Emulation central - recommendations in 1st post

[spekkio]

lightbane

AFAIR you have to patch the .iso file, not the .bin (as usual). I was unable to patch the vanilla image, till I converted it to .iso. Another example of quality work from translation team - there's no info about this anywhere.

Original .bin is 406 MB big:

But the actual files are only 354 MB:

The rest is the "cd overhead" - info about where on disc each file is located.

Sadly, you can't convert from .bin to "cropped" .iso using most of "normal" CD image software (like Ultraiso for example), you have to use teh oldshit like WinISO (convert bin to iso):

And the output .iso can be patched with original translation patch:

Again, notihing described above was explained by the translation team. I had to DIY.

Unfortunately, you have to invest 30$ to get a full version of WinISO...

Just kidding - delete after use!

Shit is almost 20 years old, but works like a charm:

 

[lightbane]

Lots of work to make that patch work, it seems. Worse, only the "ultimate hits" version is supposed to work for this, but I dunno if the one I found is the version I require. Oh well, I'll try this. I hoped you had a patched .iso still around.

 

[spekkio]

Worse, only the "ultimate hits" version is supposed to work for this, but I dunno if the one I found is the version I require.

Translation patch has "Data Conversion" tool which converts "regular edition" to "ultimate".

I'll try patching my .bin with the "Translation Fix" and see what happens.

 

[spekkio]

Update:

Patched my original "FM2 (Front Mission History).bin" (CRC A0EBB70B) with the "Translation Fix" patch (you don't have to convert it to .iso, as the author knows his shit, which can't be said about original translation team), got a new one (CRC 3DA0BFF7).

Tested on Retroarch + Beetle PSX core, game works fine, with audio during intro FMV:

#hackerman

 

[lightbane]

Patched my original "FM2 (Front Mission History).bin" (CRC A0EBB70B) with the "Translation Fix" patch (you don't have to convert it to .iso, as the author knows his shit, which can't be said about original translation team), got a new one (CRC 3DA0BFF7).

So, if I got it right, I only have to use any working image for FM2, then use the latest patch for conversion and that's it?
That's what I did but didn't work when the intro tries to load, at least not for Duckstation. No idea about other emulators yet.

 

[spekkio]

Try other emu. If it still won't work, I will upload my working .bin somewhere. Shit is only 140 MB packed.

#justforyou

 

[flyingjohn]

Wow all that shit seems complicated.
Well,Russian Che Guevara to the rescue.

 

[lightbane]

Try other emu. If it still won't work, I will upload my working .bin somewhere. Shit is only 140 MB packed.

#justforyou

Actually, can you upload and lend it to me, please? If only so that I can already check whether it's Duckstation's fault, or something I did wrong, or using the wrong file.

 

[spekkio]

Here you go:

https://www.mediafire.com/file/8gzo70a9qo14es6/fm2engfix.rar/file

It kinda hangs for a couple of seconds after bios, but then continues to the intro FMV.

 

[lightbane]

Thanks!

Sadly: my antivirus is bitching that the file is corrupted and infected. I'll see if I can something about it. Or if you need to reupload it in the worst case scenario.

 

[spekkio]

It's a .rar archive with .bin and .cue file inside. There's literally nothing that can be infected here (no .exe or .dll).

Just what kind of antivirus do you use?

 

[lightbane]

I was using a spare PC with W10 installed since I wasn't using my main PC at that moment, but it seems it was a false alarm. The file works like a charm, yay! Too bad about the half-baked translation. I'll have to check again the translation notes about why characters' names first have Japanese gibberish followed by a legit English name, but that's a minor concern.
Now, only configuring the emulation for max graphics-whoring and performance remains.

 

[Duraframe300]

Written by lightningterror

Core Improvements
[Enhancement] DEV9 improvements:

#4381 DEV9: Do not apply byteswapping to TX/RX FIFO writes/reads. By TheLastRar.

Remove the byte swapping done to TX/RX FIFO writes/reads performed via registers.

Fixes Twisted Metal: Black Online Public Beta v. 1.0 unable to initialize network adapter.

#4364 DEV9: add ATA Idle Immediate (E1) stub. By macmenot.

Fixes HDD support for Street Fighter Alpha Anthology.

#4403 DEV9: consistently prefix all console output with DEV9. By macmenot.

#4429 DEV9: Update ATA code for wchar GHC. By TheLastRar.

