[GC] Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II

[sbuck333]

bleh, it seems my problem is much more systemic than I thought. I tried connecting to sylverant to test it as you suggested but no avail. I really feel like I'm inputting the correct numbers but still error 102, and when reverting to automatic ip in DCHP settings, now I fail to create IP from DHCP in the pso website/hunter's license.

I guess my problem is really that my TAP adapter always shows as unplugged. I thought being "online" under the hunter license page with manual DHCP meant something but I maybe it was just the illusion of TAP working. When I had a hyper-v virtual switch my tap adapter would show as plugged in after an error 15 connect, but then the game would crash when trying to resolve DNS. Thanks for the help, I guess I'm going back to the drawing board for now.

edit: sorry for asking for help then disappearing, I'm waiting to set up a clean w7 x64 install or perhaps try on another network to eliminate as many variables possible.

[Aleron Ives]

You probably shouldn't have multiple TAP adapters installed on your system, as Dolphin can only use the OpenVPN TAP. Other VPN and VM TAP adapters won't work. Check the Windows Event Viewer to see if any errors have been logged recently. In my case, the TAP adapter conflicted with the printer service for some reason, so I had to uninstall my printer and disable the print spooler.

Once you install the OpenVPN TAP adapter, you need to click and drag to highlight both your Ethernet adapter and the TAP adapter, then right click and select to bridge them from the menu. Once they're bridged, use the properties menu on the bridge to configure the IPv4 settings the way you had them on your Ethernet adapter before you added the bridge. (You can't configure the Ethernet adapter anymore once the bridge is created.) If you have network connectivity on your machine after you set up the bridge, then the bridge and TAP adapter are working correctly.

[Rapture]

Hey guys! It's my first post here. I have actually been around here for a long time but finally decided to purchase a rawdump compatible drive and start playing PSO again. I have everything up and running with no difficulty, surprisingly. The game is running well, however I do run into two isues while playing.

1) Codes with triggers (or jokers) do not work. I actually was able to make it work once by switching to the slowest compiler/decoders but I haven't been able to replicate this effect. Regardless it wouldn't be ideal to do this, but it can be done for a code you only need to use once (NPC skin).

2) This is the reason I'm posting. Whenever I load an online quest or downloaded quest from the memory card, it will crash and flood with an unlimited amount of the attached warnings. This did not happen the first time I ran the game, however it's been happening the days following.

       

I have tried dolphin-x64-4.0.2 as well as numerous master builds up until 4.0.7021-x64 regarding both these issues. Please advise me if it's due to a setting in dolphin, or if it's the emulator itself. Also if anyone can confirm to be experiencing these problems as well. I really appreciate any input as I'm trying to play online quests with a friend. Thank you so much!

[Aleron Ives]

Dolphin's AR support is spotty at best, and a lot of codes that work on a console don't work in Dolphin unless you dump the DSP and BIOS from your GC and use LLE audio along with a dump of your AR disc.

I've never had those errors when loading a quest, but I've never used such a new Dolphin revision, either. Try 4.0-5398, and if you don't get the errors on that one, bisect until you find the first revision that causes the bug to appear (so the developers can try to fix whatever caused the problem).

My main problem with Dolphin is that the BBA emulation is horribly slow; it takes longer to download a quest than if I were using a modem. Even if a quest file is only 20KB, Dolphin will download 20%, then freeze for 10 seconds, reach 40%, then freeze for 5 seconds, hit 80%, then freeze for 15 seconds, and so on. Sometimes it takes so long to download a quest that PSO just gives up entirely and disconnects me.

My only lead on this problem is that there may be a bug with the BBA emulation:

tueidj Wrote:From looking at the code I think this is a problem with the way interrupts are handled for the emulated BBA (interrupts being cleared when they should remain active due to multiple sources).

Since only a few games use the BBA, fixes aren't exactly a high priority, so I'm not sure how long we might have to wait for a solution.

[Rapture]

I downloaded the version of dolphin you listed. Interestingly it did not crash the first time I loaded up a quest, instead I loaded underground and couldn't really move around. I tried another quest and got my usual errors... Sigh.

As far as BBA and download speed, I would try a later version of the emulator and make sure your TAP and/or any related peripherals are up to date. My downloads are almost instant.

