A Few Silly Problems (Xenogears, Arc the Lad I )

[Lost Loch]

Hail, folks. Although I realize it's rather rude to just drop in on you knowledgeable people by asking for help like this on my first day, I'm afraid I do have two questions, probably very newbie-ish, but- Well, it can't hurt to ask, right? I'm sure the best answer is "play it on the PSX" but if I wanted to do that, I wouldn't be trying to get the boost from emulation, right? Admittedly, I'm not even sure if these are plugin problems or emu problems, but it seems like my best bet would be to ask here. Just for reference, my settings are...

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Plugin: P.E.Op.S. Soft Driver 1.1.12
Author: Pete Bernert and the P.E.Op.S. team

Resolution/Color:
- 640x480 Window mode
Stretch mode: 6
Dither mode: 1

Framerate:
- FPS limit: on
- Frame skipping: off
- FPS limit: Auto

Misc:
- Scanlines: disabled
- Game fixes: on [00000001]

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P.E.Op.S. DSound v1.6

Mode 1 (SPUasync)
Volume 3 (Loudest)
Reverb 2 (PSX)
Interpolation 3 (Cubic)

Enable XA
Change XA speed if it is played too fast

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P.E.Op.S. CDrom v1.3

Interface - IOCTL
Drive - 0:0:0 (E: Drive)
Read Mode - BE_2 (from autodetection)
Caching Mode - Smooth Read
Use Additional 4MB Cache

Try again on read error 5 times

No other options set.

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And my setup is:

P4 2.53 GHz
GeForce 4
512 MB of RAM
40x12x48B CD-RW from TDK (E: drive)
16x48 DVD from Lite-On (F: drive, works no better or worse than E: drive)
Windows XP Professional
Sound Blaster Audigy

So....

1) A question about the infamous, what else, Xenogears. You know, from a quick perusal of this board, it looks like this game causes almost as much trouble as- er- everything else Square produces. However I don't think anyone's asked my question yet... I've tried this with several different settings... namely all the kinds of CD caching and SPU timing, as well as both the soft driver and comparable settings on the Pete OpenGL. The problem is with XA synchronization with MDECs. This is the latest in a long line of MDEC troubles I've had... the problem originally was that I was frame limiting to 65 and wasn't using XA speed changing and of course the XA was skipping. Then I found PEOpS Sound and the XA speed change function, and it made my audio smooth. The problem is that the audio is out of sync with the video now. It ranges in severity from barely noticeable to so bad that the captain finishes giving orders onscreen before the crew is done telling him what's wrong in the audio. I cannot seem to recreate the better synchronization with any particular options, be it automatic limiting (like I use now) or 65FPS limiting or changing any of the options I mentioned above. So tell me, have you ever heard of such a disconcerting synchronization problem? It seems to occur in any emu I use, be it ePSXe or PCSX or even PSXeven. Is this merely a pitfall of emulation or is there something I can do to help this masterpiece be experienced closer to the creator's dream?

2) A question about a game no one else seems to have trouble with: the original Arc the Lad. During MDECs when I play this game, the left and right parts of the screen seem disjointed from the center... actually, it's more like the center part is being drawn- Oh, I can better show it than explain it. Look at this:

http://www.u.arizona.edu/~jazzmess/problem.jpeg

Notice how the logo "jumps" on the left side and how it repeats on the right? Now, this only happens in ePSXe... in PCSX and PSXeven the video is fine with these same settings but for some reason the AUDIO does not play, although they don't seem to have XA trouble with any of my other games. I suppose this should suggest an emulator bug, but since everyone here seems so knowledgeable, I thought I'd ask around.

Thank you to anyone who takes the time to reply to these... I know this has been very long, but I do want to provide as much information as possible to try and make sure the situation is clear. I thank you all, even if you have no clue what to do or if you can't help me. Hopefully this will helps someone somewhere, at least.

--John

[F-3582]

First of all: Why should we feel offended by your request ?

1) Try SPU Eternal instead of PEOpS SPU (better quality for example). Choose a small buffer size (but not too small, because it might crackle), enable SPUAsync -> Wait (and disable Frame Limitation in your gfx plugin). This will syncronize XA sound and MDECs.

2) Does this only happen at the logo? If yes, play the game and wait for the next release of ePSXe...

Post Scriptum: When setting up the buffer size, play around with the realtime config window.

[I-Chan]

One little hint, although it hasn't nothing to do with your problems: try thread read: if your cd drive can read PSX cd's without problems, use thread read, is smoother. And, as you are using IOCTL interface, it's better for you than async read.

[F-3582]

But it will be automatically disabled when enabling Subchannel Reading...

[Lost Loch]

Wow- How- but- wha- Well, hat's off to you, F-3582. You've solved the sync problem. I would NEVER have thought of that, though. o_O Thanks for introducing me to a whole new way of handling the emulation... Xenogears syncs more or less flawlessly now.

I've also changed my CD to the other mode... it used to not work for me and make me use the Smooth mode (not Async, but the new mode after Thread for CD drives that run TOO fast or hate PSX discs) but it seems to be OK now under the other settings. I've never gotten the old settings like Async to work right, of course, since I use IOCTL.

As for Arc, though... it seems to happen whenever I run any MDEC from any Arc the Lad game, however I admit there don't seem to be many on the disc aside from the opening and such. I suppose I SHOULD just learn to live with it. :P I was just wondering why the heck that would happen... it's such an odd bug.

But speaking of the next version of ePSXe... Is there ANY news on that? I hear there are some plugins coming out that support stuff that will be in it, and I know it's been over a year since 1.5.2 and the coder is really busy... would that I had the time to offer to help... But anyway- does anyone here have any personal opinions as to when it might be out finally?

[Galway no Sora]

Hello, I just want to add some suggestions for you :

1. Make an ISO of your Xenogears CD, because it will run faster than on CD ROM.
2. If the movie / games plays too fast, use FPS limit : 60.

ePSXe 1.5.3 is under development and no release date determined.

[F-3582]

Originally posted by Galway no Sora
2. If the movie / games plays too fast, use FPS limit : 60.

When enabling SPUAsync -> Wait in the spu plugin, FPS limit by the gfx plugin isn't necessary anymore.