Blue Sprites on Symphony of the Night?

[Busterkat]

Running pcsx 1.6 on an intel mac.
Runs fast and fine, but the main character is tinted blue, as are some of the background sprites. It flickers on and off sometimes, especially when using the sword.

In the compatibility list is says to use dynatec, doesn't seem to make a difference.

Any advice? I really don't want to use my SOTN disk anymore, it's looking scuffed and getting too hard and expensive to replace!

[RedLion]

Hello Busterkat and welcome to Emuforums.
I guess Symphony of the night is a 2D game? Are you already using The PeopS GPU plugin? If not, try it.

[Mako Eyes]

Originally Posted by Busterkat

Running pcsx 1.6 on an intel mac.
Runs fast and fine, but the main character is tinted blue, as are some of the background sprites. It flickers on and off sometimes, especially when using the sword.

It's a (what some would call annoying) "feature" found in all of the later Castlevania games, where the characters are given a ghostly after-image when in motion. In SotN it's light blue, in Harmony of Dissonance it's red, in the Sorrow series it's navy blue, etc.

Don't worry, there's nothing wrong with your game. However, if it bothers you, I'm afraid there isn't any way to get rid of it as far as I know.

[reslab]

Hey. My first post! I also have the same problem with blue sprites in SOTN...

It's a (what some would call annoying) "feature" found in all of the later Castlevania games, where the characters are given a ghostly after-image when in motion.

I can see where you're coming from - but as Buskerat says, some of the sprites including the HUD and the main character in SOTN (and even the load screens etc) are being shown with a horrible blue tinge when played on PCSX on Mac and it's definitely not the 'trails' effect your talking about - I know what that looks like. Buskerat is probably running PCSX 1.6b because version 1.5 test 3 doesn't have this problem but isn't built for Intel Macs. I have an Intel Mac so I have to use PCSX 1.6b, and SOTN runs superbly fast - but it does have this heartbreaking graphical defect.

Does anybody know how to solve this? Is there an alternative Mac build of a GPU plugin that could help?

[reslab]

For anyone having graphics problems using PCSX on an Intel Mac, particularly the problem with blue sprites, I've found a way to get it 100% working!

I resorted to using PCSX for Mac version 1.6b because 1.5 test 3 was made for PPC Macs not Intel, and test 3 was slow and jerky and the HDI input for controllers didn't seem to work.

Trouble is, using 1.6b caused graphics problems in some games, especially Castlevania SOTN, such as the blue tinged graphics problems mentioned above... I tired everything to fix it, but couldn't - I even tried the unofficial 'PCSX reloaded' for Mac, but it didn't fix it either.

So, I decided to resort back to the PPC version and run it in Rosetta mode with a few settings changed and a mounted .iso. Here's how you do it:

Do the preliminaries...

- Download PCSX 1.5 test 3 from Mac PCSX Playstation Emulator - Download Page
- Create a folder called 'PCSX' in the 'Applications' folder
- Copy in the PCSX app container (the icon on the .dmg) and run it once, then immediately quit - OK to all warnings or prompts
- Then obtain a dump of a Playstation BIOS (providing you have legal entitlement)
- I used SCPH1000.BIN, and copied it to Home > Library > Application Support > Pcsx > Bios
- Then obtain a dumped .iso image of the Castlevania SOTN game in NTSC format (providing you have legal entitlement)

You're now ready to set up and play...

- Mount the .iso file of the Castlevania SOTN disc using a 3rd party application such as Roxio Toast Titanium (Using OS X disk utility won't work)
- You should see the mounted CD icon appear on your desktop
- Launch PCSX test 3 (it will automatically run in Rosetta mode)
- Open preferences and...
--- Uncheck 'Dynarec CPU Core' (Rosetta mode will not allow use of this feature and will instantly crash if you run a game)
--- All checkboxes on the 'Emulation' tab should be UNCHECKED
--- In 'system region' dropdown, choose NTSC (USA/Japan)
[Switch to the plug-ins tab]
--- For P.E.Op.S SoftGL Driver, click configure...
--- Check 'Use Frame Skipping' (for speed boost)
--- Dither Graphics: Never
---Everything else UNCHECKED, click OK
--- For P.E.Op.S OSS Audio Driver, click configure...
--- Move 'Reverb' slider all the way down to 'Faster'
--- Interpolation also set to minimum (No Interpolation)
--- Check 'High Compatibility Mode'
--- Check 'Enable XA Playback'
--- Everything else UNCHECKED, click OK
--- For HIDInput v0.1.0 Driver, click configure...
--- On 'Controller 1' tab, 'Type' dropdown, choose 'Digital Pad'
--- Then check your controller is set up in the usual way using the button list above the 'Type' drop down
--- Click OK
--- Leave CD-ROM plugin as 'CD-ROM Device Interface' (I have 'Mooby cd disk image driver' copied to the plugins folder but I don't use it for SOTN)

- Go to File > Run CD or CMD+R and enjoy! (Hopefully)

For comparison, here's my specs:

MacBook Pro
2.16GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
3 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
Mac OS X 'Leopard' 10.5.8

I really hope this helps somebody.

S

[Whistler]

I even tried the unofficial 'PCSX reloaded' for Mac

where did you get this ???

__________________
PCSX-Reloaded

[reslab]

I found it in a forum thread here:

The Macscene Forums • View topic - PCSX Mac Redux

It won't solve your Castlevania problems, and the build comes with no plug-ins (you have to use the ones from another version), but it solves problems with Final Fantasy and some other games.