'Hung notes' in background music

RAdlanor · June 5th, 2002, 04:54

Previous reports on this problem seem to have missed two crucial facts. One of these is the fact that it affects many different games, not just a single one or just a few. The other is the fact that the latest ePSXe release contained fixes that were supposed to end this problem once and for all.

Sorry guys, those fixes had no effect at all on any of the games where I get this problem. It may have helped some other games, but for many games the problem still remains.

I mainly use Square RPGs, and the problem is readily apparent in most of them. Here are two tips on finding it quickly in testing.

1: Win a battle, then stay for a long time in the post-battle menu showing battle gains (Exp, AP, Gil, whatever). When the melody has repeated a couple of times you should hear a chord of hung notes 'behind' the currently played ones.

2: Switch between card-game mode and normal mode in FF8, by challenging card players. Again, in either mode, you should eventually hear chords of hung notes when the melody has repeated a few times.

Note that hung notes will also occur without waiting for the melodies to 'repeat', as described above, but then you may miss it as you've nothing to compare it to. When you wait long enough for a melody to repeat then you can't miss it, as you can hear more and more hung notes appearing in the sound.

This is a very annoying problem, as the 'chords' mentioned are in most cases disharmonic, and sometimes 'drown' the real melodies.

Some other sound issues also remain, such as the weird beeps heard whenever a Final Fantasy cat 'meows', but that is a minor problem compared to the 'Hung Notes' issue.

__________________
Best Regards: Ronald

Macaijah · June 5th, 2002, 05:14

Interesting. I had that exact same problem, and upon posting it to the boards, all I recieved was "you obviously didn't configure it right." The problem was I *did* configure it right. I changed sound cards... which didn't help. I tried different versions of windows... which didn't help either. I tried different drivers... and that didn't work either! In a last lame effort, I made the sound card's IRQ completely separate from every other device which requires an IRQ in my system. Bingo. Now I'm happily playing square games with no stupid hanging music/sounds. Try futzing around with your system--it could very well be a hardware issue. In case it helps, here are the relative specs of my system:

CPU: AMD T-Bird 1.4ghz
Mobo: Asus K7M
Sound: SB Live!
OS: WinXP Pro

ePSXe 1.5.2
Eternal SPU 1.30

And I always run the game from an ISO, never the cd-rom.

**Kane** · June 5th, 2002, 18:42

Did you make sure that the IRQ hack is off in the emulator?
Failing that, have a look at the plugin guide at my site, or at PSXfanatics.

__________________

>Site Live<
Pop over to my site for help with setting up PSX emulators.
Help for the Final Fantasies and other RPGs avalaible
Celes: (Desktop) Phenom II X4, 4Gb DDR2, GeForce 8800 GTS 320Mb, 32Gb OCZ Vertex SSD, 500Gb RAID HDD, Windows 7 Home Premium
Erika: (MCPC) Revo3610, Windows 7 Home Premium
Kimiko: (Craptop) HP Mini 210

RAdlanor · June 5th, 2002, 20:40

Macaijah:
First of all, I'm not sure how to ensure getting an 'isolated' IRQ, so any tips on that would be welcome. I use WinXP Pro, so examples for other Windows versions probably won't work though.

Secondly, if it was truly a hardware issue it would have disappeared with your change of cards/drivers. The problem would also have been heard in other software, not just ePSXe. Note that I do NOT get that effect in any other PSX emulator or with any extrernal SPU plugin.

Unfortunately those all have other problems instead (mostly low or erratic speed). eg: I never get this problem with Eternal SPU, but it often lowers my FPS drastically. Only the internal SPU is fast enough never to lower my FPS, but then I get the hung notes.

What you've done is to find a way to configure your system to work around a bug in ePSXe. Nothing wrong in that, but I prefer for the bug to be removed, which will never happen if your advice is taken to mean the bug isn't present. It IS present, and serious.

