Megaman 9 and 10 garbled graphics

[relshak]

First off, I want to thank the Dolphin creator(s) for a fantastic emulator, keeping the tradition of emulation alive and well.

Specs:
OS: Windows XP Home Edition
Graphics - nVidia 9600GT
RAM - 2GB Patriot in unganged mode
CPU - Dual Core 3.2GHZ AMD AM2+
HDD - SATA 3.0gb/s
Monitor 1 - Samsung Syncmaster 205BW 21" LCD
Monitor 2 - Dell CRT something something

A little background: You'll notice in the settings I've enabled XFB. This fixed a flickering problem I had. Also, I've tried many many permutations of settings and can't find anything better than where I have it now. Final Fantasy IV - The After Years works really well, for comparison.

Now, selfishly for my problem. I searched the forums, but couldn't find a similar issue. Attached is the images of my problem and all of my settings. As you can see from the name input screen, there are strange black lines across the text where, presumably, the 8-bit fidelity isn't meshing well with the giant pixels. What's incredible is the Capcom and 'Inti Creates' screens are gorgeous, but as soon as it starts with the quasi 8 bits, it gets those distortions, and they carry over into the game itself.

Observations: I notice in Mega Man 9, I can resize the window and the pixels change drastically. Perhaps the A's pixels will move around/resize and it'll look like an "o" or something wacky. (I've tried it in bare bones default mode with completely deleted/reinstalled directories, so I know it's not something I did with drag scaling)

If I can think of anything else to help us diagnose this problem, I'll add it to my post. Thanks for your time!

Update: I've been playing with OpenGL, and I managed to get it work without flickering by using "Real XFB" and OpenGL doesn't seem to suffer the graphics issue, BUT the framerate is slowed to a painful crawl -- 17 of the preferred 60 frames (And actually, it doesn't slow down, again, until the 8-bit stuff. It's a solid 60 at the Capcom/Inti Creates screens). Also, the narration text doesn't seem to be syncing up (or appearing at all in some places.)Nix that sentence, the text is in sync, actually, and it seems to be showing up in the proper places other than the very first screen, which is no big deal. I think DirectX is probably still the way to go on this, but only time can tell.

[relshak]

Mini Update: I've tried the full version of The New Super Mario Brothers (under the DirectX 9 plugin, but with XFB and a couple other things disabled) and it runs at full FPS (usually) and looks gorgeous. So I'm convinced it's specific to Mega Man 9 and 10.

[relshak]

Gonna add some more to this. I am having a generally poor frame rate all around (in busy/big areas), now that I have tried a few more games, namely Twilight Princess and Smash Bros. Melee for Gamecube. Do you think it's choking on my 9600 GT? It has 512MB VRAM, 256-bit. Forget that last line. I realize now it's entirely CPU based, which means something's wrong, because my dual 3.2GHZ AM2+ should be getting the kind of speeds I need. I think the only reason The New Super Mario Bros. worked is because there's so little going on in the screen at any time.

[nosound97]

Uncheck "EFB Scaled Copy"

[relshak]

First off, I want to thank you very much for responding to my post. Unfortunately, disabling EFB Scaled Copy didn't fix my problem, though it did change the graphics slightly. Here are my before/after and current settings.

EFB Scaled Copy enabled:
   


EFB Scaled Copy disabled:
   


Current settings:
   

[AmienZero]

Both MM9 and MM10 needs to be played with 640x480 resolution. if you can manage to resize the window to that resolution, the graphics will be fixed. before, there was an option where you can set the windowed resolution to 640x480 but that setting has been removed. if only native resolution can be apply to DX9, then this game can be played with higher resolution.

[relshak]

Thank you, AmienZero for responding.

Well crap, now I have a new problem. We ACTUALLY got it working at a whopping 120 FPS and the 640x480 thing (even though I'm effing sure I tried that like 20 times, I even repeatedly deleted my install and started from scratch.) but for some reason version 2.0 no longer has the XFB option and the unbearable flickering has returned. What stinks is I tried all of the exact same settings on a slightly older version (5338) that had XFB and the same old problems cropped up.

Now, I actually went into the game-specific properties for MM9 and enabled XFB there, but it doesn't seem to trump the plug-in's lack of XFB. Anyone else notice that it was missing?

[Kolano]

• In v2.0 I believe the XFB options only exist for the OpenGL plug-in. Use OpenGL or get a newer revision.
• I believe the critical detail regarding resolution is using an even multiple of 640x480, so 1280x960 and 1920x1440 should work as well. The issue seems to be related to the way scanlines are rendered, which results in oddities when pixels are unevenly stretched.
  

[relshak]

Is there a version newer than 2.0? If so, could you link me to it? It's the only one I see on the download page. I'm sorry to be annoying. Unfortunately I haven't been able to get an adequate frame rate out of OpenGL, but I'll keep trying. Also, thanks for the tip on the resolutions.

Update: I built the latest SVN (5402) which reintroduced XFB to stop the flickering, but then had the same problems as the older versions with the garbled graphics. Blargh! Haha. So close, and yet so far.

[AmienZero]

try downloading version r5284 from this site which is maintain by compiler Mamario. it still has the windowed resolution option AND enable XFB. you may have to browse through old archives to find it.

(04-24-2010, 03:48 AM)Kolano Wrote: I believe the critical detail regarding resolution is using an even multiple of 640x480, so 1280x960 and 1920x1440 should work as well. The issue seems to be related to the way scanlines are rendered, which results in oddities when pixels are unevenly stretched.

nope. tried and tested with 800x600 and 1024x768 but still poses the same problem. this game cannot be played on higher resolution unless native resolution is implemented to DX9. OGL already has it.