Emulation central - recommendations in 1st post

[yes plz]

Speaking of Vesperia, with RPCS3 we might actually get a fully complete patch for the game. Right now the patch lacks in-battle subs (the occasional dialogue between characters during story boss battles, victory quotes/banter, and the like) because (iirc) they couldn't fully figure out how they worked without a proper debugger but could hopefully do it once a decent emulator became available.

EDIT: Found the post talking about it:

Battle subtitles might happen at some point, but don't count on it, especially not in the near future. A decent enough PS3 emulator/debugger would need to exist for us to figure out how to add them.

 

[A user named cat]

Great Deceiver mentioned it but holy shit, the latest Dolphin 5.x builds are great. Ubershaders is amazing. I'm playing through Metroid Prime with even LLE audio and Dolby II enabled. It's absolutely smooth. No more stuttering or skipping, not even when areas load. Try it out if you haven't already.

To further add to this; another new thing added to Dolphin I've found crucial is this new audio backend called CubeB. For my setup, games with Dolby support now properly output to 5.1 where Xaudio and OpenAL did not. Also it has the lowest latency of the backends and the least amount of audio skipping/popping. I'd recommend giving it a go. Obviously if you have a stereo setup, then just use HLE emulation and uncheck Dolby.

 

[aweigh]

oasis789

I just recently bought a new rig and can finally play CITRA/CEMU and PS3 games properly !!!!1

I get full speed / 30fps on CITRA games (SMT IV in this example) whereas before I would get 12fps.

Am currently playing Zelda BotW and it is running at 25-30 fps.

I wanted to ask you as a favor if you could tell me (via PM I guess) where I can get some PS3 games and the other files/stuff I need to run them? Yes, I could google this but this is why I ask as a "Favor"

 

[aweigh]

obligatory list of new rig specs:

intel core i5
cheapest possible mobo that takes that socket
cheapest possible stick of ddr 4 ram (8 gb)
nvidia geforce 1050 gpu

 

[flyingjohn]

obligatory list of new rig specs:

intel core i5
cheapest possible mobo that takes that socket
cheapest possible stick of ddr 4 ram (8 gb)
nvidia geforce 1050 gpu

I really hope that is a k version else you aren't gonna have much luck running anything remotely demanding.
Probably should have waited a couple of months for coffee lake ,the i5k at 3.8ghz will be sweet for emulation.

 

[aweigh]

i'm just about done downloading the 20gb persona 5 iso. i'll let you know.

 

[aweigh]

2 fps. unplayable. ah well, gonna try some other ps3 games, downloading wizardry labyrinth of lost souls pkg

 

[Hirato]

only 2 fps for Persona 5?
What are you doing, I get at least 12 on my shitty old AMD CPU that cannot crunch floating point numbers worth a damn.

Though now that RPCS3 has moved to shaders ala CEMU, it's no longer a stable 12-13, but an unstable 9-14 with lots of dips...

 

[aweigh]

Creating Celerity




bear in mind the recording tool cuts my fps, but without it recording the game runs at 60+ fps. At least I have verified now that the emulator's performance on my rig is proportional to what I make it output; i.e. Persona 5 running at 10 fps, this Wiz-game running at a billion frames.

my worry was that no games would work properly.

 

[Taxnomore]

I would have played Persona 5 at 10 FPS if this was my only option ; and it would have been worth it.

 

[deuxhero]

only 2 fps for Persona 5?
What are you doing, I get at least 12 on my shitty old AMD CPU that cannot crunch floating point numbers worth a damn.

Though now that RPCS3 has moved to shaders ala CEMU, it's no longer a stable 12-13, but an unstable 9-14 with lots of dips...

For most things it is a greater improvement. Something like Tony Hawk's Project 8 went from 9-15 to 10-30.

 

[aweigh]

cemu runs any Wii game i've thrown at it, including xenoblade chronicles, at maximum speed @ 4x resolution...

and yet CITRA builds still strugglin'

 

[aweigh]

oasis789

downloading the ps3 iso of catherine right now. will post how it runs for me (cheapest intel core i5 possible, the "new" versions i.e. kaby lake) + cheapest/slowest ddr 4 stick of ram 8gb + zotac geforce gt 1050 (the cheap one, not the "Ti" version); i.e basically the absolutely cheapest possible "gaming rig" one can buy right now and still be able to play latest games at full e-penis settings.

persona 5 ran at 10-15 fps though, and that was a heart-breaker. if catherine runs at "full speeds" then that means it is all to do with the rpcs3 emulator's development progress and it is not to do with my rig; that's really the one thing i want to confirm most of all.

