Community The Emulation Thread - When That PC Port Just Ain't Happening

Alextended

Segata's Disciple
Jan 28, 2019
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I assume all by AI. I see some errors here and there (a jaggie became a sharp detail on the left part of the hanging cloth) but otherwise, great (best?) results.
 
OP
Theswweet

Theswweet

Dirty Weeb
Mar 12, 2019
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OMFG! CEMU 1.17.4 finally lets us use Multicore Recompiler with Xenoblade Chronicles X and it's FABULOUS!
The screen doesn't have an annoying flicker in New LA or some menu screens anymore, frame drops are less jarring and don't flicker the screen to black and the mega-crunchy sound you got at times is pretty much gone.

They're a damned clever bunch!

I'll have to try OpenGL next as i've been using Vulkan because OpenGL just crashes or glitches out dreadfully whereas Vulkan works.
Been playing it myself, and I've been very impressed with the state of things. Folks were saying that multicore had stability issues, but 5~ hours in I haven't had any yet. Performance is great, minimal graphical issues, etc.

It's really impressive.
 
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Li Kao

It’s a strange world. Let’s keep it that way.
Jan 28, 2019
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I see that the only (?) PS2 core in Retroarch is named 'Play!', is it good ?
 

Parsnip

Riskbreaker
Sep 11, 2018
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The state of PCSX2 just makes me sad.

It's kind of strange to me that the PS2 emulation in general has stagnated the way it has, considering the popularity of the console.
 
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Knurek

OG old coot
Oct 16, 2018
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Yeah, it's such a pity.
World's most popular consoles don't seem to be lucky with emulators, as both PS2 and NDS emulation just sucks ass. :\
 

Knurek

OG old coot
Oct 16, 2018
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Correction: DS has a pretty great emulator on Android, at least.
I'm not installing Bluestacks or Nox just to emulate DS on my PC.
Let's hope the dev follows through with his promise to open-source Drastic this year.
 

FunnyJay

Powered by the Cloud
Apr 6, 2019
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Isn't PCSX2 a quite alright emulator? Or have I missed something? It has always worked when I've tried it.
 

Knurek

OG old coot
Oct 16, 2018
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It's decent-ish, provided you like dabbling with obscure plugin settings and are okay with lack of mature emulator enhancements, like rewind, achievements and the like.
But the code-base is a unmitigated disaster, the emulator is locked to a dying platform and sooner or later will just die once the last of remaining people that sort-of, kind-of understand it will leave the scene.
 
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Durante

I <3 Pixels
Oct 21, 2018
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The state of PCSX2 just makes me sad.

It's kind of strange to me that the PS2 emulation in general has stagnated the way it has, considering the popularity of the console.
Honestly, I think that modern PCSX2 is much better than its reputation.
It has fantastic compatibility, and works full speed on most decent PCs.
I absolutely wouldn't say that the code is a "disaster".

Sure, there are some rather complex advanced settings, but the vast majority of those are a result of the complexity involved in making PS2 games run and display well at higher resolutions and with hardware rendering, not the emulation process itself.

I'm not sure why people are so down on it. An emulator for a system that allows you to play almost any game on it at full speed, and often with better quality than the original (sometimes with a bit of configuring) is a good emulator in my book.
 

Knurek

OG old coot
Oct 16, 2018
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Honestly, I think that modern PCSX2 is much better than its reputation.
It has fantastic compatibility, and works full speed on most decent PCs.
I absolutely wouldn't say that the code is a "disaster".
User experience is okay, great for a power-user like us.
But seriously, how can you say the codebase isn't a disaster for a project that's stuck exclusively on a x86 architecture in 2020?
TLDR: People want to play PS2 games on their phones.
 

Durante

I <3 Pixels
Oct 21, 2018
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That's not a disaster at all. That's simply a lacking feature. It has nothing to do with the quality of the code.
 

