Relationships are hard. It's like a full time job, and we should treat it like one. If your boyfriend or girlfriend wants to leave you, they should give you two weeks' notice. There should be severance pay, and before they leave you, they should have to find you a temp." -- Bob Ettinger
"After a really long period of silence, we're back with a bang!
Today we are announcing the release of PCSX2 Playground 1.0.0395
Born as a 'playground' test-bed for PCSX2 modifications and code, the
Playground project evolved into much more, over a period of about 4
months.
Created by Air (aka Jake Stine), arcum42, cottonvibes, drkIIRaziel, rama and tested by Krakatos, the team would like to thank:
- the original PCSX2 development team, to the betatesters and
to everyone that helped them. Without their work, PCSX2 would not
exist, and neither would the Playground project!
- the PCSX2 team once more for graciously hosting our forums.
- the PCSX2 team once again for providing hosting space
- Gigaherz for the render used in the playground logo
- all the people who tried the various Playground revisions over these months, providing us with helpful feedback
- everyone else who supported Playground, without you all this would have not been possible!
The PCSX2 team decided to support this project by having the official
betatesters also test it and hosting their binary and forum, since
they've been doing some great job.
You can grab the new binary which includes a plugin pack (and a heavily
modified SPU2Ghz for your sound pleasure!) in our download section here.
For more information, check the dedicated forum here
Also, today we open our new official forums, hosted right here at pcsx2.net
We would like to thank Bobbi and the NGemu network for hosting our forums for so long!
Our new forum is totally dedicated to PCSX2 and has sections for the
official release, the public beta, plugins and the playground build.
We hope you enjoy it, you can visit by clicking here
Note: Your verification email might end up in junk mail, please check there! Note2: We moved our official SVN repository from sourceforge to Google Code: http://code.google.com/p/pcsx2/
Good luck to the PCSX2 and PG teams with these great updates.
» You may download the Playground build 1.0.0395 from here
» Check out the new forum for everything PCSX2:
-> http://forums.pcsx2.net/
Gabest, the author of the wonderful PS2 plugin called GSdx, has now released a CDVD plugin for public consumption. Not much is known ATM, but PCXL-Fan has a little something to say about how well this plugin works:
Cut scenes are alot faster compared to peops as is startup time for games.
Compared to peops what I found was:
Tales of Legendia Opening sequence more than doubled in frame rate.
FF12 opening sequence was 75% - 100% faster.
Dragon Quest 8 opening sequence FPS were about 50% faster and weren't nearly as erratic.
Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence Disk 2 Intro sequence is exactly the same speed.
Note: dual layer not supported yet, iso file must have 2048 byte blocks.
» Thanks to raziel1000 for the heads up
» Download CDVD by Gabest 0.1.0 here
» The latest info on all of Gabest's plugins can be found in this thread
Gabest released another version for his GPU plugin for PCSX2, GSdx. As usual, no specific changelogs available, "only" a hefty number of fixes and improvements, judging from people's feedback in this thread
Note: recent DirectX runtimes may prove necessary. DirectX can be updated through the Web Updater or the up-to-date DirectX installer
Once again, Nherve came up with a nicely performing plugin for plugin-based emulators. This time, an HDD plugin for PCSX2. Here's what Nherve says on his results so far:
"As the title says, you'll have a HDD plugin very soon. I already got my
plugin to work, but there're a few issues that I must resolve before
releasing. Before, it didn't work, but I was using a size of 2 GBs,
when changing to 8 Gbs, it worked (yes, HDD size is selectable).
1 - HDLoader always prompts me for formatting, no matter if the HDD is
already formatted. Maybe this is because I don't emulate EEPROM, maybe
it's a bug with saves. Any tip will be welcome.
2 - The CDVD plugins don't support changing DVD while PCSX2 is running,
so I can't copy any game on my emulated HDD. I think I'll have to
either modify an existing plugin or write my own.
But, when these issues will be solved, I'll release this plugin.
Feel free to tell if you think a HDD plugin would be useful or not."
Check out this thread for updates on Nherve's HDD plugin
Seems like a good day for plugin releases: Over in this thread, ChickenLiver released an update to his excellent PS2 pad plugin LilyPad, v0.9.2. Packed with tons of features, this one is mostly a bugfix release to resolve some of the issues with the last version - let's take a look at the change log:
Bug that, when mouse mode wasn't set to disabled, slowed PCSX2 window resizing and could cause crashes fixed.