 

[aweigh]

wow, setting spu delay to "0" by manually editing the config file boosted my performance in wiz-labyrinth of lost souls almost 1.5x times. sure, the game already ran/runs at its native maximum of 30fps but that little option made it fly (with fps limiter disabled from emu options).

i haven't continued playing WLoLS tho because there is a hard crash whenever a few specific mage spells are used, including katino. after extensive trouble-shooting (i.e. analyzing the log files, changing every single option around over and over) i have come to the conclusion that the problem has to do with a "bad" .pkg of the game.

the .pkg requires you to install a "crack.pkg" over the wizardry.pkg because the game .pkg is by default a "trial version", since this game was a PSOnline downloadable. I have yet to try and see if the same spells crash the game WITHOUT the crack by simply playing the trial version (allows you to explore first 3 floors), mostly because i can't be bothered right now since it will probably crash anyway; the error messages when this happens all reference missing assets/scenes, so i don't think the crack.pkg has anything much to do with it.

other than that, game is theoretically 100% playable as long as you never use those spells in combat... but screw that, obviously.

i decided to re-download persona 5 iso again (i foolishly deleted the 20gb thing when i saw how it ran...) so i'm still downloading both catherine and p5. i bet however that the main reason catherine now runs so well is simply because of the extensive optimization the dev team has done for persona 5, as they share the same engine.

sadly i really don't think whatever specific bug makes WLoLS crash when casting specific spells will get fixed any time soon as i really can't imagine this being anywhere near the dev team's radars whatsoever.

i'll post later with some gameplay footage of catherine running, and p5 as well, now that i know about manually editing the config file. that change alone mentioned in the video's description literally almost doubled the performance for the one game i am using to test the emulator, so i expect similar tidings for p5/catherine.

i'm hoping p5'll now be at like, 15 fps in crowded areas and 20 fps anywhere else, but i'll confirm it.

btw, oasis789 : nicoblog finally put up ELMINAGE: ORIGINAL, the new 3DS port/localization but it is in .CIA format. I used to have a handy tool that allowed to easily unpack .cia/.3ds roms and then build the folders back into either of the 2 formats and decrypt them along the way, but i completely lost it and cannot find it.

it was called something like RomFileExplore or something like that, maybe it was FSTool or some shit like that; my point is:

- i just literally now spent like 40 mins googling for this tool and couldn't find it, i did find: 3ds builder, every file explorer, makeROM, romFS builder, romFS extracter, 3ds explorer, decrypt9, CTXtool, and a bunch more.

- NONE of those were even remotely close to the capability of the tool i mention, which was a simply exe which when launched had a simple GUI where it had buttons for opening a 3ds game file, extracting shit, decrypting the shit, and building the ROM again.

- I once again ask you or anyone reading what is now the easiest/fastest way to convert this elminage: original 3ds .CIA rom into something I can play in CITRA... all the other tools i found earlier googling require console commands and/or simply don't do what they should be doing correctly.

 

[flyingjohn]

Well time for rpsc3 testing:

Catherine on a i5-4460 stock on default settings is literally unplayable(around 5 fps in the menu and 2 in cut scenes)

With the special settings it is stable 30 in menus and game play hovers around 28-30.

 

[aweigh]

i'm 84% done un-raring the Catherine files. gonna install it soon then i'll be sure to post how it runs for me. to make sure everything was "fresh" i am gonna install the catherine files in a freshly downloaded rpcs3 build off their website, and with another freshly downloaded firmware file right before i install the catherine game.

wanna make sure everything is stock, and that the only changes are the ones to the config file.

 

[aweigh]

btw, e: Original is running 100% perfect on citra build i'm using (citra-GCC-7.0.1-SKYLAKE-OPTIMIZED). it is the fastest build i've found yet that still allows customization of the window layouts; the #1 fastest build is the february 8th release of the Citra-JIT build, AVX/SSE versions depending on your poison... but that one doesn't allow custom window layouts.

 

[aweigh]

flyingjohn

 

[aweigh]

without bandicam recording it flies off the handle running at 75+ frames per second at any moment; also i captured a blurry video, even though i made apoint to show that it was running in citra's 10x resolution scaling, because i wanted small file size for quick upload.

truth be told, tho, the graphics suck ass. the assets are way worse than the PSP version and even at 10x citra rez scaling the textures look WORSE than E: Original in PPSSPP emulator, default settings/default resolution.

they truly did NOTHING to work up those art assets, nothing whatsoever. even the font is aliased, ugh. On the plus side this 3ds port has the new english localization which is (obviously) much superior to the hterrible PSP localization....

sigh, if only they had done the same type of effort/work that they put into E: Gothic's 3DS edition: the 3ds version of e: gothic looks fucking GREAT, and the 3ds port of elminage 2 (jp only) looks BETTER graphically than the PSP version of elminage 2 (jp only).

it is obvious starfish did a quickie hack-job with e: Original with this 3ds port, and the only thing money was spent on was in hiring some guy to write a new script.

edit: all that said, it still features the same 3ds GUI improvements that to me are now indispensable, and it does feature slight amount of new content in form of new music tracks and being able to use avatar pictures taken from elminage 2 and 3... i just wish they had spent 2 minutes on those art assets.

is there any CITRA build that also filters/upscales textures? i've never seen one, only the option to increase internal game resolution multiplier.

