Problem with GFX - Audio Sync :-(

[shankzx43r]

Hello all. Just out of today I've been experiencing some odd occurrances using Project 64 v1.5 (+Service Pack). The people I've consulted have no ideas, and even the nice people at #emutalk on IRC are stumped and referred me to post here.

It's a joint problem, but directly with Project 64 in mind as I've grown accustomed to it over the months. 1964 ceases to work for me as well, which I downloaded to try and discover the cause of my problem(s).

First off I have NOT installed any recent Software/Hardware since it last worked. No one has access to my computer other than myself. At 9 PM last night it worked flawlessly (all the games mentioned below) and this morning is when trouble arrived.

Onto the problem, on games such as Banjo-Kazooie and Donkey Kong 64 with long, musical intros in the beginning, the audio gets entirely out of sync with the graphics. Before you ask, YES I do enable "Sync game to Audio" in Jabo's DirectSound 1.5. I use all the default plugins (Jabo), I've tried reinstalling (removed all registry elements) and, of course, rebooting several times.

---Possibilities in my mind:
1) Rom corrupted itself (this possible?)
2) Hardware is dying (but everything else works fine EXCEPT Project 64 and 1964)

One thing that confuses me to no extent is that Perfect Dark still works flawlessly as before... how is this possible with all its cutscenes and such?

---The following problems with these select games occur:

1) Banjo-Kazooie - Once Banjo pulls out his instrument in the intro (a banjo, coincidentally) the graphics lag a little (Banjo stand there momentarily, going about 50 fps), music skips FAR FAR AHEAD and the music finishes long before (20 seconds late, consistently) the actual graphical intro ends.

2) Banjo-Tooie - Everything is fine except the action move sound effects being delayed by half a second, tops. This tells me it's *NOT only a problem with musical intros*

3) Donkey Kong 64 - Entirely similar problem to that of Banjo-Kazooie. As soon as the "DK RAP" intro starts, the music lags far behind, finishing over an entire minute before the graphics do.

NOW, for 1964, the problems seem even odder, scaring me even further thus forcing me to find out exactly what's wrong

For ALL the games 1964 SAYS "PLAYABLE!" with a corressponding suggested plugin, WHICH I USE.

I used the exact same plugins with 1964 that I did the night before with Project 64.

1) Banjo-Kazooie - Has some yellow letters on the top right on the GAME ITSELF with *the numbers "2002"*(I see them appear briefly on Project 64 as well, but only flashing whenever the game loads) with 2 sets of random, 3 digit number underneath it (alternating very quickly between 736 and 552) - *What is this...?*

2) Banjo-Tooie - Appear next to some water hole in Spiral Mountain upon start up... only screen that it shows, START button does not work... NOTHING.

3) Donkey Kong 64 - Graphics go insanely fast (I'd guess 90-110 fps), BUT the fps rate on the bottom right corner STABALIZES at 59-60 fps... but it goes faster than it says.

NO OTHER ROMS WHEN USING 1964 HAVE MUSIC... none at all, on any game (I got 5 of them: BK, BT, DK, SM64, and Perfect Dark)

Lastly, these ARE GoodN64 verified ROMS, the European (I downloaded it just for clarity) version of Banjo-Kazooie AND Donkey Kong 64 have the *exact* same problems.

PLEASE! I need to figure this out... and I'm pretty illiterate when it comes to this. I need to play in peace again... emulation is so fun on the computer :'(.

Thanks in advance, and I apologize for the long post but I wanted to get EVERYTHING out first try.

 

[Trotterwatch]

I can't really offer any advice on this for the moment at least, but I will have a think about what it could be.. pretty odd though.

A suggestion: Put your system specs into your sig, or into your post - as they really are needed

 

[ScottJC]

These are a couple of things that spring to mind but don't answer all your questions.

Donkey Kong 64 is not playable no matter what PJ64 and 1964 say, they have too big a problem with timing. Donkey kong 64 never worked flawlessly, nor did Banjo-Tooie.

You cannot use Jabo's Direct Sound with 1964, it simply does not work. use Amizers 0.40Beta2 audio plugin with 1964. you can get it from one of the earlyier versions of 1964, can't remember which.

Banjo-tooie has huge sync problems with the main intro, this is a known problem.

Banjo-kazooie and Banjo-tooie has small timing problems in PJ64, you'll notice in BK the camera is quite shaky. 1964 does not have these problems.

Jabo's DirectSound does not use the same settings for all roms, so if you select it to sync in one rom it won't sync in another, so you have to set those settings as well.

the 2002 appearing in Banjo-Kazooie is I believe supposed to be covered up by unemulated frame buffer effects.

As for the 1964 banjo-tooie problems you need to copy RSP.dll to 1964's plugin directory and enable use RSP in the change plugins dialog. then banjo-tooie will load, however, you need to use the basic sound plugin to get audio in this rom, even then, sound WILL lag and be choppy.

 

[shankzx43r]

...
......
This is solid PROOF that this is the best Emulation board around. 16 minutes for 2 responses... *is speechless*

Thank you so much for all the help and advice.

As for the system specs... I'm relatively new and such, so I don't even know how I'm supposed to go about obtaining a list of sorts... I'd do it if I knew how.

The one thing that still roams my mind is that they DID work near-perfectly just last night... and now... :'(.

My only question that seems to remain is simply: How, with various strategies, can I fix this problem as far as you people know? All I ask is for stuff to *try*... I refuse to give up. I'm not asking for a miracle.

Now that Banjo-Kazooie DOES work with 1964, it actually has the SAME EXACT problem that Project 64 has with it. Doesn't play any better OR worse.

Could this mean it's a hardware problem now? After all, I'm using Azimer's plugin on 1964 and Jabo on Project 64, and it still has the same problems even though different plugins

---Oh, and one more thing: It's truly almost scary how much help I've needed lately and what you people have provided. Keep it up forever!

 

[Trotterwatch]

To get the basic system specs we need go to:

Start>Run>Dxdiag

In the first box you will find:

Processor Speed
Operating System
Direct X version
Memory

Then go to the display tab, and your graphics card should be listed next to adaptor - typically it will say, Nvidia GeForce, ATI Radeon, Intel810 etc

Then do go to the Audio tab (I think) to get the sound card.

One thing that may be worth trying is going into Dxdiag and turning off sound acceleration temporarily to see if that changes the sound at all - probably not likely.

I'd also check the task manager in the CTRL ALT DEL menu to see if any processes are taking too much CPU time (you'll only see this on an NT OS though).

Edit//

If you want to you could always go to Dxdiag and click the save all information tab at the bottom, and then attach the saved file (less than 50k typically) to your post.

 

[shankzx43r]

Sorry!

Very sorry for not responding with my specs for a while. I am STILL having the same overall problem.

On Banjo-Kazooie and Donkey Kong 64, only a few seconds into the musical intro, the music gets far out of sync with the video. It worked fine just 2 days ago, and I have NOT changed/added anything to my computer since then, as if this problem came out of nowhere.

My specs:

Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition (5.1, Build 2600)
Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.40GHz
512MB RAM
DirectX 8.1 (4.08.01.0810)
NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 420 64MB (All 3 Enabled)
SoundMAX Digital Audio (Full Acceleration)

Any further assistance is VERY much appreciated, and I thank you for what you've done so far as it is.