Castlevania The Dracula X Chronicles US

[BouncingBreasts]

Is there a way to compile these information into a single file ? including Screen off course.
Capturing every tab isn't good enough I think.

[[Unknown]]

You can select the tab and select all, copy/paste to a text file, which is a bit easier.

So, this is actually using alpha blending, alpha testing, AND color testing.

The color test tells it "when the color you're about to draw is black, don't draw it." The alpha test simply says "skip alpha=0" and blending is fixed blending (basically 50%.)

In the GE debugger, while it's on that first screenshot, go to the Flags tab, and double click "Color test enable" (third from bottom.) This will turn it off. Then hit "Step Draw" at the top. Does it end up with a black box? If it does, that's probably what's happening on your PowerVR device - the color test is not working correctly.

If it doesn't, click "Step frame" and get back to about to draw that same thing, and then try the same thing with "Alpha test enable". And if it still doesn't look the same, try again and disable both.

But, it actually may be alpha blending. I know that we saw a PowerVR Rogue device that had problems with GL_CONSTANT_COLOR (in other words, fixed blending, which this game is using.)

-[Unknown]

[BouncingBreasts]

I've tried it.

This happened when the drawer was drawing the "Tree shadow" texture and I double-clicked "Color test enable 1" to 0 (turn it off)
But the difference is, I still can see it as transparent while the one on my phone is plain black.

Oh, and your idea on submitting GE was nice, except the "Display List" tab doesn't allow me to Ctrl+A it
That tab must be Screen-captured only I guess....

[[Unknown]]

Okay, the very very latest git build (v1.0.1-158-g33b291a or higher) contains some tweaks to the way alpha blending and color testing is done. It may improve this issue, make no difference, or make it even worse. Would appreciate testing, since I don't have an affected device.

If it makes no change, can you just double check for me that you don't have disable alpha test checked (make sure it's not using per-game settings or anything... just pause the game and check the settings from there)?

Assuming it alpha test is not disabled, and those changes don't help, I think it means that GL_CONSTANT_COLOR is just broken. I can workaround this by applying a patch on PowerVR devices but it could affect performance (although, perhaps, it could improve it...) so I want to make sure it's still broken first.

-[Unknown]

[WarmBaguettes]

I just dumped this game today (USA version) and tried it on the latest Windows x64 revision.

Symphony of the Night seems to run without major glitches, however, the intro for the Original Rondo of Blood doesn't seem to play correctly, the music starts, but the video is extremely late, starts playing almost when the music ends.

Is there a fix for that or is just a problem with the current WIP?

Thanks.

[boubikos]

(05-10-2015 06:14 PM)WarmBaguettes Wrote:  the intro for the Original Rondo of Blood doesn't seem to play correctly, the music starts, but the video is extremely late, starts playing almost when the music ends.

Is there a fix for that or is just a problem with the current WIP?

I have the same problem with the Ys I & II Chronicles but the reverse.
The video runs to fast from the music.
For example.
youtube.com/watch?v=sn0oJMFni_Y

[Arcadia]

Are there any proper codes for the main game and Symphony of the Night?

[lights]

i got v1.0.1 x64 of PPSSPP and it keeps crashing regularly during gameplay,
though the only game I play is Dracula x Chronicles. It keeps crashing every hour or two into game. Few times it even froze my compute requiring a hard-shutdown.
My specs are :
AMD A6-3410MX oc 2.1ghz
6gb ram
AMD 6750m 1gb
Windows 7 64bit

Running 14.4 CCC (don't suggest me to update cause this is the only version that supports "fixed switching mode" so i can disable the shitty iGPU)

[vnctdj]

Merged.

[asbel]

it works perfect on my samsung galaxy s6 edge and i played castlevania smyphony on night its perfect on my phone no glitches and crashes and no frameskip. i am using 2x scale and 5x resloution.

---

maybe my mali gpu its different to pc

[Foffy]

Sorry if 'bumping' this for a solution to my problem is uncalled for, but perhaps someone can help me.

