Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles-> Local Multiplayer

[Kromara]

I am trying to play Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles multiplayer on my desktop. I have found several threads about this but each one that I have found has been either outdated or I has been unsuccessful for me. I have tried the following steps:


1)Starting up Dolphin 4.0
2)Port 1 as a GBA Controller several times and a GC Controller several times
3)Port 2 as a GBA Controller every time (all other ports blank/off/empty)
4)Start up FF:CC
5)Start up the VBA-M emulator (disabled "Pause when inactive" and Enabled GBA Bios with loaded-in BIOS files)
6)Enabled "Joybus Connection" on IP 127.0.0.1 (Final Fantasy froze just like every other tutorial told me it would)
7)Loaded the gba_bios.bin (the same one that is loaded in for the Enabled GBA Bios)
At this point, each other tutorial tells me that it should be running.

I also did try the tutorial here: https://wiki.dolphin-emu.org/index.php?title=Final_Fantasy_Crystal_Chronicles
which essentially tells me to do the same thing except to start step 6 that I have posted here after I have reached a dungeon. I did this and it seemed to work except I'm not sure how to add in the second player after I do this. With this method, I had the GC controller set up. If someone could help me finalize either of these two methods, I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you in advance.

[JMC47]

Go into the issue report about Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles and grab the SaveState for the VBA-M. If you use that, it'll work like a charm. There are other issues, but it will at least be playable. Basically, after you load the GBA bios in your steps, just load the savestate next, then start a new game.

Edit: Decided to not be lazy and get the link: https://dolphin-emu.googlecode.com/issues/attachment?aid=31770045001&name=bios_state1.sgm&token=k-svbCtmHp7s5sjKTqR1FZfp7xs%3A1385955022129

[Kromara]

Okay, I seem to have it working now, but FPS has dropped down to about 17-18. It seemed like (from just playing it singleplayer on GC with Dolphin) that normal FPS is average 30. Are there any decent tips to boost FPS? I have a AMD Phenom II 6-core 3.7GHz Processor with 16GB of RAM and a 1GB 128bit Graphics Card. I'm a little baffled that I'm having FPS issues with something like this.

[JMC47]

Nope, that's just how it is. The issue is currently being worked on. The best you can do is set the GBA's to turbo mode.

[talos91]

Any news on this? Does the multiplayer works the same on recent builds? What is the best way to connect the GBas in the latest builds?

[JMC47]

Nope. Nothing yet.

[SilentSin]

After a few hours of screwing around, I managed to get FFCC working and linked to two instances of VBA-M (1229), but with a bit of a problem. I can play the game, but when I hold down the attack button it usually just attacks, sometimes charges for a few frames then cancels, and very rarely lets me actually finish charging.

I disabled idle skipping in dolphin, but it didn't seem to help.

Is there a known way around this issue?

[JMC47]

It's a problem with the speed that VBA-M is running; I don't think there is any way to fix it.

[talos91]

Just change the map to another menu in the vba window and now you can charge, the problem is that doing this slows the game even more.

[SilentSin]

(10-14-2014, 03:44 PM)talos91 Wrote: Just change the map to another menu in the vba window and now you can charge, the problem is that doing this slows the game even more.

This seems to work.
- with 2 players, I get about 27 FPS and it seems perfectly playable.
- with 3 players, I get about 17 FPS and it runs noticeably slowly, but still seems fairly playable.

Is there likely to be any way to increase the frame rate I can get with 3 players? I'm assuming its a communication issue between dolphin and vba rather than a graphics bottleneck.

I'll post again once I've had a chance to actually play for a while with my brothers.