Zelda - Twilight Princess (advanced discussion about the Dolphin coding)

[John Peterson]

Emulation status

Video: Works okay
Sound: Partly works
Options: Dual core works

Input

The internal configuration for the main stick the game is this (given as values in the allowed range 0 to 128)

• Running: Seems to be in three steps rather than continuous at 30, 50, 60 with 60 being running at full speed. They seem to have made a mistake with the diagonal radius in this game so that the diagonal is +5 or +10 of that value.
• Aiming in first-person view: continuous in the range 20 - 65. Possibly +5 or +10 in the diagonal like with the running.

Full output is therefore configured to be at around 65% of the maximum physical output of 100 (of 128) that the original GC controller produce.

nJoy recommended settings: The recommended radius setting is therefore 50% or 60% to use the full physical range as the control, and a shape of the output (the diagonal setting) that is somewhere between a square and a circle.

Old Issues

• 32 bit: Why does DirectX give major black areas? For example the beginning waterfall scene. - Unsolved
• 32 bit and 64 bit: Why doesn't OpenGL + Dual Core work? It freezes after the logos. Are there known causes for this? - Solved
• 64 bit: Why doesn't DirectX work with Dual Core? It's black after logo. It doesn't show the first scene (the FPS meter stops updating) - Solved

Old questions

3. A more general question. Why can't the emulator skip idle processor cycles when Dual Core is enabled (shown as idle skipped in the status bar)? I think this would improve the speed even during actual gameplay because even then there seems to be idle cycles for some reason, perhaps because some games are programmed with FPS limits so that the GameCube CPU load is not always 100% even during gameplay.

4. Another general question. What is required to enable frameskipping so that the game can run at normal speed even if the FPS is 10 or 15? Currently it seems like the game only runs at actual speed when the FPS is the same as the vertical refresh rate (50 or 60 Hz). I guess frameskipping is similar to skipping idle frames, but since actual calculations takes place during those cycles there is some kind of complication in enabeling this feature. Perhaps there are articles on this topic on the internet?

(I think idle processor cycles is different from frameskipping, idle and skipped Mhz is cycles where no computations are done, it's common in the menus because they require little of the hardware. Frameskipping is skipping real processor cycles to keep the game at actual speed even if the rendered frames per second is as low as 10 or 15).

- Answer to 4: Games can have an FPS that is 1 / integer of the refresh rate. (A few games like Banjo Kazooie and Zelda OoT for the N64 have ran at 1 / 3 i.e. 20 FPS for the NTSC version and 16.7 FPS for the PAL version but most other games run at 30 or 60 FPS. For the GameCube about 50/50 of games run at 30 or 60 FPS, for the Wii at least 75% of games seems to run at 60 FPS.) The animation and speed of the game is synced to this FPS and there is no way in the emulation to get past this. The game would have to be reprogrammed (to be synced to time rather than the refresh rate) for this to be possible.

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Last edited by John Peterson; July 9th, 2009 at 02:08..

[Hemi3]

The DX plugin seems to just not be developed enough for this specific game. Many games run well with either plugin and many games run bad with either plugin. It depends on the users video card and it is also just the plugin itself and the incompatible game we are trying to run.

When you say how can we fix it, if you mean if there are any options beyond fixing the code, I'd say there is nothing we can do.

[John Peterson]

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Edit: This was first only intended for the Zelda games. But now that music support works in other games I moved this post to a new thread here Music support in Dolphin so that this thread can focus on fixing the zelda games.

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Last edited by John Peterson; August 16th, 2008 at 06:43..

[Hemi3]

That seems like a great idea. Instead of trying to have the emulator emulate the sound effects and music, all we need to know is exactly when the sound needs to play and have some other program play it. Someone should be able to find on the disc when each sound is cued to play and write a script for vgmstream to play it at the perfect time.

[daco]

Originally Posted by Hemi3

That seems like a great idea. Instead of trying to have the emulator emulate the sound effects and music, all we need to know is exactly when the sound needs to play and have some other program play it. Someone should be able to find on the disc when each sound is cued to play and write a script for vgmstream to play it at the perfect time.

afaik that wouldn't fix the sound problems we have atm
like the one in zelda WW with the platform

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my DolphinWx rev Builds:
http://www.nyleveia.com/daco/
Njoy with rumble disabled:
32bit clickme and 64bit clickme

[Hemi3]

No, it wouldn't fix sound related bugs making the emulator hang, but it would enable sound on games that do work fine. The emulator would not even know another program was playing sounds for it as I said, it would not fix the emulator but this could be a way for us to play games now with sound until Dolphin's own sound gets better.

[daco]

Originally Posted by Hemi3

No, it wouldn't fix sound related bugs making the emulator hang, but it would enable sound on games that do work fine. The emulator would not even know another program was playing sounds for it as I said, it would not fix the emulator but this could be a way for us to play games now with sound until Dolphin's own sound gets better.

as long as you know this i'd say go for it

__________________


my DolphinWx rev Builds:
http://www.nyleveia.com/daco/
Njoy with rumble disabled:
32bit clickme and 64bit clickme

[Chaos_Blader]

Nobody sees this as a daunting task? It would be easier to make a sound plugin, than make a sound script for every single game.