 

[aweigh]

i mean, NOW help:

 

[aweigh]

i put the game folders in the hdd0 whatever, and used the firmware that came w/ the game as well, everything is configured as per the details on the video oasis789 linked to; when i boot the catherine entry it just spits out what u see there in the log.

 

[flyingjohn]

i put the game folders in the hdd0 whatever, and used the firmware that came w/ the game as well, everything is configured as per the details on the video oasis789 linked to; when i boot the catherine entry it just spits out what u see there in the log.

The picture is broken so if you could upload a proper link i could look into it.Also you don't need to bother with the hdd0 stuff.
If you have a pkg file just install the game through the emulator and if you have any boot files(including eboot),just run the boot command from the menu.
Now if you have something else entirely then you can use the hdd0 method.

 

[aweigh]

finally! i had to move the EBOOT.BIN over to the "disc" folder inside hdd0.... originally it had been pasted inside the usdir folder.

btw, gotta say i'm pickled that the file structure and file system is the exact same shit as PSP uses. i have spent so many hours of my life hex editing EBOOT BINs and BOOT BINs, hehehe.

edit: and yes, this means that if one were so inclined one could hex edit the eboot.bin file and see what goodies are stored inside majority of rpgs always have stuff like char classes, races, attribute values/systems, etc, and are easily hex edited.

haven't looked at p5's eboot bin, tho, nor am i gonna.

 

[aweigh]

wow, 30 fps and beyond in main menu.

SPU threads: 1
config file's SPU Delay value: 0
SPU looping option: Enabled
LLVM / JMST engines
render everything strictly = the ONLY option enabled in gpu tab

boot game using the eboot.bin isinde the usdir folder...

went from 10fps in catherine main menu to 30fps and beyond.

My earlier booting problem was that i was using a bad PSPDATA.BIN (firmware file); i donwloaded one from sony site and game worked correctly (no blank screen).

oh, Library loading set to: Automatic
resolution: 1280x720
aspect ratio: 16:9
frame rate limiter: OFF
VULKAN gpu api

don't think these settings matter but:
input controller: keyboard
keyboard: Fake
Camera: PSEye
Mouse: fake
Region/language: ENGLISH USA
home-brew option: Disabled
sound options: downmix to stereo enabled, nothing else.

gonna try persona 5 now, i think it'll prolly now be playable

 

[aweigh]

not a very good capture i'm afraid, but it's sufficient to showcase the important thing: the game is veyr playable on my rig, which i've already posted above the parts (they were all cheapest possible entry-level cpu/gpu parts).

- during battles I get stable 30fps, regardless of enemies/spell effects

- when running around a high-graffix area, like for example the game's introduction which takes place inside a Casino (flashing lights, lotsa shit, FX all over the place, etc), then i get around 15 fps, stable, not much fluctuation;

- if it's a super-crowded area (i.e. when inside the city) around 10 fps, MAYBE it'll go up a bit, but it depends completely on how much shit (npcs, etc) are doing shit around you in your scene

- the only REAL problem in my eyes is that, perhaps because i don't know all the "tricks", and am using the latest official RPCS3 build: the animated cut-scenes (literally, the anime scenes) and/or the in-game engine graphical cut-scenes vary majorly in whether or not they'll skip, stutter, chug at 5fps, or surprise you and playback at 15-25 fps.

it is playable for sure, and for anyone who doesn't mind skipping a cutscene that won't playback smoothly, and who has patience when doing the quests inside the city (going from A to B and talking to X for Y), the game is completely playable.

I imagine, given the fact CATHERINE runs at a rock solid 25-30fps all the time, that if i buy a core i7 PERSONA 5 will run a lot better.

EDIT: needless to say the recording tool I used this time (DXtory) definitely impacted the fps performance shown in the video, so it plays much smoother than how it appears in that clip. DXTory's much better than BANDICAM, and it's easier to use than OBS plus it comes with the best frame rate limiter / OSD for gaming out of any app out there right now, so I recommend it for sure. I had not explored its recording abilities until now, but they're excellent.

unfortunately I don't think i'll be able to capture a video clip, regardless of what recording tool I utilize, that won't stutter/have low frames per second due to the impact recording has. my rig isn't good enough to handle ps3 emu + recording, so you'll have to take my word on the performance estimates I outlined above.