#4496 DEV9: PCAP, check size of read packet. By TheLastRar.

In pcap, check size of read packet. If the size exceeds the buffer we are using, drop the packet.

#4448 DEV9: Always use binary mode for HDD file. By TheLastRar.

Opening the file in binary mode is the intended behaviour (and was done in the most common situation),

#4449 DEV9: Fix potential out of bounds access when manual DNS1 & automatic DNS2 are used together. By TheLastRar.

If DNS1 was manually specified, but DNS2 set to be automatically assigned, an off by one error could result in an out of bounds access to an array of adapter DNS addresses.

#4442 DEV9: Increase min HDD size to 40GiB. By TheLastRar.

Most games expect a HDD of 40GiB in size, and may fail to install as a result (and display a confusing error message).

#4304 DEV9: Internal DHCP support. By TheLastRar.

Adds an internal DHCP similer to what CLR_DEV9 offers for pcap & tap.

#4433 DEV9: Correctly populate DNS2 field with DNS2 IP. By TheLastRar.

Correctly populate DNS2 field with DNS2 IP in the DHCP section of the network ui.

#4435 DEV9: Sleep instead of yield in RxThread. By TheLastRar.

Yield might not leave the thread asleep long enough to prevent it from causing excessive CPU load.
This also brings PCSX2 inline with CLR_DEV9 (which also sleeps for 1ms).

[Enhancement] Memory card improvements:

#3941 Memory card: Folder memcards: Add an index file to track order of files. By CookiePLMonster.

Adds an index file for folder memory cards in order to track timestamps and order of files in the FAT partition properly. This normally shouldn't matter, but there are at least a few games (ie. GTA games) which rely on the order of files on the memory card. Previously, folder memcards would not care about the order and populate the partition in whatever order the host filesystem provided the files (so, in the case of NTFS partitions, alphabetically). In reality, FAT partitions don't specify the order of files, which means in practice they are sorted by the order of creation.

Fixes saving in GTA games with folder memory cards.

[Enhancement] microVU improvements:

6f7890b microVU: Fix mistake when setting Status Flag bits for Signed/Zero. By refractionpcsx2.

[Enhancement] Gif improvements:

b60765e Gif: Remove MTVU spam that isn't required. By refractionpcsx2.

Solves stuttering in MTVU mode in some games, and gets rid of some annoying asserts which mean nothing.

[Enhancement] SPU2 improvements:

#3825 SPU2: Change default of latency slider. By RedDevilus.

17519c2 SPU2: Fix hi def audio streaming. By refractionpcsx2.

#4474 SPU2: Remove cycleptr, grab current cycles directly. By Ziemas.

This just changes the SPU2 to get the current IOP cycle directly instead of through a pointer. The non-pointer path seems to have been given up on anyway and there seems to be little reason for hiding it behind a pointer.

This removes the path where SPU2 runs off the provided cycle argument to SPU2Async, but that was unused anyway.

#4437 SPU: Make SPU use the DMA registers from iopHw. By Ziemas.

The SPU was managing its own DMA Addresses, this makes it use the iopHw functionality for this instead.

[Enhancement] PAD improvements:

#4331 PAD: Just enable pressure on CMD 0x4F. By KrossX.

Fixes Warriors of Might and Magic gamepad not functioning properly.

#4466 PAD: Fix gamepad choice not affecting rumble test on Linux. By Lahvuun.

This change causes the currently selected gamepad to rumble instead of the first one.

[Enhancement] Eyetoy improvements:

#4415 Eyetoy: Motion button support. By Florin9doi.

[Enhancement] Debuggers improvements:

#4345 Debugger: Bios thread view support. By F0bes.

[Enhancement] Misc core improvements:

#4399 Core / VU: Disable MTVU when VU1 Interpreter is selected. By F0bes.

#3860 FPU: Remove FPU Compare Hack. By kozarovv.

The hack is no longer needed as full Clamping mode can be used instead.

#4461 Misc: Differentiate Impossible block clearing message from IOP & EE. By F0bes.

Prefix the "Impossible block clearing failure" with "[IOP]" or "[EE]" depending on the recompiler.

#4425 PSX: Fix Emulated PSX GPU Version. By Nobbs66.

Previously it was thought that the PS2 would emulate the v2 GPU, but hardware tests show that it emulates the V0 GPU.

#4460 Core: Make DMA's instant during the BIOS. By refractionpcsx2, tadanokojin, and PSI-Rockin.