When I play Symphony of the Night in the game, it seems very few of the filters like XBR work. They'll work on some assets and not others, which is jarring. Worse still for me is that it appears bilinear filtering doesn't work at all. I've tried to use the Spine36 upscaler as a substitute as it kind of gets a similar job done, but I was wondering if this is a known issue in the emulator, or an issue in settings?

[LunaMoo]

It's not a bug, nor issue with your settings, postprocessing shaders are applied on whole output that's it - if they don't work on some elements it just means it's effect was designed to apply only on some elements like ie edges or certain color patterns.

In general games which re-use content from older consoles(which this one I belive does) or either due to budget or design choice use "pixel art"/low quality content are the worst case scenario for most post processing shaders.

Dunno what you ment by "bilinear filtering not working" as from screenshots posted earlier in this thread game is very blurry ~ most likely due to stretching ps1 res into psp one with that particular filtering.

[Foffy]

I'll try to explain what I mean, for I'm not complaining about the pixels themselves. It's the fact that by default, bilinear filtering doesn't seem to be enabled in any which way on the image to smoothen out the image quality. It's as if the 'nearest' option is on, but it's not.

The first image is one that the game has by default, and the image quality here shows no bilinear filtering applied, regardless of settings. Even XBR typically fails to be applied to much of the sprites.

The second image is one using Spine36, which actually delivers an effect similar to what bilinear filtering would provide. It's a bit too blurry compared to what bilinear typically offers, and upon using it in the Rondo remake it appears a bit obvious why that's so; it's a shader that is rendering the game at a lower internal resolution.

Hopefully a visual example shows you what I mean. The first one looks like bilinear filtering simply fails to be applied from the emulator onto the game, for it's far too chunky and pixelated. The second image is actually closer to how it should appear. You can very likely get the PS1 version of the game looking like the second shot in an emulator for that platform with bilinear filtering enabled, not the first. That tells me something is off-base.

[LunaMoo]

Well Spline actually isn't all that great, however is an upscaling filter and all upscaling filters in ppsspp are automatically setting rendering res to x1(5xBR also does that, however it's much better scaling effect might result in less blurry image) to then upscale it to display size. Bilinear filtering scales with rendering resolution making it less blurry the higher pixel density you render with, so whatever resolution you're using, since it's a 2D game it surely isn't doing much more than removing the blur ~ typically it's what people like through.

You should get similar result by disabling all post process and then setting rendering res to x1.

[CheatJoker008]

(10-17-2014 06:59 AM)Testmark89 Wrote:  Hello! I recently completed the whole collection, so I decided to write this up as a... uh, Halloween gift? I tried to list bugs based on severity.

Region: US
Format: CSO
Version: v0.9.9.1 (and ~10/05 nightly for Rondo)
OS: Win7 x64

DXC - Fully completable.
Bugs:
-Minor, dialogue: I'm fairly certain one of Shaft's later speeches "stops" and requires pressing Start to bypass. It's not the much earlier "fog" one which required fixing and is incredibly minor. Unfortunately I did not particularly test it or note it in any detail.
-Minor, gameplay?: A weird one, but the Boss Demo mode (not the Boss Rush, just the purchasable demonstrations) seems to desync eventually. It seems to have no noticeable effect on the game, even if the character is defeated.