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[Hemi3]

It's harder to code a better sound plugin for a sound chip that the devs know little about then taking sound files from the game and making them play.

[Bianc0neri]

Yep, as said before... The soundchip in Gamecube is poorly documented, so it's really hard for the devs to dev. a good plugin that has sound in all games. So don't whine cause the no sound in-game, you know, they tried to do a good plugin, and the soundplugin works for some games.

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[Hemi3]

We are discussing the topic of sound and are coming up with other ideas to get the job done. We do not need you coming to this thread telling us to stop whining and reading off some generic info about how the sound plugin is poorly documented.

[Bianc0neri]

Okay. Just to let you know. But I like the idea of getting music with a tool that John come up with.

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Desktop PC:
| Primary OS: Windows Vista x86 (32-BIT) SP1 || CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 5600+ 2.8GHz Socket AM2 2MB L2 || Graphics card: GeForce 8800GT 600 MHz 1919 MB || Motherboard: Socket AM2 Motherboard || Sound Card: SteelSeries USB Soundcard || RAM: 4GB, DDR2 800MHz PC2-6400 || HDD1: SATA2 320 GB, 7200RPM ||

[genc74]

where can i use the afc files? i dont find it i open the zelda iso and ther is nothing ( there is one it called track and more isnt there)

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[Ov3rdos3]

nice idea by the way , playing the zeldas without sound is not very enjoying . And i think that now that the doplhin is an open source many things are going to be made . I dream playing my wind waker in my comp with sound .
Nice alternative
Edit:how can i extract the sound file from the iso please?

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Last edited by Ov3rdos3; August 5th, 2008 at 22:01..

[omegadox]

Use this GC ISO tool: dextrose.com v.4 - the mother is back

[daco]

Originally Posted by omegadox

Use this GC ISO tool: dextrose.com v.4 - the mother is back

Gc-tool sucks.
GCE is better.
i had trouble with Gc-tool before saying the file i wanted to extract wasn't a file lol

__________________


my DolphinWx rev Builds:
http://www.nyleveia.com/daco/
Njoy with rumble disabled:
32bit clickme and 64bit clickme

[Hemi3]

The files are in C:\ in a folder names zeldaww but no sound is playing at the intro. Oh well.

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Last edited by Hemi3; August 5th, 2008 at 23:21..

[Ov3rdos3]

thanks guys i hope that a sound plugin will be out soon .

weird it didnt worked even when i extracted the file in c:/Zeldaww and unpacked the files in the release.rar in a doplhin directory it haven't worked.

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Core2Duo e8400@3.6Ghz | Asus P5N-E Sli | 3Go DDr2 pc-6400 | Sli asus 8800gt |Psu Globalwin SAF 520watt | Gigabyte 3d aurora 570

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Last edited by Ov3rdos3; August 5th, 2008 at 23:38.. Reason: Automerged Doublepost

[ector]

Originally Posted by John Peterson

I'm starting this thread with the goal of solving these problems that could greatly improve gameplay in Zelda - TP.

1. Why doesn't OpenGL + Dual Core work? It freezes after the logos. Are there known causes for this? What is known about it? How do we fix it?

Don't know. Feel free to debug.

Originally Posted by John Peterson

2. Why does DirectX give major black areas? For example the beginning waterfall scene. Are there known causes for this?

It does? Looks fine to me.

Originally Posted by John Peterson

3. A more general question. Why can't the emulator skip idle processor cycles when Dual Core is enabled (shown as idle skipped in the status bar)? I think this would improve the speed even during actual gameplay because even then there seems to be idle cycles for some reason, perhaps because some games are programmed with FPS limits so that the GameCube CPU load is not always 100% even during gameplay.

The GPU can trigger interrupts on the CPU. In dual core mode, they are completely asynchronous. If idle skipping was enabled, and the game was waiting for an interrupt from the gpu .. you see what would happen right. It'd go mad trying to run the cpu at infinity mhz for short periods, completely screwing up timing.

Originally Posted by John Peterson

4. Another general question. What is required to enable frameskipping so that the game can run at normal speed even if the FPS is 10 or 15? Currently it seems like the game only runs at actual speed when the FPS is the same as the vertical refresh rate (50 or 60 Hz). I guess frameskipping is similar to skipping idle frames, but since actual calculations takes place during those cycles there is some kind of complication in enabeling this feature. Perhaps there are articles on this topic on the internet?

Can't be done. The only thing you can do is disable all vertex decoding for every other frame for example, but that would only save you so much. If a game depends on an interrupt command in the GPU stream ... well ... it's just not gonna work if you simply forget about running the GPU for a frame.

[Hemi3]

Originally Posted by John Peterson

2. Why does DirectX give major black areas?

Originally Posted by ector

It does?

Yes it does.