[GCN] Starfox Assault (Official Thread)

[MisterMr]

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Welcome To The Starfox Assault Official Thread!

Hopefully this will be an information center for all emulation-related needs for getting Starfox Assault to run perfectly under the latest builds of Dolphin! Unfortunately though, as with all emulation, there are problems with some games. This thread is here to help all people who need help with this game in Dolphin!


Game Information
NAME: Starfox Assault
PUBLISHER: Nintendo
DEVELOPER: Namco
DESCRIPTION: As Fox McCloud, use Arwings, tanks, and weapons galore to defeat the aparoids!
#PLAYERS: 1-4

32BIT
NTSC: Very Playable (r3780)
PAL: Unknown (r????)
64BIT
NTSC: Very Playable (r3780)
PAL: Unknown (r????)


Known Issues (Updated for r3870)

1. Character portraits during missions and briefings are oddly colored and their mouths do not animate.
WORKAROUNDS: None.

2. Ground missions and some bosses are graphically corrupted.
WORKAROUNDS: Turn off Optimize Quantinizers. (Use r3600 or later.)

3. The game hangs when I try to get to the planet section of the first mission! Right after Starfox heads down to the planet it freezes!
WORKAROUNDS: This has been fixed in r3800 or later. Use those revisions.

4. The first aparoid boss (The butterfly like one.) clips into the ground and then disappears into thin air leaving a game stopping bug!
WORKAROUNDS: This is the most infamous bug for SFA. Use r3800 or later and turn off Optimize Quantinizers, you will sacrifice speed, but it will now work.

5. The videos are choppy or corrupted!
WORKAROUNDS: Optimize Quantinzers is probably off!

6. The videos are choppy in PAL!
WORKAROUNDS: You are in 50hz mode, switch to 60hz mode!


Recommended Settings
Version: 64BIT or 32BIT
Core: JIT
Dual Core: ON
Optimize Quantinizers: ON (Speed); OFF (Accuracy)
Copy EFB: OFF (GL Texture)
Sound: HLE
BEST SVN YET: r3870

Every other option is up to you.



Updates
12/31/2008 - Thread Created
12/31/2008 - Added 5 Screenshots
12/31/2008 - Changed PAL Emu State to "Playable" (Reported by Sl1nk3!)
1/3/2009 - Updated many FAQ questions about the mission briefings, on-foot/tank missions, etc. (Reported by Twvls)
1/6/2009 - Updated the Emulation States for r1813. Also, some minor cleanup.
1/16/2009 - Updated FAQ for r1878. Small speed improvements for this and other games.
1/17/2009 - Updated FAQ and PAL status. (Reported by Sl1nk3)
3/3/2009 - Updated FAQ with Dolphin IL question. Updated states for r2000's.
3/24/2009 - Updated everything. r2745 best SVN to play Starfox Assault yet.
6/21/2009 - Added Emu States for 64-bit. Changed FAQ into "Known Issues". Added Recommended settings. Updated for r3000's.
7/22/2009 - Updated for r3870. Changed a few known issues. Updated emulation states.


Thanks to the Dolphin team for a great GCN emulator! I look forward to the future of Dolphin!

Attached Images

	StarfoxAssault_Screen01.jpg (142.2 KB, 42 views)
	StarfoxAssault_Screen02.jpg (143.5 KB, 55 views)
	StarfoxAssault_Screen03.jpg (146.6 KB, 86 views)
	StarfoxAssault_Screen04.jpg (147.2 KB, 129 views)
	StarfoxAssault_Screen05.jpg (126.7 KB, 91 views)

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~MrMister 2009

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Last edited by MisterMr; July 23rd, 2009 at 01:24.. Reason: Updated for r3870!

[IOmega666]

It'd be great if you post some screenshots, im downloading it the NTSC version, so if i can i'd do it.

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[MisterMr]

Originally Posted by IOmega666

It'd be great if you post some screenshots, im downloading it the NTSC version, so if i can i'd do it.

Good thing I was in the process of taking screenshots right after I was done posting.

I posted some on the first post, I tryed to get screenshots of the second-half of the first mission but the sound bug caught me off guard and I do not wanna play that entire stage again for the 12th time in a month.

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[nosound.97]

hey omega!

