1.5 game pauses

[Smiff]

ok ive talked to Jabo about this, i didnt' want to get technical without checking i wasn't wrong about what was happening (either I'm not, or Jabo is aswell). Basically to help weaker cards and keep things clean the plugin is starting to release textures gradually much earlier (when the card is less full, e.g. at 40% rather than 80% memory use). This was optimised hugely but it still takes some time. Mario Kart 64 (to take a good example) jerks because when you start playing the game you've just been through some enormous menus, you play on a bit, cache fills, plugin notes menus aren't being used, starts to dump them. You have to release textures at some point, this is an unavoidable part of N64 HLE. It's really not a huge problem, but we agree there could be some room for improvement. (or in other words: v1.5 is trying to be too clever... v1.4 just waited for the card to fill and then thought about clearing some space). So i dunno yet, we'll mull this over for a bit, no hurry...

 

[64ultramaniac]

just discussing here,why Jabo wanted to go with this method when the old one worked so well,just to help the weaker cards?I think the key phrase is trying to be too clever indeed.From the way I see it, as I had the chance to test many games,the whole feel that I got is this,that even my GF4ti4200 didn't "enjoy" what was happening.Even if some games could got away with it,the general feeling was still that something isn't right...

 

[Smiff]

well he was trying to get out of a cycle of rapid filling and releasing in games like Killer Instinct.. which didn't totally work either.. so like i said just wait while we think about it and try stuff.. this stuff is not quite as simple as i made out in my last post... an update is not out of the question at the moment... carry on posting details if you want, it might help us to see something.

 

[64ultramaniac]

maybe are not so simple but at least makes some sence now,thanx.I just wanted an answer (just an answer,nothing else heh) to this cos I don't know,this is the first time since PJ64 1.0 that something really seemed very strange to me,I just couldn't figure out why,but anyway this is not so easy stuff so we'll definately wait about that.

 

[cooliscool]

Operating System: WinXP Pro
CPU type and speed: AMD K6-2 500@550 (write allocation, CXT core)
Total system RAM: 192MB
Approx. RAM free before starting PJ64: ~101-106MB

Graphics card chipset: Nvidia GeForce 4 MX 420
Graphics card total RAM: 64MB
Graphics card driver: 23.12

Approx. how often do the pauses occur? every 5 or so seconds
Approx. how long do the pauses last? about a millisecond and a half

State 3 examples of games that DO have the problem: Banjo-Tooie, Rush 2049, Banjo-Kazooie
State 3 examples of games that do NOT have the problem: F-zero, Mario, Zelda (cept high traffic areas, still, it's more bearable than the pauses in the above games)

Does using the v1.4 video plugin solve the problem? [Yes]
Does loading from a state save solve the problem? [No]



Mostly the pauses are in games like banjo-tooie and when fighting in the zeldas, other than that it's mostly smoother than a baby's ass.
j64:

 

[64ultramaniac]

another thing that I had posted many days ago in the feedback thread is that if you try to end emulation when such a pause occurs it might freeze the emulator.Also I strongly believe that this is the reason and for the general freezes that I hadn't seen before and quite frankly I was surprised...

 

[jollyrancher]

Yeah, the bitch was so surprised becaue Smiff, Jabo and Team are untouchable... and it's hard freaking work... and no one can even touch the plugins... the plugins have now defined pj64... because the core is perfect as far as I care... and what emulators have plugins now???? Nothing compares... the fear lives in those who want to "emulate" this emulator.... pausing 1.5 fix is imminent... be the end of you all... and my girlfriend Heidi says thanx for getting Wave Race going cool... she drives that pink jetski and you guys are sweet... God bless....

 

[64ultramaniac]

Yeah, the bitch was so surprised becaue Smiff, Jabo and Team are untouchable... and it's hard freaking work... and no one can even touch the plugins... the plugins have now defined pj64... because the core is perfect as far as I care... and what emulators have plugins now???? Nothing compares... the fear lives in those who want to "emulate" this emulator.... pausing 1.5 fix is imminent... be the end of you all... and my girlfriend Heidi says thanx for getting Wave Race going cool... she drives that pink jetski and you guys are sweet... God bless....

can you explain what you mean in this post?Unless you afraid to do so...I'm waiting for an answer...

 

[bositman]

Do you think you have the pausing problem? [Yes]

Operating System:Windows XP Professional(without SP1)
CPU type and speed: PIII 1Ghz
Total system RAM:320mb sdram
Approx. RAM free before starting PJ64:~200

Graphics card chipset:GeForce 2 GTS
Graphics card total RAM:32mb sdram
Graphics card driver:28.32 detonator drivers

Approx. how often do the pauses occur? in the first 1 min and then randomly
Approx. how long do the pauses last? 1-20sec

State 3 examples of games that DO have the problem:MarioKart(Setting the game to protect memory solves the issue ),StarFox
State 3 examples of games that do NOT have the problem:Zelda 1,Castlevania,Pokemon Stadium1,2

Does using the v1.4 video plugin solve the problem? [Yes]
Does loading from a state save solve the problem? [Yes]

Ive also discovered that in EVERY game affected that ive tested the pauses always start after 40-60sec of pure gameplay(when you actually play) Hope this helps

 

[jombee]

on my system (specs listed on page 1) setting mario kart to protect memorty does not eliminate the pausing. Also, loading from a saved state only seems to delay the start of the pausing, it definately does not fix it.

