Chrono Cross- Lag in General

[Perfect Sin]

Sup guys, new to the forums, i've read pretty much every ePSXe Chrono Cross emulation problem and the ways to fix it. Question is why do I still have lag? Let me give you the specs...

My Computer

-Dell Dimension 8400
-Pentium 4 3.2 gHz proc. with HTT (Hyper Threading Technology)
-1gb RAM
-nVidia GeForce 6800
-WinXP Pro

*Basically i have superb PC specs*

What ePSXe is running at

ePSXe Version: 1.60
Plugin: Pete's OpenGL2 Driver 2.7
Author: Pete Bernert
Card vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
GFX card: GeForce 6800 Series GPU/PCI/SSE2

Resolution/Color:
- 1280x1024 Fullscreen - NO desktop changing
- Internal X resolution: 2
- Internal Y resolution: 2
- Keep psx aspect ratio: off
- No render-to-texture: off

- Filtering: 6
- Hi-Res textures: 2
- TexWin pixel shader: on
- VRam size: 0 MBytes

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

Compatibility:
- Offscreen drawing: 2
- Framebuffer effects: 3
- Framebuffer uploads: 2

Misc:
- Scanlines: off
- Mdec filter: on
- Screen filtering: on
- Shader effects: 4/4
- Flicker-fix border size: 2
- GF4/XP crash fix: off
- Game fixes: on [00001000]

So what are the issues?

-During scripted text box sessions (The music lags, and so does the text prompts)
(EX: After the first FMV of Dragonia Castle (in the beginning) when kid and some random character talk to you)
-The transition from running around to entering a battle scene is slow and undeniably noticable.
-The battle scenes themselves are laggy, (when you choose your attack options the whole process lags)
-Going into my menu is the worst. It's so slow i want to punch myself in my eye.


Already tried solutions

-Added -noauto to the target line. Fixed glitches and crashes
-Tried playing with buffer and upload rates. (only makes it worse)
-Decreased resolution from 1600x1200 to 1280x1024 (didn't help)


-Note to Dan

I copied your CC configuration in every aspect even downloading the sound and CD-rom plugins you used. And I still have these issues.



Come on guys, looking for your imput don't let me down.

[dbhankins]

You have an nVidia graphics card rather than ATI so graphics tuning may be slightly different for you.

Let's try to see if it's the emulator or the graphics plugin. If you turn on the FPS display, do you see a drop in the FPS number at the points where things get slow?

Have you tried sssPSX - if it's an emulator timing problem, you might find sssPSX gives you more constant performance.

Is your processor dual-core or hyperthreading? If so you might want to modify your ePSXe.exe to run only on a single processor. ePSXe has had timing/speed issues for people with dual-core. Granted, they caused unwanted speedups rather than slowdowns, but it's worth taking a look at if the above doesn't fix it.

Finally, I notice that your config has the internal X resolution set at 2. Was this so when you tried my config? Because that might well have an impact on performance.


Dan

P.S. Thanks for posting a detailed config and system specs. Makes it a lot easier to diagnose possible problem sources and solutions.

[DarkAurora]

Your computer doesn't even begin to be powerful enough to emulate the jaw-dropping effects of PSX graphics.

All joking aside, it's because you are using ePSXe 1.6.0 Switch back to 1.5.2 and your problem will be fixed.

[Perfect Sin]

UPDATE

-I tried switching to 1.52 whith the same specs and got the exact same results.

-Used the FPS display and it did fluctuate during the text box an battle sections. It would stay at a constant 60 and fluctuate to an average of 45 sometime it would go to 30 depending upon the action or the amount of text shown.

-Tried playing with the X and Y values but it only made graphics worse with almost exact same lag.

-I didn't try sssPSX for the sheer fact that it'd be nice to stick with ePSXe and going the sssPSX would give you guys an easy way out of fixing the issues at hand

-No i do not have dual core processors.

EDIT-
-I also have the odd/even bit hack on. Forgot to mention that in my first post.


Hope this helps

~Sin

[TheMaister]

The main problem you have is that you use shaders.. Shaders run amazingally slow on nVidia card. Even a 6800.. Plus, you use GSLang smoothing. It doesn't excactly help with your slowdowns. ^^ (Very High X & Y, Shaders, stretching and filtering eat performance.)

First, try to remove the stretching, filtering and the shaders, and then report back.

By the way. Your slowness in the menu is because of the Filtering = 6. ^^


- nVidia-cards can have Very High X, but they get poor performance if they try shaders and further enhancement.

- ATI-card can't have Very High X, but they can use shaders and further enhancement without problems.

[dbhankins]

Fixing the issues at hand? ePSXe hasn't been in active development for over two years! And as far as I know, nobody who monitors these forums or posts here is on the dev team or otherwise has access to the source code. So don't hold your breath.

Now, as to finding a combination of emulator choice, plugins choice, and settings to solve your problem...

I will use your settings and try to reproduce your problem. If I can, I'll then post what settings you need to change to fix it. Of course, I can't set my internal X resolution to 2 as that causes crashes on machines which, like mine, have ATI video cards. The rest I can do. Please also post your SPU and CDR choices/settings, they may be relevant.

As for that battle intro slowdown, I had that and for me, my OGL2 2.7 framebuffer settings fixed it (2/3/2).