KainXVIII

DOS forever!
Dec 19, 2018
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I cannot play Shadow Man 2 even with software rendering, something is not right when emulator can't run game this old.
 

Parsnip

Riskbreaker
Sep 11, 2018
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For a system that came out 20 years ago, it just feels like game compatibility and full speed is such a low bar.
I mean I wouldn't call ePSXe a good emulator either, even though it has a pretty good compatibility and can run games at full speed.

But I guess I should say that rather than the state of PCSX2 itself, it's the state of PCSX2 dev interest that makes me sad.
Like how they started writing progress reports at some point but the covered time kept increasing and last year they wrote one report. It's hard not to compare to Dolphin and how it seems to be trucking along.

I wonder if FF12 cutscene shadow are still broken in hardware mode.
 

Knurek

OG old coot
Oct 16, 2018
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For a system that came out 20 years ago, it just feels like game compatibility and full speed is such a low bar.
I mean I wouldn't call ePSXe a good emulator either, even though it has a pretty good compatibility and can run games at full speed.
I mean, ePSXe has been superseeded by Mednafen (and pSX emulator before that, when it was still developed).
PCSX2 just has no notable competition.
 
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Futaleufu

Laughing Chojin
Mar 14, 2019
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It's decent-ish, provided you like dabbling with obscure plugin settings and are okay with lack of mature emulator enhancements, like rewind, achievements and the like.
But the code-base is a unmitigated disaster, the emulator is locked to a dying platform and sooner or later will just die once the last of remaining people that sort-of, kind-of understand it will leave the scene.
x86 is a dying platform? What?
 
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Knurek

OG old coot
Oct 16, 2018
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Yes, I'm aware. What I mean is that it would be nice for PCSX2 to take advantage of those.
I mean, I had the emulator hit the 4 GB memory limit a bunch of times. Wouldn't be that big of an issue with 64-bit version.
 

EdwardTivrusky

Good Morning, Weather Hackers!
Dec 8, 2018
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WooHoo! FINALLY i have my XX260 Diskbomb with Glitched MSL-MAG augment which will mean nothing to anyone apart from me, probably.
I don't care though, i'm happy as heck!

Basically In Xenoblade Chronicles X there's a weapon called Diskbomb that drops from a specific enemy which has an uncommon level 60 model and an even rarerer augment called Custom.Mag-MSL V which upgrades the number of shots fired and when upgraded and equipped in the Left hand of my mech it glitches and gives me TONS of shots. Nice. Better still if i have a second Diskbomb without the augment in my Right hand then it gets the upgrade too!

OP Thermal Queen Lailah Diskbomb build here i come!




edit: I posted this here as i've posted about CEMU and Xenoblade Chronicles X earlier. So far CEMU has been great with XCX once you get it tuned. 1.17.3 allowed XCX to use multicore recompilers which smoothed things out greatly. I've been trying 1.18.0 but i might go back to 1.17.4 as the sound seems crunchier with 1.18,i'll recheck my config and disable GameDVR first as i was messing about with it earlier today.
 
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Cordelia

MetaMember
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edit: I posted this here as i've posted about CEMU and Xenoblade Chronicles X earlier. So far CEMU has been great with XCX once you get it tuned. 1.17.3 allowed XCX to use multicore recompilers which smoothed things out greatly. I've been trying 1.18.0 but i might go back to 1.17.4 as the sound seems crunchier with 1.18,i'll recheck my config and disable GameDVR first as i was messing about with it earlier today.
Is is still ridiculed with purple textures issue?
 
