Star Wars - Rogue Squadron

[Iconoclast]

I just wanted to say that this game is NOT unplayable. The only chance is to use Nemu64 v0.8 with Nemu's default graphics plugin. Disable Audio HLE from under the Debug menu to hear sound. Turn on Force Z Clear in graphics configuration.

You may not be able to see most buildings in-game on the first level, but it IS playable because you can fly your spaceship around and still make a fair attempt to actually aim for beating the first level. Unplayable means you can't play it, and if I'm in-game shooting other ships staying high in the air so that I don't crash into anything, then I'm playing the game.

And I posted this here instead of along with the next release of my documentation (coming up in a minute) because I don't post how to get games working in that thread, just the chm for it.

Also, I may have missed something. Let me know if anyone can find other graphics fixes for anything in the game by enabling various options in the gfx configuration. Another reason to start a thread for open discussion.

Edit: And please, mods, don't get abusive. Don't close the thread and say, wrong forum. This is only one of two forums it could've gone in, and besides, you move threads to the right forum, not freaking close them....

[Trotterwatch]

Yeah this was posted about a while back, indeed I tried it way back then too.

At the time it was a bit slow as well as very glitchy, but I did recommend Lemmy's plugin to many Forgot who it was that found out about this originally though.

/Edit

Never did make it to Level 2, couldn't be bothered was a tad slow too. Does the 2nd level work at all? Can't try it myself due to lack of a proper graphics card.

[Iconoclast]

Oh. I guess someone beat me to it, then.

My prediction is that, if Hacktarux implements an option to disable the expansion pak, Star Wars RS will run even better in Mupen64 than in Nemu64. I could tell because the graphics loaded not only faster but also more of them loaded, or at least in that expansion pak detected screen before Mupen hanged.

There's also a way to get in-game using Rice's 5.9.9 and 6.1.1, but I'm still testing 5.9.9, and until I see an advantage over Nemu's graphics, there is nothing more for me to say.

Edit: I will look into it and reply regarding this sometime today.

[Iconoclast]

I must admit, I overestimated the playability of this game, as I got too impatient of flying around, so I just closed Nemu. I wasn't able to find the rest of the enemy devices, but I shot at least half of them. Therefore, I consider the game barely playable. As for crashing into buildings, I noticed that when you are about to crash into a surface, a very dark shadow appears on the surface. When you are low, try to go at a low speed. When you are high in the air, go as fast as you want.

But I really doubt that Level 2 will crash. Nemu64 is a very stable core and never crashes because of core instability like 1964 and Project64 sometimes do. If there is a crash in this game, it's caused by the graphics plugin, not the emulator, and I still doubt it because the graphics plugin has already gotten very into the game. I don't see what could stop it, unless TMEM emulation is used later on or something, which I doubt.

Anyway, enjoy this MP3 I ripped from the game using Nemu's audio plugin. (Originall a WAV, but converted to MP3 and then trimmed accurately.) Let this mark the birth of playability of the game.

FileSend - SWRS_HLE.MP3

[Lemmy]

Rogue Squadron uses a so called heightfield microcode. So it is able to interprete height fields on the co-processor. The only other game with the same mechanism (to my knowledge) would the other Star Wars game. As all major emus emulate the graphics HIGH LEVEL, there is no chance this game can work unless someone completely manages to simulate the height field stuff OR if we finally get a lle graphics plugin.

I did some special work for Rogue Squadron (it is very unique) but didn't do any of the heightfield stuff. That's why you can see more than with other emus, but still I'd say it is unplayable.

[Iconoclast]

I think it's almost unplayable, because though I can still get in-game and still make a working attempt to shoot all of the droids, I can't see many in-game elements except some buildins, the sky and ground, my ship, and the droids themselves. It seems just roughly playable, but hard to look for the droids, deducting playability though to the point where you can still beat the level with persistence.

Anyway, right this is. I hear Project64 1.7 will have LLE for this game and will turn this game's playability inside out. For now, though, until then, I see no better method than this.

[Trotterwatch]

Yeah LLE works fine on PJ64 1.7 - obviously slow though.

Thanks for the explanation Lemmy, never heard any specifics about this issue until now.

[Clements]

Thanks Lemmy for the explanation. Moreover, as I have said before, and I repeat, Rogue Squadron reaches in-game only, with progression in the game passed the first level all but impossible, and is therefore classified as 'in-game' status, and not 'playable'. That is the classification that is agreed upon by the emulation community to describe a game that fits the following description:

You can get through menus, intro cutscenes / videos, and see ingame graphics, but either due to graphical bugs, crashes, un-resolved errors, you can't play through the entire game.

To use 'Playable' in the context of compatibility for this game is highly misleading, and is therefore definitely the wrong term to use. Playable does imply progression (i.e. the entire game is playable), rather than just reaching in-game (i.e. only some parts of the game are playable due to various problems with the emulation).

You can find more definitions of emulation compatibility terms on PCSX2.net:

PCSX2.net - Compatibility

You will find that 99.9% of the emulation community will agree to the terms used in the above link, and the term that best fits Rogue Squadron using Lemmy's plugin is in-game. Until someone can easily progress to end credits without cheat codes, the game isn't playable.

[olivieryuyu]

Rogue Squadron uses a so called heightfield microcode. So it is able to interprete height fields on the co-processor. The only other game with the same mechanism (to my knowledge) would the other Star Wars game. As all major emus emulate the graphics HIGH LEVEL, there is no chance this game can work unless someone completely manages to simulate the height field stuff OR if we finally get a lle graphics plugin.

I did some special work for Rogue Squadron (it is very unique) but didn't do any of the heightfield stuff. That's why you can see more than with other emus, but still I'd say it is unplayable.

Hmm in LLE it works the same than with Nemu plugin (at least for me).

Lemmy can you explain a bit what is height fields on the co-processor ? Because i really don t see what you mean by this ...

Thanks a lot in advance :-)

[mudlord]

My guess is that he meant that the terrain generator procedurally creates the areas (heightfields, or better known as "heightmaps")in the game on the RCP...but I can be wrong....