Donkey Kong 64 Error Report

Hello, and welcome to my first post. I have a couple of questions.

Forst of all, I would like to know if this is a valid way to let the authors of the PJ64 gameFAQ something. That is the purpose of this post.

That actual information is as follows. In the newest release of the GameFAQ, it is stated that the "zipper" effect does not display properly. This effect uses the framebuffer to display correctly. The game runs fine without it.

It is also noted that the game restarts levels at ramdom moments. The main reason this happens stems from a camera related issue. For some reason (especially when zoomed out) the camera in the emuleted version of this game is very jerky at times. I think it is a core issue causing the camera to not properly detect collision with the surroundings. Anywho, if the camera itself goes too far outside of the level or area, the game will restart the level. Nothing is actually lost, it's treated just like a level warp.

I hope this info helps. I'm actually working on an emulation guide for this specific game, so I can address a lot of issues that the game has, and hopefully provide adequate solutions. I'm happy that the game is playable at all at this point.

Hmm.. I got the zipper effect to work fine using the copy framebuffer to RDRAM. Maybe it had to do with something else. I agree on the zipper ports, they are supposed to be transparent. I forgot on that one. However, it doesn't affect gameplay at all.

There is another effect that I'm SURE is fixable using the framebuffer is the effect with bananaports. (the number thingys.) The effect should wipe from one sereen to the other, however without frame buffer effects it looks simply like a wipe to black.

I haven't tried adjusting the CF because I remembered tie old version of the Emu was very picky about changing it for this game. I'll try that, as that has been one of the major concerns.

The only way I've found to keep the intro in sync has nothing to do with syncing to audio and everything to do with refresh rate of the monitor. The timing for it works pretty perfectly with the refresh rate set to 72hz. Don't ask me why, the game just appears to like running at that rate. This I believe also reduces the camera glitches.

Unfortunately, this fix only works on computers (cards rather) that support that mode. I played the game on a different computer and noticed immeadiately that the camera was much prone to glitching and noticed the level restart for the first time. The level restart thing is something they used in development of the game. It is possible on real hardware to unlock a development level to play in, and it resets whenever you walk outside of the boundaries. I guess the game does the same thing if the camera is out of boundaries too, as a safeguard for any falling through ploygons slitches they might have missed.