We don't talk about piracy here. You'd better say: "I'm now ripping star fox assault blah blah..."

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[John Peterson]

Originally Posted by MisterMr

Welcome To The Starfox Assault Official Thread!

Very nice initiative to make an official thread for the game, I like the idea of official threads for games.

Originally Posted by MisterMr

Q: The game crashes or is extremely buggy whenever I try to enter an on-foot/tank mission or whenever I enter a multiplayer game. What can I do about this?

I experienced some random crashes to when I played it, but they were fairly infrequent, one occured as the Pigman boss arrived on the second level, and then it crashed on one of the other "Footsoldier" levels, perhaps level 4, I don't remeber the exact numbers. And then it crashed on the last level to during the boss battle. But I used a ActionReplay code to unlock all the levels and the crashes were so infrequent that I could play most of the game anyway. I used revision 177 to play it because that was the first revision where I could get past the 100% CPU load/freeze that would occur in the menus on earlier revisions. If you'd like you could try that revision to, sometimes a game can work better in an older revision, I think.

Originally Posted by MisterMr

Q: The mission debriefings don't show up/are buggy!

I always get that problem to. There is some strange bug with the game that makes the briefings proceed at 1 fps or less. It may be a smiliar problem as Zelda - Four Swords Adventures has, because that game can be extremely slow to (I didn't get past its intro after 30 minutes).

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Last edited by John Peterson; January 1st, 2009 at 00:07..

[sl1nk3]

hey, Happy New Year and nice thread

well here's my report :
I'm using Starfox Assault PAL (FR) and everything is as good/worse as the NTSC one i guess, but here's what i encountered too :

- dunno if it's like that on the NTSC one, but in order to see the slow and bad-looking "transmissions" i had to enable r844 projection hack, then disable it to see the THP videos
- the "warning" screen at the very begining is all green, looks like some bad alpha blending
- there's was no hang after the first level (caused by the sound) back on r340-r380, so something must have broken it lately

hope to get this working someday, because apart from some graphics glitch, and this annoying projection problem, it seems to run fine !

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[MisterMr]

Thanks Sl1nk3!

Yea I get the green Warning screen too in NTSC.

I'll update the first post...

@John
I always try to make quality Official Threads on any forum.

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[twvls]

Hey guys. I have been watching the progress of Dolphin for some months now and one thing I have been seeing was some problems with Starfox assault that people have. This was one of the game that I wanted to play as well so in some of my extra time I have looked for some way around the problems. I eventually found ways around most problems and was able to finish Starfox assault entirely on Dolphin. So when I saw the (Official Starfox Assault Thread) I figured I would try to get some of the ways I got past some of the problems up and see if I could be of any help.

First off I can’t guarantee that any of this will work for you, I’m just telling you what worked for me. Seconded if something works feel free to do what you like with the info I gave if it helped. I’m just looking to help so cut and past if you want just don’t clam it as yours.

I used rev 1546 for most of the game and rev 327 for one part, both were 32 bit. I also used an Xbox 360 controller for playing the game and the NTSC version of the game.

Last boss, first level: This is one of the biggest problems with people trying to play starfox and can get a bit complicated when trying to get past. When you get to the aparoid the first problem is where the boss is floating half in the ground making it near impossible to kill as the parts you need to shoot are in the ground. Its still possible but hard. The second is where it becomes impossible to get past. The problem with this part is the boss will disappear and there is no way to kill it after it goes. It’s not possible to kill it before it disappears because it is programmed to prevent you from killing it in one go. To get past the first part (where you shoot the wings off) all you need to do is turn off Optimize Quantinizers in the Dolphin config. The seconded problem is harder. Through some forum searching I found that if you use an older rev (myself rev 327) you can make it past the first boss. Problem solved right, not if you want to play the rest of the game on a faster, newer rev. apparently the way dolphin saves files (or something along the lines of that) was changed around rev 667. Not that this is not a bad thing, there are reasons for it. This means that with some games you will not be able to use pre rev 667 saves with newer ones. There is a way to fix your save so you can play am with a newer rev. the original post detailing the issue is here. (John Peterson's code: fixing) I have next to no experience in any of this type of thing and I was able to get my save working so you can to. That thread was where I learn how to fix my save for newer rev’s so give it a look and if you need some help with it I can see what I can do. That’s how I got past the boss of the first level. As far as I know there are no more problems similar to the one in the first level and I was able to finish the game.