Lord Kane:
Yes, the IRQ hack is always off as I have no games that need it.
Also, since my problem occurs with the internal SPU of ePSXe I don't think the plugin guide can help me.

Thanks anyway guys, but I really believe this must be solved by a new ePSXe version.

__________________
Best Regards: Ronald

**Kane** · June 5th, 2002, 20:53

Yuo say you don't get the hung notes in Eternal. Have you tried using the lite version? It has a lower system requirement. Pete's DSound( I think it's under PEOPs now) is also quite fast. Could you try them and tell me the results?

__________________

>Site Live<
Pop over to my site for help with setting up PSX emulators.
Help for the Final Fantasies and other RPGs avalaible
Celes: (Desktop) Phenom II X4, 4Gb DDR2, GeForce 8800 GTS 320Mb, 32Gb OCZ Vertex SSD, 500Gb RAID HDD, Windows 7 Home Premium
Erika: (MCPC) Revo3610, Windows 7 Home Premium
Kimiko: (Craptop) HP Mini 210

RAdlanor · June 5th, 2002, 22:08

Lord Kane:
I use settings to maximize speed with Eternal SPU (I have to), so these make it work appx like the Lite version. Both still cause too much slowdown for permanent use.

Like I said earlier, I don't get the hung notes with any modern external plugin, including Pete's. While less demanding than Eternal, his SPU (or PEOPS' nowdays) still causes slowdowns in some situations. Sometimes for no obvious reason.

eg: It has no slowdown effect in FF8 battles, where I'd expect it, as a lot is happening both for graphics and sound. Yet it lowers speed significantly (to around 40FPS) in the cardgame screens of FF8, where nothing at all is happening. It's just a normal slow melody played with a still background picture. I just don't get it.
(Though it could be due to a weird graphics mode.)

One reason for the slowdowns is that I'm one of the unfortunates to use a motherboard with 'built-in' soundcard. AFAICT that simply means one single chip, and judging from performance it can't contain much more than some D-A converters and at best a few clocked sample buffers. The rest must all be done by software...
(This is just guesswork, based on performance.)

eg: If I enable builtin SB compatibility in bios settings, then I lose 33% of my effective system speed, as measured by benchmarks, even though the CPU clock remains at 1007 MHz. Note that I lose that much speed even when no sound is playing...!!! So I don't use that SB setting, relying instead on the VDMSound utility for programs that need SB compatibility (works fine).

The net result of all the above is that the internal SPU is the ONLY one fast enough for me to use regularly.

__________________
Best Regards: Ronald

**Kane** · June 5th, 2002, 22:18

The Lite version has some internal differences to speed it up. It is not just options avaliable.
Try fiddling with the graphics settings to provide the best speed. (Have a look at my FF8/9 config guide), as the SPU is probs taking avaliable CPU cycles from the GPU.
Try using some of the other Graphics plugins too.

__________________

>Site Live<
Pop over to my site for help with setting up PSX emulators.
Help for the Final Fantasies and other RPGs avalaible
Celes: (Desktop) Phenom II X4, 4Gb DDR2, GeForce 8800 GTS 320Mb, 32Gb OCZ Vertex SSD, 500Gb RAID HDD, Windows 7 Home Premium
Erika: (MCPC) Revo3610, Windows 7 Home Premium
Kimiko: (Craptop) HP Mini 210

sniff_381 · June 6th, 2002, 10:40

maybe... you have to download the latest GPU plugin PeoPs... and even the sound plugin... sometimes... you have to make them cooperate with each other..

