Ouya

[tenshin2002]

This emulator is like OMG so good! And to Ouya it would really be killer!
I have pointed out in several game specifik threads about a really annoying problem on Ouya.
I thought maybe if i write it here as an Ouya specifik problem some of the devs see it and finds a solution for it.

Its to do with the color output on the Ouya. The games i have tried all work as expected (yay!) but the color output is very low. It looks like you set the colors to 8-bits in windows and launch a game on it.
So it looks like sh*t and with banding on the colors.
Anybody knows why this is happening on the Ouya and not other android units??
I would like to post a screenshot but dont know how to make one on the Ouya...

[dlanor]

(09-22-2013 05:04 PM)tenshin2002 Wrote:  This emulator is like OMG so good! And to Ouya it would really be killer!

That's very true, and for me there is no "would be" about it.

Quote:I have pointed out in several game specifik threads about a really annoying problem on Ouya.
I thought maybe if i write it here as an Ouya specifik problem some of the devs see it and finds a solution for it.

I don't think so, but it's still a good thing you posted here, so you had a chance to learn that it's probably your OUYA that has a problem, while it still is under warranty.

Quote:Its to do with the color output on the Ouya. The games i have tried all work as expected (yay!) but the color output is very low. It looks like you set the colors to 8-bits in windows and launch a game on it.
So it looks like sh*t and with banding on the colors.
Anybody knows why this is happening on the Ouya and not other android units??

That definitely never happens on my OUYA, and I've tested a lot of PSP games in PPSSPP on it. I haven't played all of those games very far, since some of them are very time consuming (mostly RPGs). But if the problem was as universal as you describe it then even a short test should reveal those problems in several of those games. Yet I haven't seen anything like you describe in any of those games (appx 60+ games).

Some few of those games function badly in various ways, such as mis-zoomed picture frames or even crashing, but that is due to remaining compatibility problems of the emulator, and none of my games have shown the color problems you describe.

I suspect you have a hardware problem of some kind, either in the OUYA itself or in its connection to the TV set. I recommend that you test with another HDMI cable, and if possibly also with another TV set.

If the problem persists with those different setups, then it's definitely a hardware error in the OUYA so you should then return it for a refund or replacement under warranty.


Alternately, it's also possible that you managed to botch some of the graphics settings badly in some of your earliest PPSSPP tests, with those settings then persisting for future tests and through PPSSPP updates.

So it could be worthwhile to go into the 'Manage' menus of the OUYA and uninstall the app, after first clearing its data (separate command), and then reinstall the app from scratch to see if there is any improvement as the emulator then restarts with all settings at defaults. This also eliminates the risk of a new emulator version reacting badly to remnant settings that were valid for an old version, but whose function may have changed.

But if you have any valued gamesaves you should try to back these up beforehand, so you don't lose anything. Simply copying the gamesave subfolder from the PSP folder in your sdcard to a safe place for future resurrection should suffice. I use the ES File Manager for this kind of work, but Astro and other file managers can also do it.

Best regards: dlanor

[livisor]

You're deffinately getting a +1 for that tech advice

[dlanor]

(09-24-2013 07:04 AM)livisor Wrote:  You're deffinately getting a +1 for that tech advice

Thanks!
I enjoy being helpful whenever I can, and it's nice to know that it's appreciated.

Best regards: dlanor

[tenshin2002]

Thanks for the reply!
However I dont think it can be a hardware issue as this ONLY happens in PPSSPP. I play Ouya native games with no problem, I play Mupen64 with no problems, I play FPSE and ePSXE with no problems... See where I´m going with this?

I think It might be an Ouya/software problem but not hardware for the reasons above. I tried on two TV´s and with 3 different HDMI cables. Still ONLY PPSSPP behaves like this.
I even tried your tip about clearing data, uninstalling and then reinstalling. Same damn poor color output. I dont get it!
Here are som Quick pics taken on the screen of the TV, but you can see what I´m talking about:



Any other suggestions?

[dlanor]

(09-24-2013 05:05 PM)tenshin2002 Wrote:  Thanks for the reply!
However I dont think it can be a hardware issue as this ONLY happens in PPSSPP. I play Ouya native games with no problem, I play Mupen64 with no problems, I play FPSE and ePSXE with no problems... See where I´m going with this?

Yes I do, and I agree that this makes it unlikely to be a hardware problem.

Quote:I think It might be an Ouya/software problem but not hardware for the reasons above. I tried on two TV´s and with 3 different HDMI cables. Still ONLY PPSSPP behaves like this.

I agree that it does seem to happen on some software level, but since I don't get anything like your problems on my own OUYA, I'm leaning towards something other than faulty coding of PPSSPP here.

Quote:I even tried your tip about clearing data, uninstalling and then reinstalling. Same damn poor color output. I dont get it!

Neither do I, but it's not entirely certain that the clearing of data really removed everything involved. One way of testing that is to set a different language for PPSSPP, and then try clearing data and uninstalling. If PPSSPP after a new install then comes up with the same non-default language active, that would prove that its settings survived.

If your OUYA is rooted you can try using a file manager (I use the "ES File Explorer") to verify if the subfolder "/data/data/org.ppsspp.ppsspp" remains in storage after clearing data and uninstalling. You can then remove it manually, but be careful. The other stuff in "/data/data" is crucial for other apps and probably for some system services too.