This hackfixes the BIOS to avoid a Data Cache bug caused by a DMA buffer being overwritten during a transfer without waiting, which messes up the fonts in the BIOS. Fixing this correctly would require implementing the Data Cache, which is something which would make the emulator basically unusable, so this is a reasonable solution, it is only enabled during the BIOS screen.

Fixes certain bios revisions rendering text incorrectly.

#4498 iR5900: Move recConstBuf memory near recompiler memory. By TellowKrinkle.

Fixes an issue where recConstBuf was too far away from the main recompiler to LEA in 64-bit builds.

#4482 CDVD: Fix disc drive path issues on Windows. By turtleli.

• Fixes CDVD Regression: Booting a physical disc inserted after opening PCSX2 doesn't work. #3910 (Regression only affects Windows).
• Fixes an issue where the drive choice is cleared if there is no disc in the selected drive when PCSX2 is first opened (Should only affect Windows, but non-Windows only code is touched too).

GSdx Improvements
[Enhancement] Misc GSdx improvements:

#4350 GSdx-gui: Remove partial and full crc hack levels on release builds. By lightningterror.

Normal users shouldn't really need to choose partial or full since automatic already does that.

#4383 GSdx-hw: Some minor cleanups. By lightningterror.

TAS (Tool Assisted Speedrun) Utility Improvements
#4382 Recording: Resolve crash when closing emulator involving GUI elements. By xTVaser.

e50a446 Recording-gui: Add close box to New Input Recording. By lightningterror.

#4393 Recording: Allow configuration of the frame advance amount. By xTVaser.

Adds a GUI configurable setting to control how many frames the frame-advance feature should advance.

#4392 Recording: Add warning when creating a save-state recording. By xTVaser.

Adds a brief warning explaining why you may want to avoid save-state recordings, and what would have to be done if a bad state is achieved.

IPC (Interprocess Communication) Improvements
#4337 IPC: Remove possible memory corruption due to strcat on provided pointer. By GovanifY.

GameDB Improvements
4676592 GameDB: Add patches for Elemental Gerad and K-1 Grand Prix 2006.By refractionpcsx2.

#4388 GameDB: Adds fixes for Energy Airforce - Aim Strike , K-1 World Grand Prix 2006. By Mrlinkwii.

#4405 GameDB: add Nearest EErounding to SSX and SSX tricky. By Mrlinkwii.

#4462 GameDB: Add Kickstart for Rayman Raving Rabbids. By icup321.

#4478 GameDB: Adds VU clamping mode extra to Enthusia Professional Racing. By Mrlinkwii.

#4488 GameDB: Remove no longer needed 'OPHFLagHack' for Naruto - Uzumaki Chronicles 2. By Mrlinkwii.

Misc Improvements
#4278 GUI: Grayout Instant VU1 when MTVU is enabled. By RedDevilus.

#4377 GUI: Revise console with newline on compile + title. By RedDevilus.

#4416 GUI: Swap buttons Browse... and Ask when booting and default to unchecked state. By RedDevilus.

#4378 GUI: change window to debug in the menu and move blockdump to the debug menu. By Mrlinkwii.

#4431 GUI: update the 2 smaller app icons. By Mrlinkwii.

#4438 GUI: change 'Console to Stdio' to 'Program Log to Stdio' in UI. By Mrlinkwii.

#4454 GUI: Rename PSX references to PS1 distinguish between PS1 and DVR. By Florin9doi.

#4329 Misc: Remove SSE2/SSE3 support. By GovanifY.

Moving forward with our goal to clean up and modernize the code we are removing SSE2/3 support.

#4444 Misc: Save ELF last path when auto-running an elf. By F0bes.

#4343 Misc: Enable GS debugger on CI artifacts. By lightningterror.

Adds an CI environment variable to enable GS debugger on CI artifacts. This can also be enabled locally to enable the GS debugger.

#4418 CI: Validate GameDB changes in GitHub Actions. By xTVaser.

Currently, the emulator will fully validate the GameDB, which is how we've been catching these recent mistakes. But this adds a CI check to validate the file in a very similar manner at build time.

#4180 CI: Add an explicit flag to retain debugging artifacts (.pdb, .exp, .lib, etc) in Windows builds. By xTVaser.

Pluginmerge isn't mentioned yet, will be in the Q3 update.