Added "1D" force feedback option. Some devices need it checked for force feedback to work, others won't work properly with it checked. Also added a 2D option, but as of yet, doesn't seem to help anybody.
I now initialize DirectInput devices later in the process of starting the emulator. Seems to get around some occasional issues with devices not being initialized correctly.
Added a workaround for large fonts appearing in configuration screens when Windows display settings are messed up.
Quitting with Alt-F4 should no longer change the skip mode.
Whammy up/down buttons added to guitar page.
"Sensitivity" label replaced with "Vibration" when dealing with force feedback. Also a couple even more minor changes to the interface.
Looks like this plugin has grown into one of the best around - great work on this release. Now if this just had a proper name ...
» Go ahead and download LilyPad v0.9.2
» Leave your experiences with this new version over in this thread.
Better late than never: While I was browsing Emuforums today, I came across a post by NHervé, author of the plugin Megapad. In this post, he released a plugin for all Buzz players out there, which allows you to connect the buzzers directly to your PCs USB port and enjoy this fine game (which works great in PCSX2 btw) with the original input devices on your PC!
Here is an explanation on how to use this plugin taken directly from the post:
Download the plugin mod in the attachments.
Plug your buzzers into any USB port of your PC (don't expect using your keyboard, it's done in order to avoid piracy).
Launch PCSX2. The console should say "Buzzers found !!!" and each buzzer lamp should be tested. If not, tell me.
Launch the game. Everything is automatic, buttons and lamps should work fine, I tested myself.
Note : when you close PCSX2, the lamps of the buzzers may keep switched on. Replug your buzzers if you don't want that.
Once again, excellent work NHervé, I'll certainly give this one a try during our next party at home!
After all these great plugin updates, the PCSX2 team has also updated the public beta page with a new SVN beta version of v0.9.5 with the internal number 377. Please keep in mind that these betas are untested and by far not as stable as the major releases and, further more, are unsupported on the forums. Now let's see what has been changed in this release:
Improved handling of VU flags, fixes SPS on Dark Cloud/Chronicle, God of War and stops the falling through the floor problem on Metal Gear Solid 3.
FPU Fixes for ordering errors (text on Tales of Legandia)
While support isn't available, you can discuss the latest beta in this thread - make sure to read the rules in the first post though!
Gabest, author of the popular GSdx graphic plugin for PS2 emulators, has recently published a new input plugin for thoese of you who enjoy using controllers from other systems with your favorite PS2 emulator called Xpad.
As the name suggest, the plugin utilizes Microsofts Xinput driver to enable X-Box 360 controllers to be used with PCSX2. You need to have at least Windows XP SP1 together with these installed in order to get this plugin working - it's not working with other input devices.
Over in this thread, gigaherz has been quite busy in the past weeks with new releases of his PS2 sound plugin SPU2ghz, which meanwhile increased it's version counter to v1.9r2. This is an experimental release, but all PCSX2 should still go ahead and give it a try, as it comes with some great new features - let's take a look at the changelog for v1.9:
Added Timestretching feature. Added part of the SoundTouch library files.
Added Winamp DSP plugin support.
Added Limiter toggle key (defaults to [Numpad -]
Completely replaced the sound buffering system in the output modules with a centralized one.
Fixed a few bugs in the savestates: Now the savestats can be used (and seem to work).
Some changes to the mixer.
Removed FMod output. Didn't give any improvement over DSound or XAudio2 and added lad.
Updated config dialog to reflect some of the previous changes.
Updated the copyright notices in each file.
Release 2 adds a new experimental mixer with better volumes and removes some unnecessary debug information. As it's still a beta, make sure to leave your feedback for it over in this thread!
Gabest has recently been busy with his excellent graphic plugin GSdx for PS2 emulators and updated his plugin to v0.1.8! This release gives users much more speed in many games, as well as game fixes which are available for this plugin. Here is what gabest posted about this version:
Many core functions were rewritten since the last release, and the sw renderer is multiple times faster. I did not compare the speed of the d3d renderer, maybe that also gained a few fps. Game specific fixes are tedious to make, I don´t really have time to check all uploaded .gs, but I will eventually.
Especially the software renderer seems to have speeden up - and current development for the next version seems to go towards even more speed, though that remains to be seen upon release.
Another public beta from the PCSX2 team. Following the earlier IPU update announcement, a new build with significantly improved compatibility has been uploaded, with a number of games advancing to playable status.
