not sure why.)

This is really driving me nuts.. it's like so close to working perfectly but every single time I hit circle it also registers as escape and closes the game window.. ugh.

**EDIT

Well I couldn't find anything through the usual means of google but I did happen to find several other people online complaining about this issue with steam and emulators in particular. The best I could do was write an AHK script to block input from the host PC mouse/KB, you need to set an activator as with most AHK scripts but this method was the best I could do and it works flawlessly now.

 

[dogen]

Why?

AMD's opengl driver is slower, and atm it makes a big difference for the opengl backend. The more accurate options are heavy on draw calls(although this may change in the future with optimizations), so the driver gets bogged down and performance can suffer a lot.

edit - in addition, AMD cards perform worse even without the new accurate options because they don't support threaded optimizations for opengl, while nvidia does.

 

[lolmark]

How do you dump a BIOS from your own game? I tried the PS2 Dumper, but it's didn't start up.

 

[bomblord1]

How do you dump a BIOS from your own game? I tried the PS2 Dumper, but it's didn't start up.

You have to dump the PS2 bios from the system itself.

If you're trying to rip a copy of a game just pop the disc into a disc drive and using imgburn "create an iso from disc"

 

[Harro]

I can't see any differences with overclocking the EE in PCSX 1.4.0.
Do you have a precise game where we can see a noticeable performance upgrade so I can test myself?

 

[GnawtyDog]

Not with an nvidia gpu. Go with OpenGL to benefit from the new higher accuracy options.

True but if you don't run into issues I think DX11 is fine. Crash Twinsanity turns all dark on me when I go hardware OpenGL. No problem with Hardware DX11 + Skipdraw 3.

-------------------------
Such a damn shame Ratchet and Clank has garbage texture issues. I hate to use software mode...hec better to play it on a PS2 as such.

Edit: Seems I am due for an update. Running on 1.21...

I'll update on Crash Twinsanity I guess.

Update: The saturated color issue is gone on OpenGL. Still need skipdraw at 3 to avoid the annoying artifacting.

Ratchet is still doomed albeit a little less going by the title screen now. In-game you can hardly tell the difference when texture bits go haywire.

 

[Wheelatron]

How do you guys go about upgrading to newer versions of PCSX2, or any other emulator that uses mostly local folders (like EPSXE)? I have been using a new set of folders for each new version, then copying over the contents of the savestate, memcard, and similar directories. I've kept the old installs around for compatibility reasons, but shit is messy now. Since you can specify the paths to most of the directories, does it make more sense to have one location for savestates and stuff like that outside of the main emulator directory that all installs point to/share?

 

[GnawtyDog]

How do you guys go about upgrading to newer versions of PCSX2, or any other emulator that uses mostly local folders (like EPSXE)? I have been using a new set of folders for each new version, then copying over the contents of the savestate, memcard, and similar directories. I've kept the old installs around for compatibility reasons, but shit is messy now. Since you can specify the paths to most of the directories, does it make more sense to have one location for savestates and stuff like that outside of the main emulator directory that all installs point to/share?

That's what I do. Copy Widescreen patches, memcard and savestates to the new directories then discard everything else.

 

[Kaname]

Anybody knows how the 3 Project Zero/Fatal Frame usually run?
I just finished the Wii U one and I'm tempted to do a full marathon soon, provided it's not an hassle to make them work with the emulator

config: Intel i5 2500k 3,3 ghz - 8 GB Ram - Nvidia 780ti - Windows 8 64 bit

(I know I should probably overclock my CPU but there's a weird bug with my mobo that causes a boot loop, so testing has been a major problem. I'll check if some new BIOS updates have been released tomorrow actually)

 

[nkarafo]

Just tested Okami on 1.4.0

I have a i5 4670. I'm using the OpenGL core and AVX2 instructions.

And WOW! It looks exactly like it used to look in software mode! All the effects are there. Until now i had to use the slower software mode for this game to look as it should. Now i can run this full speed in OpenGL and higher resolution

Great job guys

 

[SparkleMotion]

For some reason, any game I play runs at 60fps for like ten seconds, then it will turn into a slideshow for 2-3 seconds, then back to 60fps. It makes everything unplayable, and I don't know why it's doing this.

I3-4150
Radeon 280x
8gb ram

 

[FLAguy954]

Not with an nvidia gpu. Go with OpenGL to benefit from the new higher accuracy options.



Technically threads. Not the same as cores, and even in practice you don't necessarily want to go 1:1. My dual core haswell runs faster with 2 extra rendering threads than only 1.




Except AMD users, they should stick to DX11 generally.

I'm still going to try OpenGL.

