Elminage Gothic

[RPG Advocate]

Title: Elminage Gothic
Tested on: v0.7.5-391-g192d868
Genre: RPG
Region: JP
Format: ISO
Game ID: ULJM-06091
OS: Windows 7 x64
Comparability: Nothing

Notes: This game's behavior is bizarre. According to this trace from JPCSP:



...the game uses sceVadio to play two short (lengths 1280 and 1536) silent audio samples over and over again while it loads. PPSSPP seems to have trouble releasing the audio channels associated with those samples:



Looking at the code for that function on github:



...I wonder if some audio channel other than the first is reserved. Since only chans[0] is released by sceVaudioChRelease, other channels would stay reserved, and maybe the game doesn't like that.

[rpglord]

Same thing with Elminage Original ( english version )
http://forums.ppsspp.org/showthread.php?tid=1972

[RPG Advocate]

This went ingame on v0.7.6-688-gd4f3137, but build v0.7.6-689-g71b72b5 broke it again:



This report also applies to Elminage Original.

[[Unknown]]

Can you post a log (around that area) from the working version?

IS it crashing or just hanging?

-[Unknown]

[RPG Advocate]

It actually broke between 687 and 688. My apologies. The game just doesn't show anything. It doesn't crash the emulator.

Anyway, here's a log from build 687.

http://www.mediafire.com/?dk9w7n5tiqt7z4f (8 MB)

In addition to the initialization issues, note the end of the log. This game has a high probability of freezing when loading new Atrac3+ audio, but it doesn't always freeze in the same place.

[jacky400]

I noticed some other games will freeze up SOMETIMES when loading up to atrac3+ audio like Last Ranker and Dragon Ball Z Shin Budokai 2

[[Unknown]]

Ugh, dumb typo. New build should be v0.7.6-705-g2076b00. Hopefully it works.

-[Unknown]

[RPG Advocate]

This game's behavior hasn't changed. It still crashes at "Switching audio frequency to 16000."

[[Unknown]]

Is there any kind of demo for this game? Or, do you have a compiler to try a few things?

-[Unknown]

[RPG Advocate]

(05-20-2013 08:12 PM)[Unknown] Wrote:  Is there any kind of demo for this game? Or, do you have a compiler to try a few things?

-[Unknown]

There's no demo and I don't have a compiler.

I do have a real PSP with Jpcsptrace.prx installed. Depending on the nature of the suspected problem, it might be useful. In order for it to be useful, you already have to know which syscall(s) to trace.

[[Unknown]]

Ah, yes, that would definitely help. Here are the most interesting things:

sceKernelCreateThread 0x446D8DE6 6 sxdxxx

sceAudioSRCChReserve 0x38553111
sceAudioOutput2Reserve 0x01562ba3
sceAudioChReserve 0x5EC81C55

sceVaudioOutputBlocking 0x8986295e
sceVaudioChReserve 0x03b6807d
sceVaudioChRelease 0x67585dfd

-[Unknown]

[RPG Advocate]

Running Jpcsptrace on this game causes the memory stick light to show solid amber for a few seconds, then the PSP turns off. It does, however, capture a few lines of data before it dies. I'll post them here on the off chance that they're useful:

Code:

05:30:12 SceModmgrStart - sceKernelCreateThread 0x08970B80('user_main'), 0x8913FF8, 32, 0x40000, 0x80004000, 0x0 = 0x3EE4C63
05:30:12 user_main - sceAudioChReserve 0xFFFFFFFF, 0x1C0, 0x0, 0x8DFE034, 0x8DFE000, 0x8E00000, 0x0, 0x8DFCDB4 = 0x7
05:30:12 user_main - sceAudioChReserve 0xFFFFFFFF, 0x100, 0x0, 0xDEADBEEF, 0xDEADBEEF, 0xDEADBEEF, 0xDEADBEEF, 0xDEADBEEF = 0x6
05:30:12 user_main - sceAudioChReserve 0xFFFFFFFF, 0x100, 0x0, 0xDEADBEEF, 0xDEADBEEF, 0xDEADBEEF, 0xDEADBEEF, 0xDEADBEEF = 0x5
05:30:12 user_main - sceAudioChReserve 0xFFFFFFFF, 0x100, 0x0, 0xDEADBEEF, 0xDEADBEEF, 0xDEADBEEF, 0xDEADBEEF, 0xDEADBEEF = 0x4
Patching syscall from 0x8807E164 to 0x9FFFD4C
Patching syscall from 0x8807E4BC to 0x9FFFDA8
Patching syscall from 0x8807DF00 to 0x9FFFE04
05:30:12 user_main - sceKernelCreateThread 0x08956848('SasThread'), 0x88212DC, 16, 0x4000, 0x0, 0x0 = 0x19F4C55

Tested on 6.60 PRO-C2.

[[Unknown]]

I found another small typo. I'm now not sure how it's possible that Velocity started playing music...

-[Unknown]

[RPG Advocate]

This game now goes ingame again. It does have problems, though.

1. Data isn't actually saved, despite the save screen claiming the data is saved successfully.

2. The Atrac3+ freeze bug mentioned above persists:



3. If you push the select button anywhere but the title screen, the game immediately freezes and the debug console loops this:

[[Unknown]]

Select saves a screenshot to the /PICTURE/ directory. We haven't implemented it yet, but Senjou no Valkyria 3 and ClaDun / ClaDun X2 at least also have the same feature.

Not sure why saves are broken...

-[Unknown]