Emulation central - recommendations in 1st post

[Great Deceiver]

I've been replaying the games I owned on PS2 and last played 10-15 years ago. Yesterday I was playing this:

In my opinion it's the best character action game on the PS2. It's very different from DmC and those types of games, it's more like a score-attack . Graphics are functional and clean and the soundtrack is great and videogamey, none of that 'epic' bullshit. As usual, the 'gaming media' took a shit on this game without understanding how to properly play it.

I love it.

 

[spekkio]

^
But what about input lag in pcsx2, GD?

 

[Great Deceiver]

It's pretty bad, but I posted some stuff a few days ago on how to make it a little better (mainly Pokopom input plugin + higher thread priority). But since I have no way to accurately measure the latency, it might just be placebo and wishful thinking. I got to stage 4 of Gradius V today on one credit though... it's not unplayable. Shinobi is a lot easier than Gradius V.

I can't believe more people aren't bothered by it, going from Retroarch to PCSX2 is so depressing. In retroarch you can test the emulator's native latency by pausing and frame forwarding with an input depressed. Most of the cores I've tested have under 3 frames of delay, which is pretty excellent. Of course, there are other sources of latency to consider on top such as panel response time, etc. but my TV is reasonably snappy for an LCD (most sites report it at 18ms).

If I had to hazard a guess, PCSX2 delay is something huge, on the order of 200ms-250ms, or 12-15 frames, which is quite terrible.

I would imagine most people don't really notice or don't really care because they play PS2 games that don't demand a quick response (like menu-based JRPGs and so on), but it bothers me a lot because I play action games and shmups.

 

[Hirato]

If I had to hazard a guess, PCSX2 delay is something huge, on the order of 200ms-250ms, or 12-15 frames, which is quite terrible.

I'd really like to see something more scientifc and emperical, as it should react to any input within one or two frames; as a lot of games run 60Hz field (sort of interlacing) so the worst case should be about 50ms.

And a thing a lot of games started doing later in the PS2 era was do these clunky transition animations from standing to walking/running and vice versa, and there's also often an acceleration curve associated with these.
These feel clunk and awkward on the real hardware too, but shouldn't be confused with input lag.

And there's another thing I noticed as well, a lot of games (eg, God of War) checks the inputs at whatever state they were when the frame is drawn, so if you do the inputs too rapidly, it'll see both frames as having the button not pressed, so it won't ever react; same goes for the analog sticks (in the context of GoW, if you spin it so fast it looks like it's being held in place or going backwards, it doesn't count). This also should not be confused for input lag.

 

[Naraya]

I've found quite a collection of Apple 2 games (and other stuff). I've never owned a Mac so to me it's very interesting. For Apple emulation I'm using AppleWin emulator which is very easy to setup and has nice features (e.g. save states).

Here's the list of all files from the GAMES folder (I dumped it so you can easily CTRL+F to see if a game that interests you is available. Yes, there are all Wizardries there): https://pastebin.com/MuHW0enf
You can find the games here: ftp://ftp.apple.asimov.net/pub/apple_II/images/games/
And the emulator here: https://github.com/AppleWin/AppleWin

Have fun

 

[Hirato]

Great Deceiver out of curiosity, are you using any of PCSX2's speedhacks?

 

[Great Deceiver]

Nope, no speedhacks or cycle stealing shenanigans.

 

[Hirato]

Unfortunate, I was hoping you were using the cycle stealing ones, and by not using them your input lag issue would be solved.
The rest of the speedhacks (MTVU aside) are all pretty safe to use and don't cause any issues.

 

[Cromwell]

Bros I need your help. My Woman recently started emulating games on pcsx 2 but has slowdowns on almost all of them. She played through nocturne and had about 80% speed. She now tried Digital devil saga and gets only 68% speed. On my Pc I can emulate both games with 100% almost all the time and I didnt notice any slowdowns. The Problem now is that neither I nor she is tech savy enough to find the Problem. From what we gathered our processors should be in the same shitty range, while she has an amd FX 4100 Quadcore I have a I5 760 2,8ghz - She uses a 750 ti card and I have a 970 but from what I have read the GPU is not the deciding factor with emulation.

Can someone help me out here and tell me what to look for that may cause such a different experience? I already tried exactly the same settings I use for Nocturne and Digital Devil with the same version of pcsx2 on her computer.

 

[Great Deceiver]

Her AMD processor is the problem. It's shit. Your i5 is leagues beyond.

