Frame rate and tearing problems

[mzso]

I have been playing with three games. Hogs of War, Crash Team Racing and Backstreet Billiards. I used epsxe 1.7.0 and pete opengl2 v2.9. The plugin always showed the correct fps, 50 for pal and 60 for NTSC. Interestingly it never went beyond that even though I turned off the fps limit in the plugin disabled v-sync in ati try tools. Weirdly ATT's fps counter only showed the same fps for Backstreet Billiards. Thats the only NTSC game of the three. For the other two games I got steady 25 fps. When I played CTR the frame rate dropped even further, sometimes to 12-16 wich is hardly playable. I don't thik that this last one is a performance issue because it did't help when I set the resolution to the minium.
Also I got screen tearing. Wich is weird because as I understand it only should happen when the fps is higher than my monitor's refresh rate. When I enabled v-sync in ATT the tearing was gone, even though the frame rates didn't change for any of the games.

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[masta.g.86]

Cool story, bro.

How 'bout some plugin settings?

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[Squall-Leonhart]

Press F4.

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[mzso]

Originally Posted by masta.g.86

Cool story, bro.

How 'bout some plugin settings?

Currently these are the settings. Setting the intenal X and Y resolution options (and the filtering settings) to 0 didn't change anything.

Plugin: Pete's OpenGL2 Driver 2.9
Author: Pete Bernert
Card vendor: ATI Technologies Inc.
GFX card: ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT

Resolution/Color:
- 1600x1200 Fullscreen - NO desktop changing
- Internal X resolution: 2
- Internal Y resolution: 2
- Keep psx aspect ratio: off
- No render-to-texture: Z

- Filtering: 6
- Hi-Res textures: 2
- TexWin pixel shader: on 
- VRam size: 256 MBytes

Framerate:
- FPS limitation: off
- Frame skipping: off
- FPS limit: 200.0

Compatibility:
- Offscreen drawing: 1
- Framebuffer effects: 0
- Framebuffer uploads: 1

Misc:
- Scanlines: off
- Mdec filter: off
- Screen filtering: off
- Shader effects: 0/1
- Flicker-fix border size: 0
- GF4/XP crash fix: off
- Game fixes: off [00000000]

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[mzso]

Originally Posted by Squall-Leonhart

Press F4.

I didn't now about this. But still not good. This way I get ~300 fps (plugin) and ~150 fps (ATT). And the plugins limiter still has no effect.

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[mzso]

Seems like I'm having problems that no-one else does...

But I have another one. PCSX crashes after a while. Not to frequent maybe once or twice an hour. I'm not sure about CTR because it is a fast paced game but when Hogs of War crashes it seems to happen when a bullet or other projectile is just about to hit something. I don't now if it means something but Psxfin another emulator also keeps crashing, only much more frequently ( every few minutes). Is it possible that I have faulty hardware?
I've been suspecting that somethings wrong with my hardvare because crashes like this and tearing issues. (I get tearing in ubuntu with ati drivers, ind windows when I scroll webpages in the browser or images in an image viewer) But I never got anywhere, because I don't know how to determine if I have.

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[Lord Zedeck]

First of all, FRAPs and the like will report the actual internal frame rate of the game. The "FPS" of emulation refers to the vblanks of the frequency the games are signaled to run at (50Hz for PAL and 60Hz for NTSC). This is why anything but their original "frame rate" will make the game too fast or too slow. Most Playstation games do not run at a full 60FPS (or 50FPS). It's often half, or sometimes more or less. It varies. So, the game may be "synced" to 60Hz, 60 vblanks, 60 emulated "FPS", 60 whatever you want to call it, but internally, the real frame rate may be lower. This is also why you're getting two values, and this is why the games don't seem as "smooth" as a 60FPS PC game, despite them both being at 60FPS. They're really two different things, but since the emulator is emulating it's output, it emulates what would be each vblank or frequency frame of the system. The internal frame rate of the game itself is a different thing.

As for your problem with tearing, I don't know.

