Banjo-Tooie stability discussion

[ScottJC]

Hmm, Banjo-tooie still crashed in-game, however I turned advanced block linking off, how annoying.

 

[Smiff]

ScottJC, what do you mean, it hangs when you disable ABL or with it on? does it hang permanently, need pause/resume, or just pause and resume itself? where in the game does this happen? thanks

edit: also if someone could attach a native save from BanjoT (late or lateish in game) that would be great, i cant get the save out of my cart atm.

 

[ScottJC]

It hanged, while playing the game, I set ABL off before I started playing, I like a smooth play. I doubt ABL is responcible. I was playing full screen, it wouldn't respond to me so I had to end the task or no computer!

But this is hardly new to me, all project64 capable of Banjo Tooie has had this issue, it just randomly crashes, So 1964 0.8.5 is the only alternative, it never crashed on me once.

 

[Smiff]

right Beta7b upped, had another go at Tooie. "it just randomly crashes" is not a good enough ending point for us, but there are issues that may not be fixable... or they may, we really need accurate feedback. the game is a nightmare to test.

 

[Gent]

If you could start a new game and play through to test stability or any other issues it would help us determine the correct assessment for this game, Thanks you

 

[4real]

I have been testing banjo Tooie for a long time and these points might help with fixes.

It seems that it crashes mostly when collecting things and certain Worlds.

Start of the game will crash when collecting the cheat book page's or if you are near the cheat book page's also when collecting Blue eggs.

Pteradactyl Land seems to crash more Random but you are near objects that can be collected near by when the crash seems to happen.

The game can crash on the teleport pads in each world as well.

If you transfer a save state from 1964 into pj64 the game tends not to crash as much or not at all.(most of the time not at all)


Been Playing Tooie for a good few hours not one crash at the moment using 1.5.2 gfx plugin.

Still doing testing and no problems so far.

Attached Tooie save thats later into the game.

 

[ScottJC]

right Beta7b upped, had another go at Tooie. "it just randomly crashes" is not a good enough ending point for us, but there are issues that may not be fixable... or they may, we really need accurate feedback. the game is a nightmare to test.

Well how much more accurate could I be? The crashes never happens in the same place and always at different times while in-game, Project64 1.5 did this as well. I would assume its down to Banjo-Tooie's copy-protection scheme.

This is what i'd call an "in-game random crash", and obviously It can't be down to ABL being off (the only setting I changed) as another user has these problems as well. I don't think there is any solid definite point in the game that will lock up when you get there.

The only way to test for these crashes is to play through the game normally until it happens, then when it does the emulator seems to completely lock up, it will not respond to keyboard commands, only Alt+F4 worked.

There is simply no way I could be more accurate because I do not know how the internal of Project64 works nor do I know how this rom works. All I can tell you is that it happens in-game at random times. Usually around about 10-20 minutes in.

I also do not think it is related to the video plugin because I was running it on 1964 0.8.5 with Jabo's latest plugin and I never experienced 1 crash. Which leads me to believe however 1964 deals with the copy protection may be better than how Project64 handles it.

But for that theory to be accurate Jet force gemini would have to have random crashes too, but then again it had less encryption didn't it? hmmm..

 

[Lillymon]

I sometimes get Banjo-Tooie freezes too, but they seem somewhat less severe for me. I just hit F1 to reset the game and load a savestate. Once I do, I can continue doing what I was doing without it freezing. I've never had the whole program freeze on me.

I also managed to get some of this while playing Goldeneye 007 too for some reason. That's only frozen twice while Banjo-Tooie has frozen a lot more, but I've played a lot less of it than Banjo-Tooie, so that's only to be expected.