I'm sure my hardware can handle it:

i5 4670K @ 4.5 GHz
290X Lightning @ 1150/1450
8 GB RAM

Edit: Never mind, my Zone of the Enders 2 performanced tanked in 4K :/.

That's what I do. Copy Widescreen patches, memcard and savestates to the new directories then discard everything else.

Last time I checked, save states don't work between different versions (or I may be confusing this with Dolphin).

 

[GnawtyDog]

I'm still going to try OpenGL.

I'm sure my hardware can handle it:

i5 4670K @ 4.5 GHz
290X Lightning @ 1150/1450
8 GB RAM

Edit: Never mind, my Zone of the Enders 2 performanced tanked in 4K :/.



Last time I checked, save states don't work between different versions (or I may be confusing this with Dolphin).

My savestate folder was empty heh... I did have memcard "save states" and they do carry.

 

[isamu]

Any improvements to Ridge Racer V, OutRun 2 SP or Gran Turismo 4?

 

[ScientificPizza]

Hey, I was wondering if someone could give me some advice on the configuration I have?

I've tried a few games out and they've all run fine, but graphically they've been a lot blurrier than they should be. I've never configured PSCX2 before and I'm sure this is all backwards and bad.

Here are some screenshots of how I currently have it set up and my PC specs

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[flashbandit16]

Hey, I was wondering if someone could give me some advice on the configuration I have?

I've tried a few games out and they've all run fine, but graphically they've been a lot blurrier than they should be. I've never configured PSCX2 before and I'm sure this is all backwards and bad.

Here are some screenshots of how I currently have it set up and my PC specs


Any help would be greatly appreciated!

What games are you playing? You can up the Anisotropic Filtering setting to 16x I don't think the setting has any negative effects. Also the FXAA under the Shader Configuration has the possibility of causing some blur. What Hardware(HW) Hacks are you using?

 

[Pachimari]

So I'm trying to get Yakuza to work, and I'm using this config but all the text looks pixelated, and the FMV's are really bad quality. What can I do about that?

[edit]
It actually looks okay now. But my controls are all messed up. Can't get the analogue stick to work properly, and when I assign the down-button and left-button, right and up-buttons, they keep overlapping each other. How do I configure the controls?

[edit 2]
I fixed the controls as well. Seems a little sluggish but that's probably how it was in Y1. Can someone tell me, if Yakuza 1 is supposed to look like this? Or if it is like the image is being stretched? The characters look a little too wide don't they?

There's also a blur around the characters in the cutscenes. Can I get rid of that?

 

[dogen]

What games are you playing? You can up the Anisotropic Filtering setting to 16x I don't think the setting has any negative effects. Also the FXAA under the Shader Configuration has the possibility of causing some blur. What Hardware(HW) Hacks are you using?

It's probably not the FXAA. PCSX2's FXAA has subpixel contrast reduction disabled so the "fxaa blur" is almost nonexistent.

 

[Pachimari]

I actually noticed, the issue I'm having in Yakuza 1, is probably ghosting. When I look at a character up close, and see the nose in a cutscene, it is repeated and gives a ghosting effect. In-game, there's blur around the characters. Almost makes me feel dizzy. Anyone know what I can do about this? I turned off hardware hacks, which eliminated the cross in the middle of the screen but not the ghosting.

 

[lightchris]

Can someone tell me, if Yakuza 1 is supposed to look like this? Or if it is like the image is being stretched? The characters look a little too wide don't they?

Yeah, that's stretched. You either need to select 16:9 in the in-game options (which will crop the image, meaning you'll see less of the image), find a widescreen hack (which might work on everything 3D but leave 2D elements stretched), or play in 4:3 by selecting it in the window settings or pressing F6.

I actually noticed, the issue I'm having in Yakuza 1, is probably ghosting. When I look at a character up close, and see the nose in a cutscene, it is repeated and gives a ghosting effect. In-game, there's blur around the characters. Almost makes me feel dizzy. Anyone know what I can do about this? I turned off hardware hacks, which eliminated the cross in the middle of the screen but not the ghosting.

Some games just have a little blur that can't be removed with PCSX2. You might gain a little sharpness back with the right HW hacks, Round Sprite seems to help in this case.
Ghosting could be related to interlacing, but shouldn't be there if set to auto.


There are more things that are off with Yakuza btw., for example the blooming effects, which have an offset and aren't filtered correctly:

Software mode has it right:

 

[Pachimari]

Yeah, that's stretched. You either need to select 16:9 in the in-game options (which will crop the image, meaning you'll see less of the image), find a widescreen hack (which might work on everything 3D but leave 2D elements stretched), or play in 4:3 by selecting it in the window settings or pressing F6.

