PCSX2 0.9.4 finally released, ToD2 emulation improves...

[Cless]

I did a brief test with ToD2 last night with the new PCSX2. Half-width text is no longer garbled and both forms of saving appear to now work properly.

This will probably help tremendously when I get back to working on this game. I hope I'll be able to figure out the font size crap, to get that tech menu looking right...

The emulation seems to be a little slower (dungeon/town maps no longer run full speed on my PC) and the graphics/text scaling still seem to be way off, but that's not too important.

Now, if I could obtain a PCSX2 memory card image that's much further into the game than the beginning, that would be a major help as well.

[Cheetah]

That is really great news. The short comings of the previous version definitely were making everything harder and slower. Is there any kind of converter from other kinds of savefiles to PCSX2?

[PacoChan]

Hi, Cless. I have a PCSX2 memory card with a save at the final dungeon. Maybe you are interested in it.

[Cless]

I'll take it. I also have one at the colosseum w/everyone at level 70 but the more, the merrier. Better for testing things.

[PacoChan]

Well, I think it's the same save. I downloaded it from Gamefaqs and it was in the coliseum. But I saved in the final dungeon. So maybe it's basically the same.

[GummySnake]

Cless how far are you in the whole thing???

[Nae]

What is your spec comp specs?

[damarsman]

If you can get a trace and a memory dump you could decode the gpu packet that tells those characters to skew to half size. I messed with dq5 and actually got them to do this. You have to keep an eye out for floating point values in the trace. Contact psxauthor he could probably do it in an hour or so if you told him what x/y position the letter was at and which one you traced.

[Cless]

A memory dump's no problem, but I would give my right leg (not really) to learn how to trace PS2 ASM. How is it done?

[damarsman]

There is a newer debug version of pcsx2. I forgot specifically how to do it but you must have interpreter enabled.

[Cless]

Is that the same thing as the 0.9.5 beta? If that's so, I can't even find a CPU interpreter option...

[damarsman]

Yeah, your 9.5 beta should have a debug menu where you can view ram and stuff. To enable interpreter just go to Config->CPU and turn off the first 3 options which should be enabled by default. Those are dynarec options so turning them off enables interpreter.

Also note that if you want to play your games fast and aren't debugging, enable MTGS and DC mode. You need a dual core for them I'm sure but you'll get like double speed.

[Cless]

Ahh... yeah, I've had all that stuff enabled. I couldn't figure out how to get tracing going though. If you remember, let me know, man!

[damarsman]

Okay let me see if I can explain this the best I can.


Start up PCSX2 in dynarec mode (dual core/recompiler). Make a save state of the place you want to trace. Then rename your save to 00000000.000. Then switch to interpreter mode and load that save. You're first log is probably going to be huge because you don't know a breakpoint to use yet. Go to Debug-> Logging and enable CPU logging and hit OK. Then you have to run it again, by going to Run-> Exec and selecting the ISO again. After a few seconds or whenever you can disable CPU logging in that menu again.  Log should appear in logs/emulog.txt. After seeing the log one time you need to check where the CPU wait location is. That way you can set a breakpoint there for the next log and you'll get much smaller logs. Plus, you'll be able to step through frames.

Also, you may need to use PCSX2 9.2 and Gsdx9. I have confirmed this with these but I've heard it doesn't work with newer versions but I"m sure it's worth a try.

[Cless]

That's a bit weird, but I'll try giving it a shot soon. ToD2 looks terrible in 0.9.2. Thanks.