Are you running from your original CDs or from ISOs? Some lags were fixed for me by going to ISOs - PC CD-ROM drives have spin-up issues that PS1s and PS2s avoid by keeping the disk spinning.


Dan

[Perfect Sin]

UPDATE PART 2

-Setting shader from GLSMoothing to Fullscreen worked.
- I no longer get lag in text box sessions.
- I kept my shader at 4 (No effect really)
- Menu screen functions better, faster, a little drop in transitions but i can live.

-Turning off Hi-Res filter worked.
-I now recieve less battle lag than ever before. I'm not too comfortable with turning it off but as of now i can't see any major differences.


If you guys have any other recommendations to make they'd be given a warm welcome. Maister, DB, thanks for the help.




CURRENT ePSXe SPECS

ePSXe Version: 1.60 (hoping for a better update)
Plugin: Pete's OpenGL2 Driver 2.7
Author: Pete Bernert
Card vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
GFX card: GeForce 6800 Series GPU/PCI/SSE2

Resolution/Color:
- 1280x1024 Fullscreen - NO desktop changing
- Internal X resolution: 2
- Internal Y resolution: 2
- Keep psx aspect ratio: off
- No render-to-texture: off

- Filtering: 6
- Hi-Res textures: 0
- TexWin pixel shader: on
- VRam size: 0 MBytes

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

Compatibility:
- Offscreen drawing: 2
- Framebuffer effects: 3
- Framebuffer uploads: 2

Misc:
- Scanlines: off
- Mdec filter: on
- Screen filtering: on
- Shader effects: 1/4
- Flicker-fix border size: 2
- GF4/XP crash fix: off
- Game fixes: on [00001000]



~Sin

[TheMaister]

It is looking better now.

Glad that it worked to stop using GSlang shading.

I think you could set Offscreen Drawing to 1.
Try using Custom Shaders..
I recommend the Psuedo Median ones.. You can find it here: www.pbernert.com/pete_ogl2_shader_median.zip

[Perfect Sin]

Well that backfired. I tired the custom shaders and it worked fine cept now the game runs really fast. Thing is the FPS display says it's only running 60 fps when it's clearly not. I re-configured the shader option to go back to fullscreen but the game is stuck at a mich faster speed. WTF?

[dbhankins]

Post a screenshot of your GPU config. Use Alt-PrScr so you get only the config window.


Dan

[Perfect Sin]

Alright here's my video plugin settings. If you're reading this now, my current problem is getting the game to stop speeding after i tried to add custom shaders...sigh...


http://img152.imageshack.us/my.php?i...ntitled7rl.png

[dbhankins]

Instead of letting the FPS limit be auto-detected, try locking it to the rate appropriate to your game (50 for PAL, 60 for NTSC). Set the number to the appropriate one and make sure that the "FPS limit" radio button is selected rather than Auto-detect.

Also, do you have a hyperthreaded (HT) processor?


Dan

[TheMaister]

Weird that using the custom shaders would mess up the speed...

And by the way, DBH, does it have anything to say that he may have a HT-processor?!

[dbhankins]

No, he didn't say whether he has an HT processor, that's why I asked. Multicore processors can cause glitches and weird speedups in games and emulators written for a single processor, and hyperthreading - which is semi-virtual-multi-core - can have the same effect.

Just as a for-instance: I had glitches and timing problems in Thief until I locked its executable to a single processor, and I have a hyperthreaded processor.


Dan

[TheMaister]

Hey! I have an HT-processor!!! Maybe that is why I get those weird slowdowns in Chrono Cross..!!
How do I lock the emu to run on one processor?!!

[dbhankins]

Search the PSX Emulation forums for dual core and go to the thread started by DannOr.


Dan

[hushypushy]

funny how you could provide such detailed instructions yet not do it yourself.

http://www.ngemu.com/forums/showthread.php?t=65084

[fireblaster_lyz]

He's being lazy after contributing much

[Perfect Sin]

FIXED

-So yeah, i've calibrated Chrono Cross to work perfectly on my comp.
-I messed around with the settings to fix the custom shader bug.

So now everything is perfect...like my name.

Anyone who's got the same kind of specs i have and want to play CC...Here's my final specs...

You can find my computer specs on my first post up top.
__________________________________
ePSXe Version: 1.60
Plugin: Pete's OpenGL2 Driver 2.7
Author: Pete Bernert
Card vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
GFX card: GeForce 6800 Series GPU/PCI/SSE2

Resolution/Color:
- 1280x1024 Fullscreen - NO desktop changing
- Internal X resolution: 2
- Internal Y resolution: 2
- Keep psx aspect ratio: off
- No render-to-texture: off

- Filtering: 6
- Hi-Res textures: 0
- TexWin pixel shader: on
- VRam size: 0 MBytes

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

Compatibility:
- Offscreen drawing: 2
- Framebuffer effects: 3
- Framebuffer uploads: 2

Misc:
- Scanlines: off
- Mdec filter: on
- Screen filtering: on
- Shader effects: 1/4
- Flicker-fix border size: 2
- GF4/XP crash fix: off
- Game fixes: on [00001000]

*Make sure you use the -noauto command after the ePSXe shortcut (in the target line)* EX: C:\Downloads\ePSXe\ePSXe.exe -noauto
*Also under "special game fixes" select Odd/Even bit hack.
_____________________________________


Thanks to DB and The Maister

P.S. I did have HTT, didn't make to many problems though

~Sin