Oh, missed that. I have set it to wide-screen in-game now. I'll see if that fixes it.

Some games just have a little blur that can't be removed with PCSX2. You might gain a little sharpness back with the right HW hacks, Round Sprite seems to help in this case.
Ghosting could be related to interlacing, but shouldn't be there if set to auto.

Interlacing is already on auto but it still shows ghosting.
I can't seem to find Round Sprite, I only see Sprite in HW hacks?

There are more things that are off with Yakuza btw., for example the blooming effects, which have an offset and aren't filtered correctly:

Yeah, this is a problem I have too. Should I set "software mode" to 16?

 

[adamsapple]

Ok .. so after testing both the latest stable (1.4) and the latest dev build from the build bot page .. i'm extremely surprised that i'm getting consistently higher performance on my moderate-ass laptop (i5/5200u/2GB intel HD 5500) on the 1.4 build.

Before this I would always get higher frame rates on the latest build bot version and I always assumed it was the rule of thumb that the latest dev build incorporates all the improvements/changes.

Persona 4 runs at 125~% performance with limiter off at 2X native resolution now and if I reduce it to something lower, but completely serviceable, like 960x720, it goes upto 145% with FXAA.

Also very surprised how nice 960x720p or even 800x600 can look like with FXAA Enabled on a monitor sized display. I'm impressed how the performance increases on my shitty laptop with each revision.

edit: hot dang ... persona 4 is going 200~220% during the dungeon crawling and less intensive scenes like S link conversations. Nice. Dragon Quest 8 was always a shit fest when I tried it last year, hopefully that runs at above playable speeds at higher resolutions for me now too, wouldn't mind the extra speed during the dungeon slogs either.

 

[Young Magus]

Any tips to get the best image out of 2d games?

Melty Blood AA runs fine, just want the window (not the actual game) fullscreen w/o the game getting messy

 

[adamsapple]

Any tips to get the best image out of 2d games?

Melty Blood AA runs fine, just want the window (not the actual game) fullscreen w/o the game getting messy

Software mode usually fixes all that ails 2D stuff. Not sure if it will help in your window fullscreen issue though.

 

[Nemesis_]

Hi all, I don't expect a positive response to this question but I can always hope!

I have the following two devices available to me: -

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CM2NNC6/?tag=neogaf0e-20

and

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface_Pro_3 (i7 Model, with highest amount of storage)

Just wondering if anyone knows if either of these will be able to run things well? I briefly dabbled in emulation previously but most games seemed to run at between 45-49 fps rather than the full amount. I'm wondering if I should bother looking into tinkering or if it's a bit of a misnomer since both these devices are so thin and their form factor might affect CPU/GPU performance.

Thanks in advance

 

[adamsapple]

Hi all, I don't expect a positive response to this question but I can always hope!

I have the following two devices available to me: -

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CM2NNC6/?tag=neogaf0e-20

and

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface_Pro_3 (i7 Model, with highest amount of storage)

Just wondering if anyone knows if either of these will be able to run things well? I briefly dabbled in emulation previously but most games seemed to run at between 45-49 fps rather than the full amount. I'm wondering if I should bother looking into tinkering or if it's a bit of a misnomer since both these devices are so thin and their form factor might affect CPU/GPU performance.

Thanks in advance

I dont know about Surface devices much but your laptop SHOULD be able to run the emulator, however it's gonna be slow.

I have a somewhat similar laptop,the processor is a 5th gen (2.2 ghz to 2.7 at turbo) i5 instead of an i7 like yours and my GPU is an intel 5500 with 2GB VRAM, I am able to run just about all PS2 games at native (or custom like 960x720) at full speeds with the speed hacks enabled.

Simpler games like Persona 3/4 aren't really intensive and those can be run at 2X native at full speeds easily too. However some games like ZOE etc might still struggle.

 

[dogen]

Hi all, I don't expect a positive response to this question but I can always hope!

I have the following two devices available to me: -

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CM2NNC6/?tag=neogaf0e-20

and

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface_Pro_3 (i7 Model, with highest amount of storage)

Just wondering if anyone knows if either of these will be able to run things well? I briefly dabbled in emulation previously but most games seemed to run at between 45-49 fps rather than the full amount. I'm wondering if I should bother looking into tinkering or if it's a bit of a misnomer since both these devices are so thin and their form factor might affect CPU/GPU performance.

Thanks in advance

Just don't crank the resolution too high and you should be able to handle quite a few games just fine. 2x should be doable for most and looks surprisingly good, just make sure you leave fxaa on. It makes a big difference at the lower resolution settings.