On her machine, maybe enabling some aggressive speedhacks might help.

 

[flyingjohn]

Bros I need your help. My Woman recently started emulating games on pcsx 2 but has slowdowns on almost all of them. She played through nocturne and had about 80% speed. She now tried Digital devil saga and gets only 68% speed. On my Pc I can emulate both games with 100% almost all the time and I didnt notice any slowdowns. The Problem now is that neither I nor she is tech savy enough to find the Problem. From what we gathered our processors should be in the same shitty range, while she has an amd FX 4100 Quadcore I have a I5 760 2,8ghz - She uses a 750 ti card and I have a 970 but from what I have read the GPU is not the deciding factor with emulation.

Can someone help me out here and tell me what to look for that may cause such a different experience? I already tried exactly the same settings I use for Nocturne and Digital Devil with the same version of pcsx2 on her computer.

I have the same card but an intel i5 4460.I do get slowdowns on some heavy games(like mercenaries or shadows of the colossus),but mostly games run fine on 2x resolution.
The problem is that the amd processor has a single core score of 1300 which is below recommended(1600 is the minimum pcsx2 devs recommend) while your i5 has a score of 1900.
First thing you do is go to emulation settings and go to the speed hack settings and set every setting on except the ee and vu cycle.(mtvu speed hack can slow performance so you have to try turning it on and off for every game to see is it worth it)
After that if the games are still lagging you increase both ee and vu cyclerate(not max) until you get either improvements or broken games.
But the core problem is the AMD processor,just buying a simple i5 will get you better results.
Edit:Also use the development version instead of the stable version:
http://pcsx2.net/download/development/git.html

 

[Freddie]

Bros I need your help. My Woman recently started emulating games on pcsx 2 but has slowdowns on almost all of them. She played through nocturne and had about 80% speed. She now tried Digital devil saga and gets only 68% speed. On my Pc I can emulate both games with 100% almost all the time and I didnt notice any slowdowns. The Problem now is that neither I nor she is tech savy enough to find the Problem. From what we gathered our processors should be in the same shitty range, while she has an amd FX 4100 Quadcore I have a I5 760 2,8ghz - She uses a 750 ti card and I have a 970 but from what I have read the GPU is not the deciding factor with emulation.

Can someone help me out here and tell me what to look for that may cause such a different experience? I already tried exactly the same settings I use for Nocturne and Digital Devil with the same version of pcsx2 on her computer.

I have the same card but an intel i5 4460.I do get slowdowns on some heavy games(like mercenaries or shadows of the colossus),but mostly games run fine on 2x resolution.
The problem is that the amd processor has a single core score of 1300 which is below recommended(1600 is the minimum pcsx2 devs recommend) while your i5 has a score of 1900.
First thing you do is go to emulation settings and go to the speed hack settings and set every setting on except the ee and vu cycle.(mtvu speed hack can slow performance so you have to try turning it on and off for every game to see is it worth it)
After that if the games are still lagging you increase both ee and vu cyclerate(not max) until you get either improvements or broken games.
But the core problem is the AMD processor,just buying a simple i5 will get you better results.
Edit:Also use the development version instead of the stable version:
http://pcsx2.net/download/development/git.html

Pretty much that. Only thing I can add is that AMD CPU's performance issues comes from that at least AMD CPU's before Ryzen lacked AVX2 instruction set that PCSX2 relies on for it's performance and some further evolutions of SSE instruction sets. So it's not just clock speed.

 

[Cromwell]

Thanks for the info guys. For the moment she is happy that she now definitely knows what the problem is and is content with valkyrie profile but I fear there looms the buying of a new cpu in my future <.<

 

[aweigh]

i never knew PCSX2 had input lag issues since the only action games i play are fighting games and there aren't really any worth playing on PS2. this is good information to know.

 

[Great Deceiver]

aweigh I disagree with that - Virtua Fighter 4: Evolution is a good port of a great fighting game (there were many VF4 revisions, the best and latest of which was Final Tuned that never saw a console release, but Evo is pretty great). The home version was worse graphically than the arcade Naomi version, but it had one of the best fighting game tutorials/training modes of all time (only recently matched by the Guilty Gear Xrd games).




It also had the only home port of the arcade (Atomiswave) Hokuto no Ken fighting game by Arc System Works - it's broken as shit, but I had a lot of fun with it and I recommend it, especially if you like the whole Fist of the North Star routine (hey, I'm a child of the 80s).