Rondo of Blood - Technically beatable, but not fully UNLESS you use an external workaround. Might be better to source a different copy of it if you are sensitive to the bugs, although the PSP version does have some minor localization differences unavailable elsewhere.
Bugs:
-Major, gameplay: You can beat it getting the bad ending with Richter (which, actually, is up to a vast majority of the game), but the game/program freezes upon loading of cinema when saving hostages (including the playable character Maria). The audio will go but nothing else, and it seems to affect the output. Important Note: You can get around this right now if you use JCPSP which will get past that section fine (although slowly); just swap your memory card save back and forth. Thankfully almost all of the hostages are near the beginning of levels and you don't even have to beat the level after saving them (just quit to the menu or whatever). Please see the bottom of post for a save state example, as this is the biggest bug in the collection.
-Intermediate, sound/video: Cinematic outside of in-level (opening, ending, another story one near the end I think) don't freeze the game, but they do have fairly big problems. The sound will go and finish first, and then the video. The ending in particular won't even load the credit music after, although it doesn't cause any problems besides being a pretty unsatisfying cap on the whole thing.
-Intermediate, graphical: Border corrupts, and it actually can be somewhat distracting in this case. What happens on the right side is that it seems to have a "buffer" corruption, so when say an enemy touches it it will bleed into it. It's largely ignorable to me but I imagine it'd annoy others, especially as it seems to happen largely on boss areas.
-Intermediate, music: Music usually goes through one iteration, and then instead of looping it'll corrupt until it mutes itself. Oddly, loading a save state seems to fix it (if I'm remembering correctly) until it finished that iteration again. If you can ignore it and don't mind playing mainly mute it isn't a big deal.
-Minor, lag: Minor, stuttering lag happens occasionally. I label it "Minor" because it's both interceptable/readable and non-constant. It might have something to do with the music? I noticed it is triggerable in a few places, including, but not always, the Dracula fight.
-Minor, Sound Test: Sound Test (music) seems to freeze the game somewhat similar to the hostage bug. The solution is to ignore its existence as you can find the music elsewhere (including the DXC sound test).
-Besides that, runs pretty perfect. Great speed, I didn't notice any problem with it! I really don't regret doing this version instead of another (well, constant music would've been nice); YouTube has the endings anyway.

Symphony of the Night - Fully beatable (trust me!), just keep in mind the crash bug. The PSP version has exclusive (though not entirely uncontroversial) changes which is why I played this version of it.
Bugs:
-Intermediate?: It had a tendency to crash PPSSPP without warning/cause (or have horrific graphical problems) if I played too long. Some areas, like the elevator generator, seemed to have these more often, and I sometimes noticed a graphical effect on the Faerie familiar often before it happened (odd, I know, but true). Maria mode in particular seemed to trigger crashes more often and sooner. What "fixes" it is simply getting in the habit of quitting to the SoTN main menu after saving and then loading the save (in-game, you don't have to quit the program or anything and it does it fast). Seriously, doing that little thing changed it from "fairly noticeable crashing" to "a few times in a mode playthrough usually if I forgot". I didn't use save states (except, just in case, before quitting in case of save corruption) so maybe try that?
-Minor, graphical: Some other graphical errors but nothing big. Honestly except for that familiar one and some big crashes that affected the graphics but not the program, the most noticeable is on the death animation on Fire Demons. No layer problems (fog, dark) or anything like that.
-Minor, lag: Occasionally I could trigger some small stuttering lag not entirely dissimilar to Rondo of Blood's (more "speed-up" after the stuttering maybe?). Oddly enough I first noticed it replicable during the credits (every ten seconds or so), but not every time nor always when fighting Dracula. Mostly ignorable, minor and inconsistent (just like Rondo of Blood, the speed of SoTN is fantastic as a whole).
-Minor, graphical: Border corruption again. In SoTN's case not only is it much less annoying (no bleedthrough, always black), but various in-game things like saving will fix it.

There you go, hope it's helpful to somebody! To sum it all up: DXC is like perfect now, Rondo of Blood is annoying but beatable (and fully if you use an external workaround for a few parts) with like perfect speed but bad music and cinematics, and SoTN is fantastic as long as you save and reload and don't mind occasional crashes. That's pretty wild, considering where it was just last year! Also I uploaded a save state during Rondo of Blood right before a hostage and potential freeze (press down on the hidden red stairs there):

Code:

depositfiles.com/files/qeen3i1lj

Hi. I'm sorry for necroposting(if that is a problem on this forum), but I would like to ask if the cutscene problem of rondo of blood has any progress/solution that I missed, as I am being bugged by that problem for a long time.