Notable changes in revision 351:
- FFX Videos work again
Including the fixes from 349:
- Massive compatability increase on videos, many should now work without
freezing, skipping or macroblocking, as mentioned in the recent news
post.
A quick update on the status of PCSX2. This time, video playback has been improved, and thus, the compatibility for a number of games has improved to playable status.
From Refraction:
"Yes the IPU (video side of PCSX2) has been updated by none other than Saqib!
You might be asking what this will bring to the table? Well im sure as
many of you know, videos in PCSX2 suffered from Macroblocking (Corrupt
squares appearing all over the place) or videos freezing randomly. Well
thanks to Saqib for his marvelous work, many games no longer suffer
from these symptoms. Here is a quick rundown of some of the games fixed.
Atelier Iris - Grand Phantasm
Ayumi Hamasaki - A Visual Mix
Bully
Graffiti Kingdom
Many Growlanser games
Monster Hunter
Resident Evil 4
Simple Series Videos
Soul Calibur 3
The Simpsons
and many more...
In light of these changes a lot of games have been improved to a playable status or had their stability increased!
The code is in SVN, do NOT ask for help on the forums. If you guys are
lucky, i might be nice enough to compile a new beta very soon."
»
Check out PCSX2's homepage
»
Discuss this update in this thread on our forum.
New beta update from the PCSX2 team. This update features the following changes (since revision 277). Soo, does it run games faster? Well, try and see ;)
Fix for neopets/tenchu problems introduced recently
GT4 crashes might be reduced now when using ZeroGS (GSDX will still crash)
Some aging rec bugs have been fixed, not sure what games it effects
Few counter changes effecting DMC1 and Mojo Ribbon, possibly others.
Fixed a small bug in Tokyo road race
Quickie update (revision 302)
Fix for other DMC1 versions
» Download the latest PCSX2 Beta build from here
» Check out PCSX2's homepage. You know you want to ;)
CDVDGigaherz is a fairly new CD plugin for PS2 emulators such as PCSX2. This plugin is considered to be in the early alpha stage, and is still being actively developed. The developer, Gigaherz, has a few things to say:
A few days ago I started to code a CDVD plugin using IOCtl raw reading as the access method.
The main reasons I started this plugin were:
1. To have the ability to start the emulator without a disk in the drive, and to be able to swap discs anytime.
2. To be able to keep some kind of "cache" or maybe a file with "hints" about what is the game gonna read next.
At the moment, the plugin will start without a disc, and will detect when the disc is removed or inserted, but sometimes it fails to detect the disc correctly and it will report the disc as being illegal (making the bios show that annoying red screen).
» Download CDVDGigaherz 0.6 here
» Visit CDVDGigaherz's active forum thread here
A new beta of PCSX2 has been posted. Noteable changes in this beta based on revision 275 include:
FF7 Dirge Of Cerberus crash fixed.
Couple of Vif stall fixes (chessmasters goes 1 screen further, woo!!) brings a tiny speedboost for Guitar Hero too.
VU Skip reverted to the old version to fix those games which had black screen problems when using it
There was previously a compatibility issue between savestates from 0.9.4 not loading correctly in the 0.9.5 beta. This had been fixed since svn revision 258.
UPDATE: A newer beta has been posted with a few fixes. New in the beta based on revision 277:
Reverted a Scratchpad change which stopped Tekken 4 working in 275.
Fixed the corrupt block in the corner of the psychonauts videos
GiGaHeRz and Gabest are working hard on our forums to bring you accurate GPU and SPU emulation for PCSX2, taking in bugfix requests like sponges and throwing out releases faster than we can post them. Here are the changes for their latest plugin releases:
New in SPU2ghz b1.4:
[-] completely removed the remains of the "async mixer" mode. It was meaningless without threading, and didn't work.
[*] Fixed the waveOut output module.
[*] Fixed a bug where the ASIO output system was using the defaulf ASIO device sample rate, regardless of the config value.
[*] Changed the min. buffer size allowed in the config dialog to 512 isntead of 2400.
NOTE 1: Sizes too small can increase the CPU usage and might cause audio problems.
NOTE 2: FMOD and waveOut have this limit increased to 2048.
[*] Changed some code handling voice looping. I don't know if it will fix or break anything.
[+] Added partial support for log levels to the register logging system, to remove the basic channel attributes from the log files (makes logs more readable and less bloated).
[+] Added experimental XAudio2 output module. Seems to sound well.
[+] Added a hidden option to change the AutoDMA sample rate for each core.