 

[Smiff]

should probably create a seperate thread because this is getting all BT devoted
ok i got someone to play BT on one of my machines where i could observe. used beta7b rdb + abl off (definately recommended for fast enough machines).

no hangs in transitions (moving between worlds). this is where copy protection would be an issue, if it was, which it isn't.
very occasional hangs, average about one per hour and half play, no obvious cause, where the game stops, but the app isn't hung. pressing F1 to reset rom and then load last state always worked. as Lillymon just said. so i'd like to get to the bottom of this but it's better than i was expecting.
the hangs that 4real reports when entering/leaving areas is not something i or anyone else here can replicate, i suspect may be hardware (most likely video card) related... if he could try on a better graphics card to confirm this issue that would be appreciated.

 

[ScottJC]

This has been a core issue for quite a while now, I'm glad that finally we've got a member of the project64 team who believes my claims about it

I guess its not really such a problem because there is an alternative, however it is annoying considering Project64 1.6 has great timing with this rom. [probably thanks to DK64].

I have experienced hangs while characters are talking, when entering mumbo's skull once, actually most of the time it has hung is when a character was talking actually. Like it tried to load a string into memory from the rom and then just rolled over and died. I am not sure but I also think sometimes when you pick an item up it does it [maybe because it's loading sound]... it could be a copy protection issue if the sounds or text aren't loaded in immediately after level loading.

 

[Smiff]

If you transfer a save state from 1964 into pj64 the game tends not to crash as much or not at all.(most of the time not at all)

this is a very interesting statement.. do you mean from 1964 to PJ64 (not vice-versa)? do you mean a state save (not a native save?)
if so, how early in the game can such a state be made (e.g. at the title screen, at the in-game save select screen?)

 

[Smiff]

I guess its not really such a problem because there is an alternative, however it is annoying considering Project64 1.6 has great timing with this rom. [probably thanks to DK64].

DK64 never hangs, correct?

 

[4real]

Not sure if its a vid hardware problem as the plugin's work fine in 1964 0.8.5 plus all my testing is done on diffrent machines with diffrent graphics card using onboard,Ati and Geforce cards.

MY main point was that it can tend to crash at these points but still crashes in diffrent place's.

Ive been testing pj64 1.6 with 1.5.2 gfx plugin and beta7b and its not crashed at all yet and still going.

 

[Smiff]

btw this is offtopic, but the mid-distance fade/in out of game objects (presumably done for performance reasons on the real N64) does not happen with the emulator, correct? (where it does on the console).

 

[4real]

this is a very interesting statement.. do you mean from 1964 to PJ64 (not vice-versa)? do you mean a state save (not a native save?)
if so, how early in the game can such a state be made (e.g. at the title screen, at the in-game save select screen?)

Played game on 1964 to later on in the game then changed the save in 1964 folder to BANJOTOOIE.eep.

The pop the save into pj64 save folder then when start pj64 all save's are there.

The game tends to not crash as much try the save ive uploaded early on as this was played on a 1964 then changed the name so it can be played in pj64.

Still no crash using 1.5.2 gfx and default settings ( great speed and close to the real thing.)

 

[4real]

Still playing fine 6hours not one crash so far using 1.5.2 gfx this is the best i have ever played with pj64 without a crash.

 

[I_love_Link]

I dunno what you guys are on about I finished banjo tooie on the previous version of Project 64 and it didn't hang once.

 

[Smiff]

I dunno what you guys are on about I finished banjo tooie on the previous version of Project 64 and it didn't hang once.

we've got people saying the issue isn't new, but do you mind please re-testing (it means playing for at least a few hours) on v1.6? i should also play on 1.5, which i never did.

also if everyone could include their system specs, just might be system related.

 

[ScottJC]

That raises an interesting question, my system has changed drastically since project64 1.5 and I haven't actually tried to use it, I wonder, if my Athlon XP 2400+ (with SiS chipset motherboard) had something to do with project64 1.5 crashing.

I'll test Project64 1.5 with this system, sometime when I've got the time to do so. heh.

 

[RJARRRPCGP]

I was also wondering if the game crashes can also be video card related. If you also get the same type of crashes in 3D Mark 2001 SE or other Direct3D games, it's probably video card related. For people OC'ing thier video cards, they should lower their clock speeds then run the game again.