[Wii] Xenoblade Chronicles

Akumasama · 12-06-2013, 10:01 AM **#591**

Hello everyone, under spoiler you can see my current system configuration. I'm currently running the USA version of the game with octanku's settings but with the following differences:
1) full screen resolution 1920x1080
2) internal resolution 2.5x
3) turned on per pixel and anisotropic filtering (16x)

Anything else I can afford to do to make it look even better with my system?
Also, some further questions:

Is there a way to make the game run at 60fps? I think I'd like it maybe less video quality but 60fps, if possible
I'm getting strange audio glitches (jumps), should I activate the "Audio" setting into the framelimiter field? Did some tests and it seemed to solve the issue, but maybe it was just a coincidence
When I save the game, I get some strange "damaged" image instead of an image of the place I saved from. Save file still works. Is this ok?

Thanks a lot for your precious help Wink

Spoiler: (Show Spoiler)

***Shonumi*** · 12-06-2013, 03:41 PM **#592**

Akumasama Wrote:Is there a way to make the game run at 60fps? I think I'd like it maybe less video quality but 60fps, if possible

Not that anyone knows of.

Akumasama Wrote:I'm getting strange audio glitches (jumps), should I activate the "Audio" setting into the framelimiter field? Did some tests and it seemed to solve the issue, but maybe it was just a coincidence

Try using Auto and disable Limit by FPS. This has always worked wonders for me.

Akumasama Wrote:When I save the game, I get some strange "damaged" image instead of an image of the place I saved from. Save file still works. Is this ok?

Set EFB Copies to RAM if you want to see the preview. The behavior you get (damaged image) is just Dolphin not handling the EFB Copy as accurately as it can. The game save itself is fine, and since EFB Copies on RAM is pretty demanding compared to setting them to Texture, I'd leave it on Texture. It's not worth fiddling around with the settings every time you want to save, and certainly not worth it to play this game the whole time with EFB2RAM (makes little visual difference in-game while eating more CPU resources).

Akumasama · 12-06-2013, 05:52 PM **#593**

(12-06-2013, 03:41 PM)Shonumi Wrote: Try using Auto and disable Limit by FPS. This has always worked wonders for me.

Oh so it wasn't a coincidence that things seemed better when I set the FPS limiter to "Audio".
I'll try to activate "Limit by FPS" too, but what does this second option do exactely?

As for the save I agree with you, if it's just a matter of the preview I don't really care, it seems to be working perfectly after all.

Any suggestion for the internal resolution settings? I should probably set it to 3X to have the best oversampling, but when I did I was getting some occasional slowdowns during the initial intro part with Dunban, so I then set it to 2.5x, this is probably a limit of my Geforce 670 and my CPU.
In spite of that, game seems to be looking good enough.

***MayImilae*** · (This post was last modified: 12-06-2013, 07:20 PM by MayImilae.)

Akumasama Wrote:
Shonumi Wrote:Try using Auto and disable Limit by FPS. This has always worked wonders for me.
Oh so it wasn't a coincidence that things seemed better when I set the FPS limiter to "Audio".
I'll try to activate "Limit by FPS" too, but what does this second option do exactely?

He was telling you to NOT use "Audio" and NOT use "Limit by FPS".

Akumasama · 12-06-2013, 07:29 PM **#595**

Ungh... way to misread. I still didn't have my coffee when I read that! [/excuse]

Well "Auto" and "Limit by fps" turned off were the default options for me, and that's when the audio jumps occurr.
I tested with "Audio" only a few minutes hanging around colony 9 with Shulk and it SEEMED to be better, but I only tested a few minutes before going to bed yesterday so I wasn't sure if it really made a difference or if it was a placebo.

But trust me, the tests I did before with "Auto" and limit turned off gave pretty noticeable and random jumps in audio (music, voices, everything)

**admin89** · (This post was last modified: 12-07-2013, 01:04 AM by admin89.)

Just use 4x Intenal Resolution , no anti-aliasing or 2x MSAA , 16x AF . Your GTX 670 can handle that just fine . Make sure you use OpenGL with the 2 speed hacks enabled : Vertex Streaming Hack and Vbeam hack (right-click the game - properties)
Also make sure you set your GPU at maximum performance mode . Some GTX 600/700 GPU are always idle when Dolphin run

Akumasama · (This post was last modified: 12-07-2013, 01:31 AM by Akumasama.)

Oh so you're using a huge oversampling, and at that point antialiasing becomes kinda unnecessary, right? Keen idea, will try it.

(12-06-2013, 11:53 PM)admin89 Wrote: Also make sure you set your GPU at maximum performance mode . Some GTX 600/700 GPU are always idle when Dolphin run

Thanks for the tips, will test it later.
~~How can I check this? From the nVidia control panel?~~ just saw the screenshot, thanks!

I'm a bit surprised nobody experieced the audio jumps btw, I was expecting it to be a common issue when I came here. Wonder what it depends on then, my audio card driver? But that sounds so... unlikely, yet I can't think of anything else.

Akumasama · 12-07-2013, 07:39 AM **#598**

Did a few quick tests, will go deeper later when I'm back home.
It seems that forcing the full power in the control panel makes no difference, but the Vbeam made a big one.
Now even at 4x I get 30fps rock solid no matter what with Shulk and no audio jumps with the "Audio" framelimiter settings.

I still got a few random fps drops during the Dunban initial thing (17/20fps) but I noticed that only thanks to the onscreen FPS display, I probably wouldn't have noticed it otherwise, which means it was a very very very fast fps drop.

I dunno how much "tougher" the game gets later on but for now it seems satisfying and with 4x Oversampling I have to say it looks really gorgeous Big Grin

***MayImilae*** · 12-07-2013, 04:25 PM **#599**

Akumasama Wrote:Oh so you're using a huge oversampling, and at that point antialiasing becomes kinda unnecessary, right? Keen idea, will try it.

That's a myth. The downsampling that dolphin does is very poor quality, and not designed for AA applications. Even at 4x native there will be aliasing. For the best anti-aliasing results, high internal resolution plus SSAA is the best route. But since that's obscenely demanding, I usually use 3x native and 16xQ CSAA in OpenGL for Xenoblade.

***Shonumi*** · 12-07-2013, 06:10 PM **#600**

(12-06-2013, 07:29 PM)Akumasama Wrote: Ungh... way to misread. I still didn't have my coffee when I read that! [/excuse]

Well "Auto" and "Limit by fps" turned off were the default options for me, and that's when the audio jumps occurr.
I tested with "Audio" only a few minutes hanging around colony 9 with Shulk and it SEEMED to be better, but I only tested a few minutes before going to bed yesterday so I wasn't sure if it really made a difference or if it was a placebo.

But trust me, the tests I did before with "Auto" and limit turned off gave pretty noticeable and random jumps in audio (music, voices, everything)

Might have something to do with the difference in audio backends. ALSA on Linux is going to have slightly different performance qualities than XAudio2 or DSound on Windows or CoreAudio on OS X. I think the only common backend across all OSes is OpenAL ("No audio output" doesn't really count :p). The problem I have with Audio is that for me I get drops in battle, usually right as an attack is launched (be it my party or the enemy). I was careful to say it only "works wonder for me", since there's no telling what it might do for you, though I tend to give this advice out a lot Wink