New AX HLE v2 testing thread

[delroth]

Hi everyone,

For those who haven't heard about it, new-ax-hle is my development branch where I try to make DSP HLE less crappy for games using the AX UCode (basically 99% of GC and Wii games, excluding some Nintendo games like Super Mario Galaxy or Zelda WW/TP). The first version of that work (GameCube only) was merged in 3.5-77, and recently I've updated the branch to fix some GameCube bugs and implement the Wii part of the changes.

You can find up to date development builds of this branch here: http://dolphin-emu.org/download/list/new-ax-hle/1/

I would like people to test these builds a lot and report every issue they can find that is not already mentioned in this first post. Also mention audio issues in Gamecube/Wii games using AX that are present in master but not fixed in this branch: I want this branch to be as perfect as possible!

If you find a new bug, describe the bug precisely, provide a memory card with a save where this bug can easily be reproduced (not needed if it's on the main menu, obviously), and if possible give the CRC of the AX UCode the game is using (look for a warning logging message saying "Instantiating CUCode_NewAX" in Dolphin logs).

Also, before reporting any bug, make sure the "DSP on Thread" option is disabled. Just like DSP LLE on Thread was before, this "optimization" is a hack and will cause issues. Disabling it might fix your audio glitches.

Known bugs:

• (Unconfirmed) DDR2 audio is behind video - happens with LLE as well
• (Confirmed) The Last Story random sounds on the title screen (fixed with framelimit "audio") - happens with LLE as well
• (Confirmed) Metroid Prime 2 slight audio glitching when firing weapon (bug from v1, no change in v2)
  

Not bugs (do not report this):

• Audio stutters when the game does not run at full speed. This was not the case with previous HLE because it was a big hack and was not synchronized with the emulation. This will NOT be fixed. At best we could implement some kind of timestretching in the audio backend (which will slow down the music instead of stuttering). This is not linked to AX HLE though.
• Sound is too fast with Accurate VBeam emulation: that's because this option makes the CPU thread run without throttle. The new AX HLE is synchronized with the CPU thread instead of running on its own clock, so this is not a bug.
  

TODO:

• Fix polyphase resampling (currently disabled)
• ITD support (will need a test program)
• Custom FIR support (again, will need a test program or a game using it)
• Important find out what the hell is the DSP_SYNC message after AXWii CMD_OUTPUT is used for - sending it seems to half the speed of some sounds here, though it should be the right thing to do
  

Changelog:

• 3.5-1127: fix EA Wii games (and maybe a few other games) having no music
• 3.5-1123: new-ax-hle v2 with Wii support and a few bugs fixed
• 3.5-77: new-ax-hle v1 merged to master, without Wii support
• 3.0-849: Fixes volume mixing with volumes >= 1.0. Tomb Raider Legends music now outputs correctly.
• 3.0-844: Fixes samples interlacing in the output command. Now stereo audio shouldn't have inverted left/right.
• 3.0-843: Fixes missing weapon sounds in Metroid Prime 2 (missing command implementation)
• 3.0-841: More GC AX fixes: now EA games music works in all the games I could test (including FIFA 06 and Madden 08 which were broken before)
• 3.0-840: Fixes a regression from 3.0-828 causing issues in some GC games (no sound)
• 3.0-837: GC AX now handles AUX mixing better, causing EA games to output sound/music, but with noise
• 3.0-833: Fixed crashes with AXWii on Windows
• 3.0-831: Fixed crashes with AXWii and high SRC ratios
• 3.0-828: Basic AXWii support
• 3.0-825: Fixed audio in Skies of Arcadia Legends without a hack (mixer_control handling in older AX versions)
  

[delroth]

Could someone test if sound is fixed with Xenoblade Chronicles? A lot of people are using old custom builds with a hacky patch to get better sound in that game and I'd like to fix that.

[Shonumi]

Yo, great work delroth. I have recently been replaying Xenoblade Chronicles on Dolphin, so I'll test that game later tonight. Looking forward to getting some pleasant results.

[nintendo_nerd]

Holy crap, even more crazy progress. This I like, will test tonight (seeing a movie in a few minutes) and will report back!

[Invader]

Just tested Xenoblade Chronicles.

delroth you're amazing!

I played the intro and it ran fine. I'll have a video up in a little while. Oh, also I was using the XAudio2 audio backend so that's why there was no time stretching in the video.

Video:
http://youtu.be/BZD2kWVZRCM

I had a few frame drops, but that was caused by the HDD I was recording to.

EDIT: Actually now that I think about it the frame drops were probably caused by me forgetting to set the affinity because the "lock thread to cores" feature was removed.

[moosehunter]

Xenoblade is MUCH better compared with the current master. The only problem it had in the intro were a few pops at the beginning of the first cutscene. I haven't tested for a long period of time to see if it holds up though.

[Xalphenos]

I'm playing Xenoblade right now, Haven't had any distortion so far. It actually seems to be better than LLE as I would occasionally get distorted voices for a second or two mostly in the opening sequences.

[hookyboysb]

The audio lags behind the video a little bit for me. This also happens with LLE and in Wind Waker (which we know uses the Zelda Ucode) on 3.5-1088. It's barely noticeable in games like Wind Waker, but for any timing-based game, like Guitar Hero, it would be extremely noticeable, actually making the game unplayable in a sense.

I've tested it with DanceDanceRevolution II, on the default song HEARTBREAK (Sound Selektaz remix). Even with the timing in the options adjusted (set at the highest it can go, 20, positive values delaying the arrows) the arrows are ahead compared with the game being played on an unmodified Wii. This might be able to be fixed in the new AX HLE code, but it might not. Or it might be my computer.

[delroth]

I deleted all the posts that have nothing to do with new-ax-hle. If you want to complain about LTTC being removed, 1. you're 3 months too late; 2. do it elsewhere.

[rpglord]

Xenoblade seems to work great, HLE bug present in old HLE seems to be fixed

Last Story still seems to have the same issue as before
http://forums.dolphin-emu.org/Thread-green-notice-development-thread-new-ax-hle-testing-thread?pid=251266#pid251266