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Theswweet

Theswweet

Dirty Weeb
Mar 12, 2019
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Is is still ridiculed with purple textures issue?
None that I've seen. The most issues I've had are some minor (really, really minor) texture issues in some portions of NLA. Vulkan also has some flickering in menus occasionally, but if you're fine with 30FPS OpenGL is essentially perfect besides the NLA issue (and the brightness issue, but there's a graphics pack that fixes that)
 

EdwardTivrusky

Good Morning, Weather Hackers!
Dec 8, 2018
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Cordelia As others have said the Purple Textures issue is gone. The issues i get are similar to Theswweet.
  • Main street in NLA Commercial District tanks my framerate - Everywhere else is pretty much solid 30 fps.
  • There's an alternating black square issue with a lot of wall/floor textures in Commercial District.
  • Menu screens can flicker sometimes and sometimes they don't flicker at all.
  • Most of the grass blades in NLA Residential & Commercial areas are scaled too big and are bright white not green.
  • Sound can get a bit crunchy.
  • Shader compilation will sometimes stutter the emulation and with Vulkan it's silent but there's nothing to be done about that so you just have to deal with it. It's also a one-time thing per shader so it eases up as you play the game.

I have 200+ hours in XCX on CEMU and i've not hit any breaking glitches so i'm assuming it's completable. I'll find out in three chapters. I'm using Vulkan as OpenGL glitches out badly on my 2070 for some reason but Vulkan is fine so i use that instead.

I'm using 1.18.0 but i'd say to try 1.17.3 & 1.17.4 if you have any issues.
 
OP
Theswweet

Theswweet

Dirty Weeb
Mar 12, 2019
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Worth noting that the menu flicker is explicitly a Vulkan issue, which may be solved in the future. OpenGL has no such problem.
 

EdwardTivrusky

Good Morning, Weather Hackers!
Dec 8, 2018
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I've minimized the problem by setting shader accuracy to high, i think that's the setting, but it still glitches out now and then. OpenGL is a total mess for me though and sometimes won't even start so i just stick with Vulkan for the moment.

edit: Glitched out Diskbombs with ThermalDMG Up is so good, so so good.
 

Cordelia

MetaMember
Jun 10, 2019
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None that I've seen. The most issues I've had are some minor (really, really minor) texture issues in some portions of NLA. Vulkan also has some flickering in menus occasionally, but if you're fine with 30FPS OpenGL is essentially perfect besides the NLA issue (and the brightness issue, but there's a graphics pack that fixes that)
The purple textures issue has been fixed when the last time I played it like 6+ months ago.
Cordelia As others have said the Purple Textures issue is gone. The issues i get are similar to Theswweet.
  • Main street in NLA Commercial District tanks my framerate - Everywhere else is pretty much solid 30 fps.
  • There's an alternating black square issue with a lot of wall/floor textures in Commercial District.
  • Menu screens can flicker sometimes and sometimes they don't flicker at all.
  • Most of the grass blades in NLA Residential & Commercial areas are scaled too big and are bright white not green.
  • Sound can get a bit crunchy.
  • Shader compilation will sometimes stutter the emulation and with Vulkan it's silent but there's nothing to be done about that so you just have to deal with it. It's also a one-time thing per shader so it eases up as you play the game.

I have 200+ hours in XCX on CEMU and i've not hit any breaking glitches so i'm assuming it's completable. I'll find out in three chapters. I'm using Vulkan as OpenGL glitches out badly on my 2070 for some reason but Vulkan is fine so i use that instead.

I'm using 1.18.0 but i'd say to try 1.17.3 & 1.17.4 if you have any issues.
Thanks, I played it two years ago with Cemu 1.11.0c and other than purple textures and stutter it can be played perfectly until the ending.

I might replay it before Xenoblade DE release.

Btw what about the very low volume problem?
 

EdwardTivrusky

Good Morning, Weather Hackers!
Dec 8, 2018
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I haven't noticed a problem with the audio volume. It seems loud enough for me.

The stuttering will still be present as that's CEMU compiling the shaders against your gfx card when they are first used. They will also return when you update your video drivers and there is no real fix. After an update some people will load a late game save, set game speed to x8 and run around for a while just generating shaders before loading up their current save so they can play with less stuttering. If you want CEMU can display a popup label when OpenGL compiles shaders but Vulkan is silent.