Pre game briefings: For the briefings I used the DX9 plugin instead of OGL and was at lest able to see the characters unlike with OGL where I got a black screen. The briefings still go very slow (average was around 7FPS for me) and theirs no animations for the characters mouth. So if you want to watch the briefings I recommend using the DX9 plugin and then going back to OGL for the gameplay.
Optimize Quantinizers: This and Starfox do not go well together. As said, the last boss on the first level gets messed up with one part. However it’s in the ground missions where one of the big problems are. If Optimize Quantinizers is on for the ground missions all of Fox's limbs (arms, legs, and tail) will be distorted and stretched out as well as Fox being stuck half in the ground. You can still play the game for a bit and while this looks funny, it can be distracting as well as cause random crashes. Now Optimize Quantinizers isn’t all bad, like with the movies (the intro for example) flow better and provides a nicer viewing experience if Optimize Quantinizers is on. If the game movies are something you want to watch you can keep it on but when time comes to jump in and play, switch it off.

Unfortunately the sound dose have some bad problems with is. Most of the time its right when the cutscenes are starting. Basically the game freezes and I do not know of any way to unfreeze it. However you can get around this just by turning off the sound before the spot where it freezes. just turn it back on and continue when your past. Use savestates often and lean where the freeze spots are and you should be able get past them. Sometimes with me when I load a savestate I get looped sound, just quit out of dolphin completely, restart and you should be good.

If I made any errors let me know. I wrote most of this at 4 in the morning so I might not have been all there as far as spelling and grammar is concerned. Also if I left something out I’ll try to fill it back in.

If anyone has questions of comment please tell me. This is my first time posting so if I’m doing something wrong I would like to know and I will try to fix it. One last thing, you devs are doing a great job and keep up the good work. Peace out: Twvlsman.

[MisterMr]

Wow, thank you for all the information, hopefully the devs can put all this to use.

And yes, I've also heard from a lot of people that the very early revisions work better with the boss bug, but doesn't run as fast as the new ones.

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Last edited by MisterMr; January 7th, 2009 at 03:02..

[MisterMr]

I have just upgraded to the r1813.

Very minimal has changed to say the least, minor 1 FPS improvement, some cleaner textures, and that's about it.
All the same problems remain, including the bug that doesn't let me play the Great Fox multiplayer stage for some reason, AND I LOVE THAT STAGE!

So yea... 1st post will updated to say that Starfox Assault is still playable with r1813.

Go figure.


BONUS: I tested a few other games like SSBM and Super Mario Sunshine and they all have a somewhat cleaner feeling to them, and all get a 1-3 FPS performance boost... all of this is based on r1590, which I upgraded from to r1813.

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Last edited by MisterMr; January 7th, 2009 at 04:46.. Reason: Added Report for r1813.

[LordCloudStrife]

The game is broken again in Rev1820, its hang now when you gonna chase oikoni to the surface of the planet Fortuna. Tested NTSC version only.

[MisterMr]

Originally Posted by LordCloudStrife

The game is broken again in Rev1820, its hang now when you gonna chase oikoni to the surface of the planet Fortuna. Tested NTSC version only.

Originally Posted by MisterMr

Q: The game hangs when I try to get to the planet section of the first mission! Right after Starfox heads down to the planet it freezes! Anyway workarounds to this?

A: The only known way to get past this at the moment is to disable all sound as the game loads the cutscene that shows Starfox entering the atmosphere. You MUST reactivate sound right after the load happens or the game will hang while sound is deactivated, because most cutscenes and events seem to wait for a sound file to execute to let the game know to go to the next event and if you have the sound deactivated will obviously trigger a hang. Long story short, when you hit the transition: Sound disabled during small load to cutscene, reactivate during cutscene.

This problem has been around for a long time. It's never been fixed.

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[MisterMr]

*Head To Next Post*

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Last edited by MisterMr; January 17th, 2009 at 05:13.. Reason: New Post

[MisterMr]

Good news!

I just tested Starfox: Assault with SVN r1878 and several things have changed where I have seen a significant improvement.

