Pixel Shader Error only on SMG1 and only with DX9

[RickyEarl]

Hi, running 3.5.1349 on my Q6600 (old 2.4GHz quad-core) with 6GB RAM and Geforce GTX 550 Ti.

I was running SMG fine in DX9 without issues for about a week. Today in an effort to get some better settings ( I run on plain old Native with AA and filtering turned off), I decided to play with the game config list " (the list that shows up when you right-click on the game in the list and select "properties). Now, right after I select a player it gives me the error "Failed to compile pixel shader! This usually happens when trying to run Dolphin with an outdated GPU..."

I have set all the checkboxes for the game config back to "undetermined," deleted the .ini file for SMG from the User/GameConfig folder, as well as all the .inis from the User/Config folder. Still happens.

SMG1 is the only game where this happens, and I can get it to run in DX11 and OpenGL, although the sound is choppy and I get frame rate slowdowns (especially in DX11 -odd that Open GL works better). It's only DX9, and it's only since I messed with the game config settings.

Here's the error and dumpfile in attachments.

Any idea what I did? Thanks!

[Starscream]

If what you say is true, deleting the entire build and downloading Dolphin again should solve your issue.

[pauldacheez]

The game'll run better under OpenGL if you have "Hacked Buffer Upload" checked. DX9 might still be faster, though.

[RickyEarl]

Wow, thank you. Those were fast replies. I thought about just deleting and reinstalling Dolphin, but I didn't want to lose all my saves. Is there a way to keep those?

"Hacked Buffer Upload" helped a little, but not enough. It sill ran better under DX9.

[LordVador]

I didn't want to lose all my saves. Is there a way to keep those?

Yeah you can transfer your in-game saves (MCs and Wii save folders). But not your savestates

[pauldacheez]

GameCube saves and Wii saves are in User/GC and User/Wii, respectively.

[LordVador]

Wii saves are in User/Wii/Title more exactly. Better right click your game and select "Open Wii save folder" to find them more easily btw

[RickyEarl]

Wii saves are in User/Wii/Title more exactly. Better right click your game and select "Open Wii save folder" to find them more easily btw

Excellent. Thank you very much. Was worried that I would accidentally keep the suspect settings when I re-installed if I copied too much over.

[pauldacheez]

It's pretty unlikely that the rest of your Wii NAND would be causing the issue. If you have a NAND dump or any installed WADs, you'd best take the whole Wii folder.

[RickyEarl]

OK, this is just weird. I deleted and reinstalled Dolphin. Now it works fine in DX9 with a save I created since reinstall. With my old save I still get the pixel shader error.

I'm thinking I just re-earn the 70 or so stars...