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[Squall-Leonhart]

Final Fantasy runs using 2 vblank states, the main one draws only the characters and map.
the second draws menu's and selection cursors and is only active during battle or when the menu is raised.

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[Lord Zedeck]

Ah, yes, sometimes they alternate too. That's why frame skipping leads to the problem of no battle menus in this (and other Final Fantasy) games. The main scene is still rendered, but the frames with the menu aren't drawn, as they're skipped.

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[KrossX]

Keep v-sync enabled and use a non-Internal SPU plugin (Eternal one for example). With a Pete's GPU plugin, the "autolimiter" will use the plugin's limiter. (which is quite better)

Also, you can have tearing even if your framerate is lower than your refresh rate.

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[mzso]

Originally Posted by Lord Zedeck

First of all, FRAPs and the like will report the actual internal frame rate of the game. The "FPS" of emulation refers to the vblanks of the frequency the games are signaled to run at (50Hz for PAL and 60Hz for NTSC). This is why anything but their original "frame rate" will make the game too fast or too slow. Most Playstation games do not run at a full 60FPS (or 50FPS). It's often half, or sometimes more or less. It varies. So, the game may be "synced" to 60Hz, 60 vblanks, 60 emulated "FPS", 60 whatever you want to call it, but internally, the real frame rate may be lower. This is also why you're getting two values, and this is why the games don't seem as "smooth" as a 60FPS PC game, despite them both being at 60FPS. They're really two different things, but since the emulator is emulating it's output, it emulates what would be each vblank or frequency frame of the system. The internal frame rate of the game itself is a different thing.

As for your problem with tearing, I don't know.

Thanks for the explanation. The drop from 25 fps is normal too?

Originally Posted by KrossX

Keep v-sync enabled and use a non-Internal SPU plugin (Eternal one for example). With a Pete's GPU plugin, the "autolimiter" will use the plugin's limiter. (which is quite better)

Also, you can have tearing even if your framerate is lower than your refresh rate.

And when there isn't an external spu what does it use? I'm wondering why the pete's plugin's limiter is effectless at the moment. whatever value I set manually I always get the same values.

If the frame rate is lower than the refresh rate than what causes the tearing?

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[KrossX]

Maybe you don't see an "effect" on the GPU plugin's limiter since the "autolimiter" will use the internal frame limit method when using the Internal SPU plugin. To use the plugin's limiter, you'll have to hit F4 (disable limiter) then use the "ingame" panel of the plugin and set the frame limit. When using another sound plugin, it will use Pete's GPU limiter by default. (if using a Pete's GPU plugin)

Basicly, you'll get tearing just by the rendering being out of sync from the refresh, not by just going over-the-limit (if you go over the limit, you're already out of sync). Having v-sync enabled will help prevent this.

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[Squall-Leonhart]

tearing in epsxe is not caused by vsync.

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[mzso]

Originally Posted by KrossX

Maybe you don't see an "effect" on the GPU plugin's limiter since the "autolimiter" will use the internal frame limit method when using the Internal SPU plugin. To use the plugin's limiter, you'll have to hit F4 (disable limiter) then use the "ingame" panel of the plugin and set the frame limit. When using another sound plugin, it will use Pete's GPU limiter by default. (if using a Pete's GPU plugin)

Basicly, you'll get tearing just by the rendering being out of sync from the refresh, not by just going over-the-limit (if you go over the limit, you're already out of sync). Having v-sync enabled will help prevent this.

Thanks for the info. Although the eternal spu hangs the emulator with hogs of war when it should load the main menu. Or there is no audio in the menu if I load a game. I'll just stick with the internal spu.

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[mzso]

What can do to determine what causes the crashes of the emulator? It's getting more frustrating since I tried to record some gameplay.

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[Squall-Leonhart]

what are you attemping to do when it crashes.

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[mzso]

Originally Posted by Squall-Leonhart

what are you attemping to do when it crashes.

Ingame or right after it crashes? In the latter case nothing. The former case I described earlier.

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