 

[Perkel]

Yuzu hades update (shader recompiler rework) is out. Aside from making a lot of games finally run and those with bugs to run without bugs it also speed up a lot some of games.

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is one of the worst case for emulation and it previously run 15-20 fps in cities with heavy stuttering on my Ryzen 3600. Now with latest Yuzu update:



Locked 30fps with some stutters and i am pretty sure if there was fps unlock mod for it it would run much higher than 30fps.

 

[aweigh]

Yuzu hades update (shader recompiler rework) is out. Aside from making a lot of games finally run and those with bugs to run without bugs it also speed up a lot some of games.

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is one of the worst case for emulation and it previously run 15-20 fps in cities with heavy stuttering on my Ryzen 3600. Now with latest Yuzu update:



Locked 30fps with some stutters and i am pretty sure if there was fps unlock mod for it it would run much higher than 30fps.

Don't wanna jinx it but also coming here to report the new Yuzu performance:

- Yuzu Early Access build 1867, the first one with the new "Hades" shader project, is giving me locked 30fps in Xenoblade Chronicles 1: Definitive Edition in the hardest-hitting areas where before it would fluctuate between 25-30fps.

- The most stressful area in XBC1DE is actually the "Future Connected" post-game DLC and it is the area I'm currently playing in, and am excited to report that (AFTER SHADERS FINISH BUILDING) the game seems to hold 30fps rock-steady and without the previous "random drops" that would happen as you ran around the game world.

- Using VULKAN renderer, btw, haven't even bothered testing OpenGL yet. First thing I did was boot up XBC1DE Future connected DLC and run around the area where I'd get FPS fluctuations and they seem to be gone now with 'Hades', and that's really all I care about!

Finally gonna start XBC1DE post-game DLC now. Reason I had put it off after finishing XBC1DE is because the performance in Future Connected was worse than during the main game since the Future Connected runs on fancier tech and uses engine stuff from XBC 2, so it hit heavier. Now that it's running at 30fps as intended, seemingly without "random drops when running around", I can get to it and finally finish the full XBC1DE experience.

I haven't tested it but since Future Connected runs better now I assume XBC 2 will as well since FC was made with XBC 2 tech.

 

[aweigh]

Oh, Bravely Default 2 runs now. On Yuzu I mean.

 

[Don Peste]

Did anyone see that they released a playable build of Starcraft Ghost (for Xbox) more than a year ago?

 

[Puukko]

I was getting an average fps of ~45 in XBC HD FC with the POWER fork of ryujinx in May but when I retested with a recent build I was sitting at ~20 with the FIFO hitting its limit. I don't know what build caused this but I may take another look at it with different builds as a curiosity.

 

[lightbane]

Random question: Is there a webpage where they talk about the usual isuses one can find upon emulation and best tips to solve them, preferably for particular titles? I know there are some wikis where they state if "x" game is playable in "y" emulator, but sometimes that doesn't seem to be the case for me, whether that's because I'm using improvements that the OG game was never meant for, or emulation issues. Ex: C-12: Final Resistance has textures blacking out for a moment before they're restored in Duckstation emulator. Or Ghost in the Shell for PS1 being unplayable by becoming a mess of weird textures whenever you start the game (again in Duckstation).

 

[Perkel]

Most of new emulators are not PCSX2. There aren't any hacks to fix stuff. That era is gone gone. There are SOME custom builds that include some test features but overall what you get from mainline branch is what you get.

 

[spekkio]

Dear diary...

BROS, just wanted to let you know that I finally joined the Dark Side by switching to Win10.

Since I had to install and setup an OS from the scratch, I've decided to invest in new MoBo, CPU, RAM, SDD, etc. I went from:

- Gigabyte H81M-S1 / i7 4790 / 16 GB DDR3 1600 MHz / SATA SSD

to:

- Gigabyte B150M-D3H / i7 7700 / 16 GB DDR4 2400 MHz / M.2 NVMe SSD

The only "old" part from my previous rig is my trusty GTX 1050, may it stay in good health for years to come.

Anyway, shit is noticeably faster now. And I have a chance to test new thingies, like Vulkan or DX12 renderers.

Two things I've noticed so far.

1) Retroarch has some problems on Win10.

a) I have no sound at all on all audio drivers except dsound. Weird, since AFAIR all of them have worked fine on Win7. This problem is mentioned online, so I'm certain it's not just me...

b) gl video driver is more "demanding" than on Win7 / other drivers. What I mean by that is that it puts a CPU Fan on some stress (higher RPM / some noise) oven when you just launch the emu (without loading any core / game). Weird, but switching to Vulkan or DX12/11 fixes the issue.