Crazy japs are still playing it competitively: here's a shit recording of 3 hours of sperg HnK matches from March 2017:

 

[Hirato]

RE: PCSX2 input lag (citation still needed)

I saw this pop up on the bug tracker https://github.com/PCSX2/pcsx2/issues/1941
From all the things it links to, It seems to imply that there is an issue on WINDOWS ONLY.
With this issue being a combination of V-Sync (Turn that shit off already, Windows XP is long dead), and typical Microsoft/Windows bullshit with OpenGL.

 

[Great Deceiver]

The desktop compositing in later versions of windows (I personally use 10) can't be turned off and introduces a lot of problems with frame pacing - Retroarch, for example, has managed to work around it by introducing an exclusive fullscreen mode and hard GPU sync. It's by far the main reason why I use libretro cores whenever possible, the shaders are just the icing on the cake.

You might not be seeing input lag on Linux (I wouldn't know, haven't tried it, but it's entirely possible) - however, it's definitely a major issue on Windows. As I said before, I can only surmise that more people aren't reporting it because either they don't notice it (hey, a lot of people are dense enough to claim not to notice a difference between 30 and 60 fps), or they haven't tried to play a timing-sensitive game with the emulator, or they just suck too much at input-sensitive games to notice it. Can't really say.

If you turn off vsync with the DirectX version of gsdx, btw, you still get frame pacing issues in Windows 10. Don't know about previous versions (like 7 where you can disable compositing altogether).

 

[Hirato]

The desktop compositing in later versions of windows (I personally use 10) can't be turned off and introduces a lot of problems with frame pacing

That's the entire point of turning off vsync; to let the desktop compositor present the frames on its own schedule without any tearing.
It essentially give you free vsync at the presentation level.
If you also use application level vsync with this pipeline, you achieve nothing except adding a delay up to 50ms in a worst case scenario (assuming triple buffering).

If you turn off vsync with the DirectX version of gsdx, btw, you still get frame pacing issues in Windows 10. Don't know about previous versions (like 7 where you can disable compositing altogether).

Remember to compare OpenGL with DX9.
Aa I have mentioned previously, DX10/11 simply does not offer vsync, period, outside of exclusive fullscreen; a mode, which in theory, PCSX2 does not use.

 

[Great Deceiver]

I did test it with DX9 - same result.

 

[flyingjohn]

Hate to break up the input lag discussion but can anybody share a working dolphin keyboard and mouse configuration?
Hell i would settle for a controller configuration but i don't think it is possible thanks to a lack of buttons.
Trying to play trauma team and Zack and wiki and it is a pain in the ass setting up controls(especially shake/tilt motion).
Mapping one button for all axis of a motion never seems to work properly.
Personally i would love if there are some universal configurations that work on most motion controls games,but i have a bad feeling that each game will require separate configuration.

 

[deuxhero]

Is it possible to setup SNES9X to map the right shoulder bumper to fast forward instead of tab? I've setup other systems with one shoulder button to do that and it's really nifty, especially with the jRPGs SNES has a fuckton of.

 

[spekkio]

Is it possible to setup SNES9X to map the right shoulder bumper to fast forward instead of tab? I've setup other systems with one shoulder button to do that and it's really nifty, especially with the jRPGs SNES has a fuckton of.

AFAIR yes.
If not, either use joy2key or switch to Retroarch, like you should.

 

[aweigh]

deuxhero

use Auto-Hotkey to remap whatever to wherever in however way you want without adding any latency (such as joy2key brings).

with Auto-Hotkey you can also make buttons rapid-fire or toggable (for example I used an AHK script to make TAB toggable for playing BG's 1 and 2).

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Hate to break up the input lag discussion but can anybody share a working dolphin keyboard and mouse configuration?
Hell i would settle for a controller configuration but i don't think it is possible thanks to a lack of buttons.
Trying to play trauma team and Zack and wiki and it is a pain in the ass setting up controls(especially shake/tilt motion).
Mapping one button for all axis of a motion never seems to work properly.
Personally i would love if there are some universal configurations that work on most motion controls games,but i have a bad feeling that each game will require separate configuration.

I used this controld scheme for The Last Story a long time ago, worked fine. You may need to do some additional tweaks.

 

[spekkio]

The game isn't even officially released yet, but decrypted USA + undub version is already available...

Unfortunately, graphics are borked in citra, and VO don't play.

What's with teh loliz, wheres my tacticuling?