__________________
go visit my site... sniff381:=

ual Identity

**cooliscool** · June 7th, 2002, 20:38

lol sniff, what you just said mad NO sense

lol

__________________

June 5th, 2002, 04:54	#1
RAdlanor Registered User Join Date: May 2002 Location: Stockholm Sweden Posts: 8	'Hung notes' in background music Previous reports on this problem seem to have missed two crucial facts. One of these is the fact that it affects many different games, not just a single one or just a few. The other is the fact that the latest ePSXe release contained fixes that were supposed to end this problem once and for all. Sorry guys, those fixes had no effect at all on any of the games where I get this problem. It may have helped some other games, but for many games the problem still remains. I mainly use Square RPGs, and the problem is readily apparent in most of them. Here are two tips on finding it quickly in testing. 1: Win a battle, then stay for a long time in the post-battle menu showing battle gains (Exp, AP, Gil, whatever). When the melody has repeated a couple of times you should hear a chord of hung notes 'behind' the currently played ones. 2: Switch between card-game mode and normal mode in FF8, by challenging card players. Again, in either mode, you should eventually hear chords of hung notes when the melody has repeated a few times. Note that hung notes will also occur without waiting for the melodies to 'repeat', as described above, but then you may miss it as you've nothing to compare it to. When you wait long enough for a melody to repeat then you can't miss it, as you can hear more and more hung notes appearing in the sound. This is a very annoying problem, as the 'chords' mentioned are in most cases disharmonic, and sometimes 'drown' the real melodies. Some other sound issues also remain, such as the weird beeps heard whenever a Final Fantasy cat 'meows', but that is a minor problem compared to the 'Hung Notes' issue. __________________ Best Regards: Ronald

June 6th, 2002, 10:40	#8
sniff_381 †PeaceMaker† Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: between reality and dream Posts: 708	maybe... you have to download the latest GPU plugin PeoPs... and even the sound plugin... sometimes... you have to make them cooperate with each other.. __________________ go visit my site... sniff381:=ual Identity

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June 5th, 2002, 05:14	#2
Macaijah \| Join Date: Mar 2002 Posts: 160	Interesting. I had that exact same problem, and upon posting it to the boards, all I recieved was "you obviously didn't configure it right." The problem was I did configure it right. I changed sound cards... which didn't help. I tried different versions of windows... which didn't help either. I tried different drivers... and that didn't work either! In a last lame effort, I made the sound card's IRQ completely separate from every other device which requires an IRQ in my system. Bingo. Now I'm happily playing square games with no stupid hanging music/sounds. Try futzing around with your system--it could very well be a hardware issue. In case it helps, here are the relative specs of my system: CPU: AMD T-Bird 1.4ghz Mobo: Asus K7M Sound: SB Live! OS: WinXP Pro ePSXe 1.5.2 Eternal SPU 1.30 And I always run the game from an ISO, never the cd-rom.

June 5th, 2002, 18:42	#3
Kane 邪魔ゎ指せない Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Gosport, England Posts: 26,303	Did you make sure that the IRQ hack is off in the emulator? Failing that, have a look at the plugin guide at my site, or at PSXfanatics. __________________ >Site Live< Pop over to my site for help with setting up PSX emulators. Help for the Final Fantasies and other RPGs avalaible Celes: (Desktop) Phenom II X4, 4Gb DDR2, GeForce 8800 GTS 320Mb, 32Gb OCZ Vertex SSD, 500Gb RAID HDD, Windows 7 Home Premium Erika: (MCPC) Revo3610, Windows 7 Home Premium Kimiko: (Craptop) HP Mini 210

June 5th, 2002, 20:40	#4
RAdlanor Registered User Join Date: May 2002 Location: Stockholm Sweden Posts: 8	Macaijah: First of all, I'm not sure how to ensure getting an 'isolated' IRQ, so any tips on that would be welcome. I use WinXP Pro, so examples for other Windows versions probably won't work though. Secondly, if it was truly a hardware issue it would have disappeared with your change of cards/drivers. The problem would also have been heard in other software, not just ePSXe. Note that I do NOT get that effect in any other PSX emulator or with any extrernal SPU plugin. Unfortunately those all have other problems instead (mostly low or erratic speed). eg: I never get this problem with Eternal SPU, but it often lowers my FPS drastically. Only the internal SPU is fast enough never to lower my FPS, but then I get the hung notes. What you've done is to find a way to configure your system to work around a bug in ePSXe. Nothing wrong in that, but I prefer for the bug to be removed, which will never happen if your advice is taken to mean the bug isn't present. It IS present, and serious. Lord Kane: Yes, the IRQ hack is always off as I have no games that need it. Also, since my problem occurs with the internal SPU of ePSXe I don't think the plugin guide can help me. Thanks anyway guys, but I really believe this must be solved by a new ePSXe version. __________________ Best Regards: Ronald