I am curious what settings you are using to run dolphin, can you post or PM me when you have time?

[Aleron Ives]

If you loaded under the floor in a quest, then it sounds like you're trying to play a homebrew quest that wasn't developed properly, in which case it isn't Dolphin's fault. Are you using a GCI folder for your memory card? If so, I'm surprised you got online at all, as PSO doesn't work with GCI folders. You should use an emulated memory card (.raw file), instead.

I would suggest checking the Windows Event Viewer to see if you're logging any strange errors related to the TAP driver. It caused printer conflicts for me, which I "solved" by uninstalling my printer and disabling the print spooler service. I will also note that I installed the TAP driver by itself using the separate installer; I did not install OpenVPN.

As for my settings, I'm not using anything particularly special (but some of these configuration pages look different in more recent revisions):

       

       

I also have:

Code:

[Core]
FastDiscSpeed = True
[Video_Settings]
SafeTextureCacheColorSamples = 0

in my game INI to increase the loading speed and to prevent game text from having invisible letters. I also have a hotkey set for toggling EFB copies, which is necessary to fix the problems with the game loading incorrect textures in certain areas.

[Rapture]

I am indeed using a .raw memory card file so that is not an issue. They are official quests which I was able to download from khyller server, so I am not sure if they were altered in some way. HOWEVER, they worked on the day I first downloaded them. The quests were downloaded to my memory card in game the official way.

Interestingly enough I did a fresh install of dolphin on another PC and was able to play the quests without fail. The emulator settings, drivers, .iso version, hardware and OS were the same or very similar. I have a feeling it's my memory card file...

I even took both PCs online and loaded the quest directly from the server. My primary PC crashed and secondary PC played the quest. Not really sure what to do at this point. When I have time I will make a new save file on the primary PC. Thanks for posting your settings, always a big help.

[Aleron Ives]

Maybe JMC or anyone else who is feeling adventurous can help me out here. I've been tracking this bug for a while, but nobody else besides me seems to have it. If I use EFB to Texture on this game, I get problems with textures being missing or swapped if I visit multiple areas in succession. For instance, the Episode II Hunter's Guild has this monitor:

   

which is particularly troublesome. The easiest way to break it is to go straight to Seabed, and then turn around and take the teleporter back to the Lab. After I do, the monitor becomes black:

   

The only way to fix it is to switch to EFB to RAM while the black image is showing, and then the correct image shows up again.

This particular monitor likes getting replaced with other textures, too, including the brown bricks from the VR Temple stage and images from the holograms shown during the Gol Dragon fight (after VR Spaceship). Other instances of this bug that I've noticed include:

• The dark hologram rooms in VR Spaceship (with the green floors and alternating images of the Ragol explosion and Pioneer 2) will have the Pioneer 2 picture replaced with the brown bricks from VR Temple if I play both areas back to back (just as the monitor in the Hunter's Guild will become that same brick pattern). The same Pioneer 2 image can also get replaced with images from the Gol Dragon's hologram monitors if I return to VR Spaceship after being in the boss arena.
• The waterfalls in Jungle don't look right or animate properly if I've cleared the VR areas first.
• The walls in Tower are black if I play The West Tower quest (which has Seabed right before entering the Tower).
• The green item box in the Episode I Tool Shop is brown instead of green if I switch from Episode II to Episode I after having cleared Episode II.
• Rafoie is always invisible in Cave 2 every time I enter the area, regardless of where I've been first.
  

All of these problems are only fixable if I enable EFB to RAM while looking at the broken texture, e.g. I must use Rafoie while EFB to RAM is enabled in order for it to be visible, and then it will work if I switch back to EFB to Texture. If I return to Pioneer 2 and enter Cave 2 again, however, then Rafoie is invisible again.

It's not that hard to have EFB Copies set to a hotkey to fix these problems, but I'm kind of hoping that I'm not the only person who has this problem, so that there's a better chance of it getting fixed. Can anyone else reproduce this?

[JosJuice]

Maybe it's related to issue 8299? https://code.google.com/p/dolphin-emu/issues/detail?id=8299

[Aleron Ives]

It looks like the same kind of problem to me, and the fix is also the same (temporarily switching to EFB to RAM). JMC47 confirmed Metroid Prime, SSBB, and Harry Potter all have it, so I guess we can add PSO to the list.