Suggestion to all: How to define "Playable"

[torresdyl]

Hey guys. I am new here and I found a problem that may be very important. Let's put it like this:

I have two versions of PPSSPP:
A: v 0.9.6.2
B: v 0.9.6.185-gacce50a

I can play God of War: Chains of Olympus in version A, smoothly and perfectly in all means (a little bit slow though, coz I turned on Buffered render and postprocessing shader is set to Vignette, but with good video quality). But I can't play Valkyrie Profile Lenneth in version A, coz it would not pass the first CG, where Valkyrie turns to her goddess form.

With version B, I can pass this part with normal settings, but God of War is so slow....

And, I can't play Sega Rally Revo in either version, and I found that it can run smoothly in v0.7.6-547, with buffered render off. But I can't find this version on the Internet, even here... The download links in the site are tooooooo "new" for me.


So we must think about it: how do we define "playable"? Due to the existence of a variety of games, I suppose that for the developers' team it is not even possible to test just a small part of all these games, we must reconsider the compatibility part of PPSSPP.

I suggest to all, my friends:

1. If you cannot play one game with the newest version of PPSSPP, just change to another version, maybe one developed one year before, especially when it's an "old" game, like Valkyrie Profile Lenneth.


2. Due to the fact that some games are playable only in some version of the emulator, I think we shall work together to find out in which version one game can run smoothly, not only reporting problems. Everyone does his part and reports positive results to benefit the others. In all, we all loves these interesting games and this emulator, right?

3. Prepare one version of emulator for each game, in which it can run smoothly.


4. At last, anyone have the link for downloading v0.7.6-547 or another version in which I can play SEGA Rally Revo? Googled for many days....

Thanks!

[TheDax]

Playable is currently defined as if the game tends to work relatively bug free on desktop platforms (Windows/Linux/Mac), with a recent version. If there are no desktop reports for a game working or not working, we default to Android, if it's working or not. Desktops get higher priority because mobile devices vary so wildly in hardware and compatibility (every device can have its own quirks, while PCs tend to stay somewhat consistent in behaviour (most ATI cards work the same, most NVidia cards work the same as other NVidia cards, etc.), even with different GPU vendors and CPU makers). While it's nice that some games work 'perfectly' on older versions, I'd say we tend to be more concerned with having games work on newer versions to increase overall compatibility.

If Henrik or [Unknown] want to chime in too, that's fine. I'm just giving my take on the matter.

With all that said, it'd probably make more sense to have 2 compatibility lists, if we ever get a wiki type system set up, one for mobiles and one for desktops. They vary too much to have a unified list..

[torresdyl]

(01-03-2014 05:47 PM)TheDax Wrote:  Playable is currently defined as if the game tends to work relatively bug free on desktop platforms (Windows/Linux/Mac), with a recent version. If there are no desktop reports for a game working or not working, we default to Android, if it's working or not. Desktops get higher priority because mobile devices vary so wildly in hardware and compatibility (every device can have its own quirks, while PCs tend to stay somewhat consistent in behaviour (most ATI cards work the same, most NVidia cards work the same as other NVidia cards, etc.), even with different GPU vendors and CPU makers). While it's nice that some games work 'perfectly' on older versions, I'd say we tend to be more concerned with having games work on newer versions to increase overall compatibility.

If Henrik or [Unknown] want to chime in too, that's fine. I'm just giving my take on the matter.

With all that said, it'd probably make more sense to have 2 compatibility lists, if we ever get a wiki type system set up, one for mobiles and one for desktops. They vary too much to have a unified list..

Thanks for all the effort that you guys make to perfect the emulator

You're right: mobile phones and pc are so different, and each game is not the same. That't why I suggest all to report "in which platform/phone I can run what game with what version" so that the others can follow his example.

Can my post be pinned to establish a standard form of compatibility questions or to be a plus to original model question post?

[[Unknown]]

I think the gold standard is the latest version.

I consider God of War getting noticeably slower to be a bug. Can you narrow down which is the first git build that started to be slow, and the last one that was fast (you can check by halves, it will go pretty quickly)? If some recent change made that game slow, it probably made other games slower too. It may have even slowed down a game that wasn't compatible before.

The goal is positive progress. I'm sure we can also eventually fix Sega Rally Revo, but also have God of War decently fast and Valkyrie Profile working too. I'm that kind of "cake and eat it too" kind of guy. I don't settle for mucking around with 10 different versions of a piece of software, that's silly.

