[linux] cant disable interpolation

[fortis]

well, hi!
I've been using the emulator for the last couple weeks, and I found that the video is kind of choppy in general, this causes choppynes in the audio too(in game and in videos), frame skipping helps, but when I tried turning off the interpolation, then I got no video output at all, just blank screen, but the audio runs smooth
I'm using ubuntu
I have an AMD64 3000+, 512mb RAM, and a GeForceFX 5200

another question: what can I do to improve gameplay?

thanks

[patrickp]

On that sort of rig, fortis, pSX should be running sweet as you like. But the blank screen when you disable Bilinear interpolation is a known bug; hopefully it'll be fixed in the next version.

But, as I say, pSX should have no problems on your rig - in fact, I would recommend disabling Frame skipping; not only should you not need it, but I find that if pSX is running slowly, at least it does so smoothly with Frame skipping off; with it on, it tends to get very jerky.

Check that you have libgtkglext1, libgtkglext1-dev, libgtkglextmm1c2a and libgtkglextmm1-dev installed. What video driver are you using?

Edit: and what games are you playing, and how? This can be significant - some games will be choppy anyway; some need to to be played from a particular medium (either directly from an image, or from a mounted image or CD), and sometimes using the -r switch can help - all these things are game specific.

If you're using an image, the image type can make a difference - CloneCD's .ccd/.img/.sub format is favourite, as it's the only format pSX recognises that includes the CD's subcode information - this can be important with some games, particularly those with copy/mod protection. Unfortunately, there don't seem to be any applications for Linux that support ripping to this format. One of these days I'm going to try installing a copy of CloneCD under Wine and seeing if that works...

Have you checked the compatibility list?

[fortis]

thanks for the reply
I have those libs installed, I'm gonna try turning off frame-skipping

about the games, I have tales of phantasia, tales of destiny and final fantasy tactics, all of them in clone cd format
in FFT the game runs just a bit slow, and in both tales games, the games run fine, I realized this by playing them for a while, but the videos run choppy and jerky (bot video and audio)

I play windowed because if I play in full screen the overall speed decrease :S
but I'm gonna try without frame-skipping

another question, what so vsync really do? it helps performance or quality?

[fortis]

well, you were right patrickp!!
I turned off frame-skipping and now it runs perfectly!!
even in full screen

what I did was to turn off FS and raise the sound latency, both bars
I guess that was part of the problem, or not?

so, thanks for the help

[patrickp]

As a general rule, pSX should run _better_ in full screen than windowed, fortis. That, plus the specs of your rig, makes me think something's wrong here. My computer is running on an Athlon XP 3200+ and I'm running Ubuntu 6.10; since pSX emulates in software, not hardware, the processor is the main factor and your machine should be running way better than mine. I have no problems with most games though, and even the ones that slow a bit at times don't get choppy.

I don't have any of the games you do, but looking at the Compatibility List, I don't see anything that indicates that your games should show anything more than minor glitches. However, since you haven't provided the game IDs, I don't know whether you have the same versions as in the list. Nor have you said what BIOS(s) you're using. Have you tried playing the games directly from the CDs - or at least from mounted images? This can sometimes make a difference; additionally, playing from a CD is the only way to check it isn't a problem with your images.

What drivers are you running the videocard on?

VSync should generally be enabled unless there are issues with running games with it on - again, with a rig like yours, it should definitely be enabled. In 3D displays, VSync basically synchronises the monitor screen rate with the output of the videocard, thus preventing various issues with rendering the image. Since, compared with some PC games, frame rates from the output of a Playstation emulator don't need to be that high, it's unlikely any decent monitor and videocard combination would be unable to keep up.

[fortis]

I use the official Nvidia drivers, version 9631
I dont know how to check the ID of the games, but now the emulator runs perfectly

what the audio latency means? because since I raised it I notice that pSX runs more smooth than before

edit: in the readme file I found this
Latency: This option controls how much delay there is in the sound output
in most cases the default setting will be fine, but if you experience
dropouts or choppy sound you can try increasing this.
so I guess that was my original problem

[patrickp]

Linux is known for having high audio latency, fortis, so it's a good idea to set the audio latency level higher than you would in Windows.

Game IDs are most easily read on the spine of the case. Some Playstation CDs, especially those of multiple CD games, may have the game ID on the label - this is probably a more reliable source with multiple CD games, as often the number on the case is only that of the first CD.

Alternatively, if you look at the structure of the CD, there's usually a file on the root (or, very rarely, in a subfolder) with a name in the format S***_#####, where * is a letter and # a digit. That's the game ID. Among other things, it defines which version the game is: most games have more than one version; all games released in more than one area have at least a version for each area.