-The green warning screen is now correctly showing black.
-Various radio portraits during missions are now not green, but still discolored.
-The mission briefings now don't drop in FPS like crazy, but still are black and unseeable.
-Loading times are slightly faster.
-There is a 3-5 frame rate boost!

Pretty cool, huh? They've done some pretty nice work to the graphics plugins!

There are still some problems that remain though...
-Still hangs when trying to start a multiplayer game.
-Portraits still don't animate.
-Buggy ground missions.
-Planet transition hang still remains.

As for the main bug, the boss game-stopper... well, I couldn't test it because I can't get past the damn planet transition now! So if anyone does get past and gets to the bug boss, please report if it is fixed!

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[sl1nk3]

Originally Posted by MisterMr

Good news!

I just tested Starfox: Assault with SVN r1878 and several things have changed where I have seen a significant improvement.

-The green warning screen is now correctly showing black.
-Various radio portraits during missions are now not green, but still discolored.
-The mission briefings now don't drop in FPS like crazy, but still are black and unseeable.
-Loading times are slightly faster.
-There is a 3-5 frame rate boost!

Pretty cool, huh? They've done some pretty nice work to the graphics plugins!

There are still some problems that remain though...
-Still hangs when trying to start a multiplayer game.
-Portraits still don't animate.
-Buggy ground missions.
-Planet transition hang still remains.

As for the main bug, the boss game-stopper... well, I couldn't test it because I can't get past the damn planet transition now! So if anyone does get past and gets to the bug boss, please report if it is fixed!

I must agree

for the transmission showing black, use R844 projection hack, but for some reasons, the characters are still showing discolored pink as you said

and to get past the planet transition, you have to disable sound right before the hang, i may take a look into this as it was working fine with earlier revisions (~r300)

also, there's a little problem that i have using the PAL version :
when using PAL50 mode (50fps) all the videos look jerky with a lot of tearing, but while using 60Hz mode, everything is fine.

but what's even more strange is that if i press "tab" (disable throttle) while watching the video in 50Hz mode :
Sound doesn't stop. Framerate jump to 200+ fps, well.. that's normal, but what's not is that the video is now fullspeed, without tearing even if it should be playing too fast

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Last edited by sl1nk3; January 29th, 2009 at 00:24..

[MisterMr]

Added the official thread banner to the first post, hope we get somewhere on SFA with the recent SVN's!

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[sl1nk3]

Originally Posted by sl1nk3

I must agree

for the transmission showing black, use R844 projection hack, but for some reasons, the characters are still showing discolored pink as you said

and to get past the planet transition, you have to disable sound right before the hang, i may take a look into this as it was working fine with earlier revisions (~r300)

also, there's a little problem that i have using the PAL version :
when using PAL50 mode (50fps) all the videos look jerky with a lot of tearing, but while using 60Hz mode, everything is fine.

but what's even more strange is that if i press "tab" (disable throttle) while watching the video in 50Hz mode :
Sound doesn't stop. Framerate jump to 200+ fps, well.. that's normal, but what's not is that the video is now fullspeed, without tearing even if it should be playing too fast

Hmm, for some reasons, using Safe texture cache fixed the discolored pink colors !
And it also reduced the tearing in the videos
But the projections in this game are all screwed since RE0's fix

using R2276

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[MisterMr]

Starfox won't boot in DolphinWx and IL.

EDIT: Wait, scratch that. You have to enable "Projection Hack before R945" box. Otherwise you won't see anything.
Sl1nk3 is right about the RE0 fix breaking the projections...

EDIT2: I'm running into a lot of problems with the new Dolphin versions right now... Starfox seems slower and the menus and other things are doing wierd things, such as multiple render windows popping up constantly...

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Last edited by MisterMr; February 16th, 2009 at 23:53..

[LordCloudStrife]

The planet transmission bug in NTSC version has been fixed without disabling sound, tested on r2495, but the aparoid bug continues

[sl1nk3]

Originally Posted by LordCloudStrife

The planet transmission bug in NTSC version has been fixed without disabling sound, tested on r2495, but the aparoid bug continues

Using the PAL version, I still can't go on to next planet with sound enabled
Are you sure you had the sound enabled Dsound and all ?

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