-[Unknown]

[torresdyl]

(01-03-2014 11:22 PM)[Unknown] Wrote:  I think the gold standard is the latest version.

I consider God of War getting noticeably slower to be a bug. Can you narrow down which is the first git build that started to be slow, and the last one that was fast (you can check by halves, it will go pretty quickly)? If some recent change made that game slow, it probably made other games slower too. It may have even slowed down a game that wasn't compatible before.

The goal is positive progress. I'm sure we can also eventually fix Sega Rally Revo, but also have God of War decently fast and Valkyrie Profile working too. I'm that kind of "cake and eat it too" kind of guy. I don't settle for mucking around with 10 different versions of a piece of software, that's silly.

-[Unknown]

As I said, 0.9.6.185 made GOW slow. and 0.9.6.2 made it smooth, so, it has been improved, and that's what newer versions for. Considering that VP lenneth is not so popular as GOW (in terms of number of players, only), I think that's why???

And, it may be silly to have different version, each one for a game, but, it really works.

I AM JUST A PLAYER, NOT A PROGRAMMER. I want to play it, and I cannnot find why it's slower in one version than in another, at least not in a short time.

If there is a time-saving and money-saving and thoughts-saving way to PLAY ALL THE GAMES THAT I WANNA PLAY, I try it. For me now, it's downloading 3 versions for:

GOW 0.9.6.2
VP lenneth 0.9.6-185-gacce50a
SEGA rally revo 0.9.5-1-g3abeb6


Once I find the right version for each game, I stop searching and I post my results here, that's all.

Actually, each version of PPSSPP is just compatible with JUST THAT GAME, not with the other two, in its case.


They don't occupy much space in my hard disk, don't wasted me much time, so thank you guys, at least I found these versions, good job.

[[Unknown]]

Those two versions are approximately 183 differences apart.

If you downloaded something around -93, and tried, you would eliminate 50% of the possibilities. Using this method (going half way between each time), you could find the exact cause within 8 tries (well, the buildbot doesn't build every commit, so it will take less and you'll end up with a range.)

This is called "bisecting." It's not a method reserved to only programmers.

I can guarantee you that if we settled for certain versions being "the one" for certain games, the number of games PPSSPP (any version at all) is compatible with would be half what it is now or less.

There are still other games that aren't compatible yet, or are slow. Maybe they need a combination of the thing that fixes Sega Rally Revo and the thing that fixes Valkyrie Profile. Just saying "I've got my special version" means those games will never ever work.

We also add features to newer versions. What happens if you want to play Sega Rally Revo with tilt controls? Does God of War have online play options? You might not want these now but you may want them 1 or 2 months from now if they are improved in future versions.

Again, the latest version is, imho, the gold standard. If it doesn't work there, it's a problem.

-[Unknown]

[vnctdj]

I totally agree with you [Unknown], that's why we should test games compatibility as often as possible to detect problems easier and faster

[torresdyl]

(01-04-2014 03:28 PM)[Unknown] Wrote:  Those two versions are approximately 183 differences apart.

If you downloaded something around -93, and tried, you would eliminate 50% of the possibilities. Using this method (going half way between each time), you could find the exact cause within 8 tries (well, the buildbot doesn't build every commit, so it will take less and you'll end up with a range.)

This is called "bisecting." It's not a method reserved to only programmers.

I can guarantee you that if we settled for certain versions being "the one" for certain games, the number of games PPSSPP (any version at all) is compatible with would be half what it is now or less.

There are still other games that aren't compatible yet, or are slow. Maybe they need a combination of the thing that fixes Sega Rally Revo and the thing that fixes Valkyrie Profile. Just saying "I've got my special version" means those games will never ever work.

We also add features to newer versions. What happens if you want to play Sega Rally Revo with tilt controls? Does God of War have online play options? You might not want these now but you may want them 1 or 2 months from now if they are improved in future versions.

Again, the latest version is, imho, the gold standard. If it doesn't work there, it's a problem.

-[Unknown]

It seems easier using your methods mmmmm..... half and half and half, ok, let me try it later. I got jobs to be done.


I certainly hope that this emulator could be improved and patched, and that's why I post here. So I agree with you UNKNOWN when you say that if we only do our "playing" part, PPSSPP wouldn't be so perfect now. I just didn't realize that I can do a little bit more to help to find in which version PPSSPP got this wrong. Now I think that everyone has to do something more.



Another game: Silent Hill Shatter Memories, in all versions flashing all the time. But I guess it's just another story.......