FF9 slowdown and Vagrant Story weird sounds. Any word of help, please?

[Zanzetsuken]

Hi everyone! I'm new to this forum, and all others :)
I'm having some problem with FF9, and I was hoping any of you could be so kind to tell me what to do...
Well: When there are many graphics on the Field screen and on Battle mode, both the Music and the Video slows down, sometimes to a very annoying state. Plus, there are some pauses in music when the battle is loading, and the effect of "entering battle", is not displayed at all. I was wondering if you could help me out!! Here's my info.

The other problem is, when I'm playing Vagrant Story, the "step" sound of all the characters and some special effects sound amazingly weird, even worse than a midi. No plug-in has been able to correct this, at least for changing beetween 'em. Maybe I need just to configure one of 'em. :)

Thanks a lot for your help, really! Btw, all this place is cool, congratulations to all who made it!!

PS: Both games are being run by PSX CD

OS : Microsoft Windows 98 SE (v4.10 Build 2222)
DirectX : DirectX 8.0 installed
Processor : Intel Pentium III, 500Mhz
Memory : 192Mb
Video card: Voodoo 5 5500 AGP 64Mb

BIOS | SCPH1001.BIN | | 11/07/1997 05:38
CDR | cdrPeteAspi.dll | 1.7 | 22/09/2001 15:20
GPU | gpuLewGlide.dll | 1.35 | 01/08/2001 20:05
SPU | spuIori.dll | 1.4 | 01/09/2001 22:58

Sound Enabled | Yes
CDDA Enabled | Yes
XA Enabled | Yes
XA Read Enabled | Yes
SPU IRQ Hack | No
CDROM Drive Letter | G
CDROM Accurate Timing | Yes
Disable CDROM Status | No
MDEC Enabled | Yes
MDEC Timing Enabled | Yes
SIO IRQ Always Enabled | No
Country | AutoDetect


Active Configuration | 1
Active 3dfx Card | 1
Enable HotKeys | Yes
Resolution | 640x480
Refresh Rate | 75Hz
Emulate MASK Bit | Yes
Dynamic Texture Caching | Yes
Custom FrameCap | 60Hz
On-Screen Display | Off
Frame Skip | Disabled
FrameRate Limit | Auto
System Type | NTSC
FrameCap Method | New
Draw Method | Bright
Alpha Blending Mode | Advanced
Bilinear Filtering | Enabled w/o Sprites
Alpha Testing | Normal
FrameBuffer Access | Write
Off-Screen Drawing | Basic
Polygon Mode | Textured
Texture Windows | Enabled
VSync | Enabled
Banshee Code | Disabled
MDEC Format | Direct Write
Experimental Flipping | Off
Experimental Screen Sizing | On
FrontBuffer Rendering Fix | Off
FF7 TextureWindow Fix | Off
DMAChain Fix | Long

[fivefeet8]

Lewpy's Glide³ Plugin Configuration Information v1.35
-----------------------------------------------------

Computer Information
OS : Microsoft Windows 98 SE (v4.10 Build 2222)
DirectX : DirectX 8.1 installed
Processor : AMD AMD Athlon(tm) processor, 1001Mhz (1 off) (00/0642)
64kb L1-I, 64kb L1-D, 256kb L2 (on-chip)
Memory : 256Mb

Core Emulator
ePSXe : D:\EPSXE\EPSXECUTORTOOL.DLL
: 02/06/2001 22:18, 98304 bytes

*------*----------------------*---------*------------------*
| Type | Name | Version | Date |
*------*----------------------*---------*------------------*
| BIOS | SCPH1001.BIN | | 11/07/1997 05:38 |
| CDR | W9XCDRCORE | 0.0 | Plugin Not Found |
| GPU | gpupec.dll | 1.3 | 29/01/2001 00:07 |
| SPU | spuIori.dll | 1.4 | 01/09/2001 22:58 |
*------*----------------------*---------*------------------*

*-----------------------------*---------------------*
| ePSXe Configuration Item | Current Setting |
*-----------------------------*---------------------*
| Sound Enabled | Yes |
| CDDA Enabled | Yes |
| XA Enabled | Yes |
| XA Read Enabled | Yes |
| SPU IRQ Hack | Yes |
| CDROM Drive Letter | F |
| CDROM Accurate Timing | No |
| Disable CDROM Status | No |
| Disable CDROM RT Status | No |
| MDEC Enabled | Yes |
| MDEC Timing Enabled | Yes |
| SIO IRQ Always Enabled | Yes |
| Country | AutoDetect |
*-----------------------------*---------------------*

Glide³
Board : Voodoo5 (tm)
Version : 3.10.00.0674
File : C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\glide3x.dll
: 16/01/2001 12:38, 348160 bytes

*-----------------------------*---------------------*
| Plugin Configuration Item | Current Setting |
*-----------------------------*---------------------*
| Active Configuration | 1 |
| Active 3dfx Card | 1 |
| Enable HotKeys | Yes |
| Resolution | 640x480 |
| Refresh Rate | 60Hz |
| Emulate MASK Bit | Yes |
| Dynamic Texture Caching | Yes |
| Custom FrameCap | 60Hz |
| On-Screen Display | Off |
| Frame Skip | Disabled |
| FrameRate Limit | Auto |
| System Type | NTSC |
| FrameCap Method | New |
| Draw Method | Bright |
| Alpha Blending Mode | Advanced |
| Bilinear Filtering | Enabled w/o Sprites |
| Alpha Testing | Normal |
| FrameBuffer Access | Write | <--------
| Off-Screen Drawing | extra | <------------
| Polygon Mode | Textured |
| Texture Windows | Enabled |
| VSync | Enabled |
| Banshee Code | Disabled |
| MDEC Format | Texture |
| Experimental Flipping | On |
| Experimental Screen Sizing | Off |
| FrontBuffer Rendering Fix | Off |
| FF7 TextureWindow Fix | Off |
| DMAChain Fix | Long |
*-----------------------------*---------------------*

Here is my config of FF9.. Compare it with yours.. The slowness before battles is the game loading the fight scenes.. Try and run the game off an iso and it should aleviate some of the slowness..

As for Vagrant Story, there is no fix for it at the moment.. The weird sounds are just there.. Wait for a new version of epsxe or the spu pluggins which may fix it..

I don't think you need "accurate cd rom timing" for either of these games..

[ProtectionError]

Mines doing the same thing.. i tried petes opengl.. soft.. and it seemed to run very fast in soft.. with the sound almost too fast.. but the graphics were suffering bad.. so if i had to make a guess.. i would think its the processor that needs an upgrade.. if anyone knows otherwise.. please help us.. thanks :)

[Shiori]

well, first of all, it's Zantetsuken. :p

anyway, the Vagrant Story foot sounds are all the same in all emulators. No cure for that yet, maybe it'll get fixed in a future plugin release. :p

[Rubicant]

I played FF9 too.
The only cases i had choppy sound was when the battles were loading. But it wasn't that much of a problem.

1. Play off an Iso, not from CD
2. Keep Solution at 640x480

The rest of your config seems to be alright.