2) pcsx2 seems to be going through a transitional phase ATM indeed...

So, same GUI as before, just no plugins and some new options.

Next thing to test: rpcs3 & Switch emus.

Current mood:

 

[Duraframe300]

So, same GUI as before, just no plugins and some new options.

Yeah, as mentioned they basically just integrated the already existing plugins into the core and cleaned up code along the way. New features (especially DEV9/USB) have been worked on independently for a while. They're still working plenty on clean up and rewrites, as they have done for years. 1.8 is probably coming soon now. Would expect it before the end of the year.

 

[flyingjohn]

Continuing with my collection.This took longer then expected and i have added manuals to my previous collection posts.

It is finally mac time.Warning it is a big collection(20+gb)
This is going to be broken into multiple folders because of size.
Os collection:
https://mega.nz/file/VCBBACgI#JLFdIMWuuhhO6E-AcI3IXFd9Z_Z6dTW9kE_0DNahXFI
Emu + tools:
https://mega.nz/file/ZbRTlKCb#yavjEpkjQUxzimo-RYFmRJ84wBG4NE6d0aMoHP9yM0A
Games folder link with genres broken into single zips because of size:
https://mega.nz/folder/0CJX1YIY#_AbrCZMUf4Mxe55T3ILoOw


What does this pack include:
All three pre mac osx emu's.
-MiniVmac is going to be used for really old shit.(basically if there is no color use minivmac)
Preffered os is system 6.
-Basilisk ii for anything with color and pre 1997.
Performa and quadra mac ii roms included since they are prefered.
It is designed for system 7 but can run early system 8.
-Sheepshaver for power pc stuff(past 97 games).
It is designed for os 8-9,9 is preffered.

-Various old and new world mac roms.
-Tools you will need for a variety of games/stuff.

-Os 6-8.1.
System 6 is used for black and white stuff,no compromise.
System 7 is your primary pre 1995 os.You are gonna have to change between 7.5 and 7.6 for some games.
System 8 is here if you want to experience a modern mac os.


-Various docs about mac emu and emulation setups.

-Games before mac os 9. Most of the games will be 1984-1997.Most windows ports that are identical or worse will not be included.
Most files are in sit format and require you to install stuffit in the emu that is included and then unstuff them within the emulated system.You can try running the windows tools i found but it can corrupt files.Some files are going to be in a cd/image format,there are docs included in how to mount them.

Rpg/strategy games with simulation games about managagment and naval stuff.Also included are action/adventure games with rpg elements and stealth games.
-Manuals for some games
-Txt Faq's from gamefaq.

Next one is going to be the amstrad cpc.But that will come mid next week considering i need a break after dealing with mac emulation.

Edit:
Removed system 9 and later system 8 images because past 1997 the mac does not do enough to make it worthwhile, port wise.
Removed the fps part because system shock source ports and enhanced edition beats this and is easier to run.
Removed action and adventure because Zork is a text adventure game that looks the same on everything anf gemstone warrior does not differentiate itself enough from the other ports..

 

[spekkio]

BROs, first problem:

I have no sound at all on all audio drivers except dsound

has been fixed.

Since I have 2 sound output devices: Realtek HD Audio + Nvidia HDA (disabled), I was trying to find out if Retroarch didn't mix them up.

To do that, I've enabled logs in "Logging":

If this section is missing, enable it in "User Interface":

After running a game, I got something like this in .log:

[INFO] [XAudio2]: Fallback, device index is a single number index instead: -1.
[ERROR] Failed to init XAudio2.
[ERROR] Failed to initialize audio driver. Will continue without audio.
[ERROR] failed_to_start_audio_driver

So it looks like it was indeed some device-related error. Since my "Device" entry in the "Sound - Output" menu was empty:

I've put "-1" there:

And guess what - it worked!

#aintevenmad

So, kids - always check your .log files before bitching on the internets about something not working.

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

It is finally mac time.Warning it is a big collection(20+gb)
This is going to be broken into multiple folders because of size.

Minor complaint, because some of the zips only contain one game it feels silly to have them under genre. I was actually surprised at the FPS one, since Pathways into Darkness is a RPG/FPS hybrid IIRC and its one of the few really good Mac-exclusive titles.