Also, your surface 3 pro should do better, as long as it doesn't throttle(and has dual channel ram). You're gonna be gpu bottlenecked mainly, and an HD 5000 is better than a 4400.

 

[zedreamcast]

So are there any configs for any of the Dot.Hack games?

 

[Baloonatic]

Is it possible to get rid of input lag when using this with Windows 10? I'm assuming it's because Windows is applying v-sync but I can't find a way to disable it.

Edit: I guess I'm a bit late with this response but in Yakuza try these settings to get rid of the blur:

D3D11
Enable Hardware Hacks
Skipdraw 1
Half-Pixel Offset
Alpha

I'm using a recent community build, not sure if this works with the latest official release.

 

[Gitaroo]

Does onimusha 4 work without ui problem on the newer build?

 

[Novum_Veritas]

Does onimusha 4 work without ui problem on the newer build?

Don't think so, the UI is broken since the beginning, only way you can fix it is software mode.

 

[Lime]

Hmm, I'm looking into disabling HUDs - does anyone have an idea on how to do so?

 

[Kadin]

Any recommendations on how to get the in-game text for FFXII to appear sharp like the rest of the game? Not sure what setting controls this but this is basically what I have set as of right now.

 

[evilalien]

You can try messing with the texture filtering to get it sharper, but text in PS2 games is essentially low res textures and there isn't much you can do to make it sharper when rendering at high resolution short of post process filtering which is going to cause other issues or hoping somebody has created a high-res texture mod.

 

[Kadin]

Yeah I'll give it a look. I was admiring some hi-res shots of the game which looked like they had really sharp text. Upon looking closer, they seem to look like what I'm seeing so I'll write it off as simply not an option.

But simply having quick save along with being able to invert the controls make me a happy, happy guy. Along with the higher resolution, I'll take this option until we get a proper HD remaster/remake.

 

[Lime]

Has anyone gotten Ambient Occlusion to work through Reshade?

 

[foolishoptimist]

Been a while since I checked this, but Transformers Armada finally starting to look good.

There's still an issue with the LOD handling, but totally playable in HD.

 

[Vincent Alexander]

Hey, I was wondering if someone could give me some advice on the configuration I have?

I've tried a few games out and they've all run fine, but graphically they've been a lot blurrier than they should be. I've never configured PSCX2 before and I'm sure this is all backwards and bad.

Here are some screenshots of how I currently have it set up and my PC specs


Any help would be greatly appreciated!

I'm in the same boat. Any help would be great. I'm trying Digital Devil Saga, using about the same settings, and it actually gives me a bit of a headache. It almost looks a bit like double-vision....a very, very small amount.

 

[Lettuce]

Is there way to get a nice scanline crt look to this emulator, have tried the sweetfx advanced crt but the scanlines dont show up verywell

 

[foolishoptimist]

Hey, I was wondering if someone could give me some advice on the configuration I have?

I've tried a few games out and they've all run fine, but graphically they've been a lot blurrier than they should be. I've never configured PSCX2 before and I'm sure this is all backwards and bad.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

I'm in the same boat. Any help would be great. I'm trying Digital Devil Saga, using about the same settings, and it actually gives me a bit of a headache. It almost looks a bit like double-vision....a very, very small amount.

It may be game specific, but I had the ghosting/double vision issue with Transformers Armada. I fixed it by going to Config -> Plugins/Bios Selector -> GS Configure -> Enable/Configure Hacks.
Then set SKIPDRAW = 6

You may have to try different values, but that's what fixed TF for me.

 

[Mac@NeoGAF]

I'm in the same boat. Any help would be great. I'm trying Digital Devil Saga, using about the same settings, and it actually gives me a bit of a headache. It almost looks a bit like double-vision....a very, very small amount.

That sounds like the game itself is running in the PS2 interlaced resolution, press F5 until you get a solid non blurry image.

Is there way to get a nice scanline crt look to this emulator, have tried the sweetfx advanced crt but the scanlines dont show up verywell

PCSX2 comes with a built in 'scanline' shader, press F7 whilst in game.

 

[Lettuce]

That sounds like the game itself is running in the PS2 interlaced resolution, press F5 until you get a solid non blurry image.



PCSX2 comes with a built in 'scanline' shader, press F7 whilst in game.

When windowed the scanlines show up but as soon as i go fullscreen they become so thin they can hardly be seen

 

[mugwhump]

So this widescreen patch for Global Defense Force says I need to apply it after I'm in game. How exactly do I do that? I can only figure out how to apply it when the game boots, but as the post notes that messes up the menus.