June 5th, 2002, 20:53	#5
Kane 邪魔ゎ指せない Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Gosport, England Posts: 26,303	Yuo say you don't get the hung notes in Eternal. Have you tried using the lite version? It has a lower system requirement. Pete's DSound( I think it's under PEOPs now) is also quite fast. Could you try them and tell me the results? __________________ >Site Live< Pop over to my site for help with setting up PSX emulators. Help for the Final Fantasies and other RPGs avalaible Celes: (Desktop) Phenom II X4, 4Gb DDR2, GeForce 8800 GTS 320Mb, 32Gb OCZ Vertex SSD, 500Gb RAID HDD, Windows 7 Home Premium Erika: (MCPC) Revo3610, Windows 7 Home Premium Kimiko: (Craptop) HP Mini 210

June 5th, 2002, 22:08	#6
RAdlanor Registered User Join Date: May 2002 Location: Stockholm Sweden Posts: 8	Lord Kane: I use settings to maximize speed with Eternal SPU (I have to), so these make it work appx like the Lite version. Both still cause too much slowdown for permanent use. Like I said earlier, I don't get the hung notes with any modern external plugin, including Pete's. While less demanding than Eternal, his SPU (or PEOPS' nowdays) still causes slowdowns in some situations. Sometimes for no obvious reason. eg: It has no slowdown effect in FF8 battles, where I'd expect it, as a lot is happening both for graphics and sound. Yet it lowers speed significantly (to around 40FPS) in the cardgame screens of FF8, where nothing at all is happening. It's just a normal slow melody played with a still background picture. I just don't get it. (Though it could be due to a weird graphics mode.) One reason for the slowdowns is that I'm one of the unfortunates to use a motherboard with 'built-in' soundcard. AFAICT that simply means one single chip, and judging from performance it can't contain much more than some D-A converters and at best a few clocked sample buffers. The rest must all be done by software... (This is just guesswork, based on performance.) eg: If I enable builtin SB compatibility in bios settings, then I lose 33% of my effective system speed, as measured by benchmarks, even though the CPU clock remains at 1007 MHz. Note that I lose that much speed even when no sound is playing...!!! So I don't use that SB setting, relying instead on the VDMSound utility for programs that need SB compatibility (works fine). The net result of all the above is that the internal SPU is the ONLY one fast enough for me to use regularly. __________________ Best Regards: Ronald

June 5th, 2002, 22:18	#7
Kane 邪魔ゎ指せない Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Gosport, England Posts: 26,303	The Lite version has some internal differences to speed it up. It is not just options avaliable. Try fiddling with the graphics settings to provide the best speed. (Have a look at my FF8/9 config guide), as the SPU is probs taking avaliable CPU cycles from the GPU. Try using some of the other Graphics plugins too. __________________ >Site Live< Pop over to my site for help with setting up PSX emulators. Help for the Final Fantasies and other RPGs avalaible Celes: (Desktop) Phenom II X4, 4Gb DDR2, GeForce 8800 GTS 320Mb, 32Gb OCZ Vertex SSD, 500Gb RAID HDD, Windows 7 Home Premium Erika: (MCPC) Revo3610, Windows 7 Home Premium Kimiko: (Craptop) HP Mini 210

June 7th, 2002, 20:38	#9
cooliscool Global Moderator Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: SC, USA Posts: 7,231	lol sniff, what you just said mad NO sense lol __________________