I still get a random Vulkan crash every now and then but as i save often it's not really a problem. I did write a simple .cmd file to 7zip my Save folder with the date-time stamp in the name so i can easily rollback if i save in a stupid place and want to back out or when i start new story chapters etc.
 

Cordelia

MetaMember
Jun 10, 2019
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Cemu Emulator version 1.17.4 just released (3/20/2020) and it allows for Xenoblade Chronicles X to finally be played in more than just Singlecore-recompiler. Before, trying Double or Triplecore-recompiler would result in a black screen, but now the game properly boots. This should allow Xenoblade Chronicles X to possibly perform better on more people's PCs as well as help maintain framerate, specifically with the 60fps patch.
Lol finally after two years they implement multi core recomplier. Will try later after I find my X copy.
I haven't noticed a problem with the audio volume. It seems loud enough for me.
X on Cemu around when I played it has a really bad audio problem. The max volume is so low that you need to dial up your speaker really high.
 

EdwardTivrusky

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Dec 8, 2018
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Well, 1.18.0c without CEMUHook seems to have fixed my framerate massacre in NLA Commercial District in XCX. It's a pretty solid 30 fps eveywhere now with drops to 28-29 instead of 21-22. Thanks for pointing out it was released, Cordelia!
 

Cordelia

MetaMember
Jun 10, 2019
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Well, 1.18.0c without CEMUHook seems to have fixed my framerate massacre in NLA Commercial District in XCX. It's a pretty solid 30 fps eveywhere now with drops to 28-29 instead of 21-22. Thanks for pointing out it was released, Cordelia!
:thumbsupblob:

Try using 60fps patch. I can get 60fps on 1440p with ryzen 3600 and gtx 970.
 

EdwardTivrusky

Good Morning, Weather Hackers!
Dec 8, 2018
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I removed CEMUHook yesterday and today i noticed some of my Graphic Packs for XCX were not applying. I checked the log file and there were compiler errors. I swapped out previous versions of the Graphic Packs and CEMU exe but no joy until i put CEMUHook back and the mods started working again.

tldr; CEMUHook is still needed for some Graphic Pack mods it seems.
 

Alextended

Segata's Disciple
Jan 28, 2019
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New SSF version. SamSho4 that I test with every version still gets missing sprites. Everything else seems spot-on as usual. No other issues encountered yet.
 
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MegaApple

Just another Video Game Enthusiast
Sep 20, 2018
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Anyone tried DraStic on Android?

It's shockingly good! Played many games (including 3D ones like Animal Crossing) and apart from the clunky controls on touch screen, performers wonderfully.
 

low-G

old school cool
Nov 1, 2018
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I noticed TeknoParrot (I know - not emulation, but hey some of the other mainstream emulators aren't full emulators either) got H2Overdrive support... That one's real tempting to me.


I need to set up one of our older desktops as a airgapped system for trying stuff like this.
 
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EdwardTivrusky

Good Morning, Weather Hackers!
Dec 8, 2018
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I seem to have fixed the crackling audio problem i've had using CEMUHook with CEMU 1.18.0c. All it took was to set the CPU Cores from All Available to Odd Cores Only and everything seems much better. I need CEMUHook for some of my XCX Graphic Packs to work unfortunately.

Just working through the post chapter missions before going in to the final stretch. It wil be good to play something else after only playing XCX for a few weeks but i do love this game so i have no regrets :D
 

Cordelia

MetaMember
Jun 10, 2019
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I seem to have fixed the crackling audio problem i've had using CEMUHook with CEMU 1.18.0c. All it took was to set the CPU Cores from All Available to Odd Cores Only and everything seems much better. I need CEMUHook for some of my XCX Graphic Packs to work unfortunately.

Just working through the post chapter missions before going in to the final stretch. It wil be good to play something else after only playing XCX for a few weeks but i do love this game so i have no regrets :D
Which graphic packs that doesn't work without CEMUHook?