As you can see from my comments above I now lean towards some weird PPSSPP setting causing your problem, as I can think of no other reason for our OUYA's to work so differently (now that you've verified proper operation with all other games and emulators).

Quote:Here are som Quick pics taken on the screen of the TV, but you can see what I´m talking about:

----- images not quoted -----
Yes, they do seem 'banded' to an extent never seen on my OUYA, though I don't recognize those scenes so I can't make a direct comparison.

Quote:Any other suggestions?

Well, in addition to what I said above, it might be useful to coordinate some tests, so that you and I both run the same game to a known scene where the picture holds still (or can be paused), so that we can both capture an image of the same scene for comparison.

As for the choice of games, I have a very extensive collection of RPGs, and very few other games. So if you name an RPG you have and which runs on your PPSSPP with that graphic error, I'll probably be able to test the same game at my end. And then you just have to tell me of a specific stable scene showing the error (and perhaps tell me how you got there), and then I shall try to produce an image of the same scene from my OUYA for comparison.

I almost forgot to mention that it would help to know exactly which PPSSPP version you use, so we use the same one in this test. The one I'm currently using was built today as the APK file "ppsspp-v0.9.1-1208-g4cba4ef-android.apk". Though new versions are built by the 'bot' all the time, it should still be fairly near the top of the build-bot list.

Best regards: dlanor

[Henrik]

Looks like the opengl context gets initialized with a 16-bit backbuffer, or something like that. Yeah, that does look awful, I'm surprised dithering doesn't covert it up better though. Maybe something Tegra specific.

I hope to find time to look at this soon.

[dlanor]

@tenshin2002:
You're not alone in this anymore...

Apparently I've been focusing on the wrong games/scenes for noticing the problem, but tonight I spent some time specifically looking for color banding phenomena, and did find some though they were not as universal as you described. But perhaps the games you've been focusing on happen to be more prone to suffer from this problem than most of the ones I use.

In any case I found some cases of severe banding for just a few of the screen areas, although other areas of the screen were perfectly sharp and with fine color gradations without any visible banding. So it's definitely not a 'global' video rendering problem, but must rather be specific to some graphic function or method applied individually to rendered objects or backgrounds.

One such case of banding was in the initial scenes after starting a new game of "FF7: Crisis Core", where Zack has some user-controlled battles with various enemies (first some soldiers, then a monster). In many of these scenes the background air is tainted with a hazy smog, and these backgrounds were often badly color-banded (on the OUYA but not on a PC), so it might have something to do with how that smog effect was rendered over the 3D background.

@Henrik:
I'm sorry I can't describe it any better, but I never did any graphics coding myself. Hopefully you'll know what to look for anyway.

Best regards: dlanor

[Henrik]

Do you get the banding both with buffered and non-buffered rendering?

[dlanor]

(09-26-2013 08:24 AM)Henrik Wrote:  Do you get the banding both with buffered and non-buffered rendering?

So far I've mostly used default settings for all emulation options, since I haven't had many problems in the games I normally play.

I'll now test the same example I described in my last post with your suggested change and report the result here later.

Best regards: dlanor

[dlanor]

(09-26-2013 09:52 PM)dlanor Wrote:  

(09-26-2013 08:24 AM)Henrik Wrote:  Do you get the banding both with buffered and non-buffered rendering?

So far I've mostly used default settings for all emulation options, since I haven't had many problems in the games I normally play.

I'll now test the same example I described in my last post with your suggested change and report the result here later.

I'm replying to my own post here, to add the results of the test mentioned in it.

The color banding does occur both with buffered (default) and non-buffered rendering. As I switched to non-buffered rendering it even caused additional banding which was not clearly visible before, primarily in near circular bands around the main light source in this 3D scene.

I think one reason I haven't noticed this problem much earlier is that many of the games I play use fairly simple graphics methods (like most NIS RPGs do, for example), with just a single texture mapped to each 3D surface without complex 3D effects. But a game like FF7 crisis core is at the other end of the spectrum graphics-wise with a lot of combined effects in the 3D scenes such as drifting smog, multiple light sources etc, making it ideal for testing this kind of problem.

Btw: I did notice a lot of banding in the initial 'automatic' scenes of the game too, before the user gets any control, but I disregarded those as possibly being just movie playback effects, which is another issue entirely.

Best regards: dlanor

[tenshin2002]

@dlanor: Thank you so much for you effort in trying to find what I was trying to explain. It feels good to have my issue confirmed by you. I was beginning pulling my hair screaming : "why me?!"

To me it looks related to a filtering problem. Would love to try turning filtering off completely, but on PPSSPP you can't...

Thanks for looking in to this Henrik! I thought about submitting the issue in your dev page, but couldn't find out how! Lol!

The pics I posted is from Kingdom Hearts Birth by sleep. In the opening scenes. Lol! The other game I tested was Crisis Core! That's why this problem seemed universal to me.

[tenshin2002]

Just wanna say THANK YOU!
It seems like the color problem in Crisis Core and Kingdom Hearts on Ouya is fixed! I tried v0.9.1-1467-g0e7871f and its much better. You can still see some "banding" sometimes in a face but its bearly noticable.

Great work!