Useful only in some games where the FMVs hang.
[+] Added a check to the Effects processor to avoid crashes when the effects start address is after the effects end address.
[+] Added /delayload:fmod.dll switch to the linker, so the fmod dll is only needed while using the fmod output module.
Notes: As of version 1.4, fmod.dll is no longer required to use the plugin, but it is still required to use the FMOD output system.
If anyone is interested, the code can be downloaded from the SVN server in SourceForge.
SPU2ghz b1.3 included these changes
[*] Fixed the sync in pre-svn265 pcsx2 builds. Might help with some games.
SPU2ghz b1.2 included these changes :
[*] Fixed the speed limit dialog setting (it wasn't being handled correctly).
[*] Changed the way I handle AutoDMA transfers:
For some reason the data for core 1 was being replaced with 0s,
so I added a separate temporary buffer to store the data chunks.
This fixes many FMVs with stuttering audio.
[-] Commented out some lines that were changing the ATTR register.
I don't know if this will break anything, but none of the games I tried worked worse.
[-] Removed a BAD hack that was breaking thigns instead of fixing.
» Download SPU2ghz b1.4 plugin right here on NGEmu!
» Download fmod.dll an copy it to the PCSX2 folder.
» Discuss this release over in this thread.
GSdx 0.1.4
No real changelog here, lots of bugfixes that may affect quite a few games. Some noticeable ones are FFX-2, FFXII and KH2.
If you're using GSdx, you should definitly get the latest release and be up-to-date!
GiGaHeRz, a long time member of our forums, has release a new version of his sound plugin for PCSX2. Here's what he had to say about this release and for things to come:
It has been more than 4 years since I started this plugin. Back then pcsx2 didn't have any sound plugin except for spu2null. I remember getting into the pcsx2 IRC channel (#pcsx2 on efnet) and asking for help to make a sound plugin. One of the pcsx2 developers kindly gave me some documents and wished me luck, and I promised I would do my best.
After some days, or weeks, I had enough registers implemented that the bios would start to play sounds. It was a revolution. First sounds ever to come from pcsx2!!
Too bad the sounds were completely wrong, as I had misunderstood the ADPCM algorithm. I kept working on it after that, but not regularly at all: I can spend a few days working on something, but once I'm stuck debugging for too long, I get bored.
After me, there were a few other attempts at doing spu2 pugins. One of them, ps2sp, was a bit more successful than mine. These attempts caught pete's attention, so he decided to hack up a spu2 plugin too.
For some time, pete's plugin has been the best choice to many, and recently Zerofrog, annoyed by the relatively bad results of our plugins, also decided to code his own.
With so much competition, it has been hard for me to get my plugin to have acceptable results, and even if I'm releasing, it still fails to compare with zero's in most games. But on the other side, my plugin has always been coded with compatibility in mind, so even if it's few, there's some games where it gives better results.
I want to make clear there's some known problems with the plugin:
If the game runs slow, the plugin will be all loopy. This is the expected result given the way I coded it. I might improve the output system someday if I get better ideas.
Some games seem to have "clicks" and noises while playing music, videos and speech. I'm clueless as what coudl cause it.
Some games seem to have robotized sound. I don't know why yet, but I will look at it if I get reports of games doing it.
Some games don't like to work with the plugin. I'm specially interested in knowing about them, so I can fix the problem(s).
Some people seem to get problems with audio output. Make sure you are using FMOD, and your sound card supports 48000hz output correctly.
When the emulator crashes, there's some chances that the ASIO output plugin will not have the chance to shut itself down. In those cases it will leave the device used, and a reboot is required in order to "unlock" it.
Note: The plugin requires fmod.dll to work, even if you are not using fmod as the output system. I have attached it for convenience. Extract it to the folder where you have pcsx2.exe, or to system32(syswow64 in xp64/vista64).
» Download SPU2ghz beta1 plugin right here on NGEmu!
» Download fmod.dll an copy it to the PCSX2 folder.
» Discuss this release over in this thread.
Gabest released yet another updated version of his GSdx plugin for PCSX2. From now on, GSdx is available as a single dll, integrating directx9 and directx10-specific functionalty.
Feel free to try it and post feedback in this new thread. A separate directX dll is also required, to be present in the same folder as pcsx2.exe
The latest GSDx9 versions require an additional DirectX DLL, which can be downloaded from here. The uncompressed DLL would need to go in the same folder as pcsx2.exe