 

[64ultramaniac]

Yeah, the bitch was so surprised becaue Smiff, Jabo and Team are untouchable... and it's hard freaking work... and no one can even touch the plugins... the plugins have now defined pj64... because the core is perfect as far as I care... and what emulators have plugins now???? Nothing compares... the fear lives in those who want to "emulate" this emulator.... pausing 1.5 fix is imminent... be the end of you all... and my girlfriend Heidi says thanx for getting Wave Race going cool... she drives that pink jetski and you guys are sweet... God bless....

who you calling bitch eh?You lamer,your sarcastic comments for Project64 and the PJ team are not needed here.So if you don't like some things,do us a favour and get the h*ll out of here.Simple as that.

 

[ShadowFX]

I know this has got nothing to do with the pausing issue, but I'll notice this anyway:

In Mario Kart (U) [!], when you finished the last Course (Rainbow Road) and watching the credits, I noticed that the video is going much faster than the audio. Which will result in the audio (music) will still be running when mario says: "Hey, you're very good... see ya next time!". Info: Everything is running in sync.

 

[CraigG]

I've been visiting these forums for what seems like 2 years, but have never had the need to post until now, as the info on this board is normally very helpful.

Anyway,
The new PJ1.5 and Jabo's 1.5 are definately causing a lot of pausing problems.

I have found the worst to be Jet Force Gemini.
Just standing still in an open space, and the frame rate jumps anywhere from 39 to 61, and random fps in between those numbers. And thats doing nothing at all.

Looking at what Jabo told smiff regarding texture cacheing, I would of thought it would be great on the newer GF4 cards.
And I have the hardware to run this in it's sleep.

Athlon XP 2ghz on a 150 bus
Epox 8kha+
1 gig PC2700 RAM
MSI Ti4600 o/c 315/700
SBLive Platinum
WinXP Pro detonater 40.41 + WinME Detonater 30.82

I must admit, the more you mess with the settings while a game is running, the worse the pausing gets. To an extent that you have to restart PJ64.
And continually driving around in Mario64 to try and cache the textures, made no difference

But Jabo's a clever guy and I'm sure he'll come up with a solution, as I think the main PJ core is almost perfect.

 

[Smiff]

CraigG

1) your hardware is not that great, it's just a good PC - the rules don't change for systems a few hundred Mhz faster when we're dealing with programming that makes orders of magnitude differences

2) if you're having huge fluctuations when standing still it's some other problem, probably your system, no one else has complained of this.

 

[Smiff]

64ultramaniac, i think the guy was being genuine actually, but whatever, just let it go eh

 

[RJA]

PJ64 1.5 pausing

I have some, but not major:

Goldeneye 007 and Perfect Dark, for me pauses the most often,
but with Perfect Dark, only a little more often than with
version 1.4 and seems to go away after approximately
2 minutes.

Snowboard Kids (1) does it a littile bit too, and don't recall this
with PJ64 1.2 or 1.4

Super Mario 64: not tested

Harvest Moon 64: seems to be OK

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time: only seems to do it once per game session

 

[64ultramaniac]

heh maybe I have to be less sensitive in such stuff but I don't think you would really appreciate it if someone was coming from nowhere and called you like this (except of course he meant something else). And I can't see any "genuine guy" there.We're coming here cos we supposed to have some fun not to hear insulting or even racist comments from people we don't even know and never had anything personal with them. But anyway I really don't want to waste any more time for this but some things never change...
And I have to agree there with GraigG,cos as I have posted again many days ago on the feedback thread I've seen that in some games, when these pauses begin to happen you then get'em even if you press start and pause the game.In ExtremeG for example,play a time trial or whatever and after you get the first pause press start to pause the game,and you will see that the plugin will still pause in times (you can see that by the dropping frames).

 

[CraigG]

Smiff,

Is there any need to get soo touchy ?

I'm just trying to put some problems that I'm having, out to the public via the forum.

And I think my PC is pretty damn good actually. How many people do you know with 1 gig of ram and a Ti4600 ?

If I didn't put my specs down, you would only moan about that :!!!:

And where have I said that I'm making any rules ?

And it's nothing to do with my system, I'm a freaking PC engineer for god sake, I know WTF I'm doing thankyou.

It's PJ's and Jabo's fault, accept that.

Sheesh,
Take a chill pill.

 

[Smiff]

CraigG, there is a need to get touchy, but not with you, sorry. It's surprisingly hard to get good information, so aswell as working out what's wrong, i'm trying to work out what to believe, which is not easy with something so complicated and contradicatory messages, you can hopefully understand. It should be clear from this thread that i am not denying any problem, but it's clear that none of us have any obligation to take action, so the responsibility is also with users to provide information here, as you have done, appreciated.

 

[bositman]

Hmm CraigG has a point there..i mean whats better from a GF4 ti4600 +1000mb ram with a powerfull Athlon xp 2Ghz?