PSX Short Draw Distance, specifically in Crash Team Racing

George Spiggott

I posted a thread about with screen shot examples a few weeks ago. Papu's Piramid and Tiny Arena are also badly affected. Link to thread and pics: https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/20088/issues-with-psx-games-soul-reaver-crach-team-racing

I'm running the NTSC version but I have the original disc for the PAL version.

pjft

@George-Spiggott I see. In my case, turning off Dynamic Recompiler seemed to do the trick, though I’m not sure if it will have other side effects (it likely will). Also, unsure if it’ll have an impact on the speed. If it works, you can create a per-game save file and save it for CTR.

Let me know if it works. Happy new year!

langest

@George-Spiggott
Yes, this is the same problem.

@pjft
That fixed the rendering distance. However, it introduced a lot of lag. The framerate got way too low. Maybe it is possible to tweak performance settings to fix this. Did you notice any performance loss when changing this option?

Happy new year!

George Spiggott

Tried it with the recompiler turned off. Much too laggy to be playable on my Pi3B+. I usually play CTR with enhanced graphics on and speed hack off. I get a bit of slowdown with that but it is worth the improvement in the graphics. This looks like something I'll be learning to live with until there is an update to either the emulator or the hardware.

Ranma

I usually play PSX without the speed hacks or any improvement to resolution as I prefer the original look, but I still get the problem you have here too. Anyone figure out a workaround or is this a genuine bug and an issue should be reported? Thanks.

pjft

@Ranma This is likely a genuine bug and an issue. However, development on the actual source emulator stopped a while back, so while a bug report would be helpful, I'm not sure it'll be addressed soon.

Ranma

Ah I see. I imagined the core still had some development and a bug report would help us. Never mind, thanks for replying.

pjft

@Ranma I mean, it might - hope is never lost.

This is the original emulator's repository (last commit October 2017).

https://github.com/notaz/pcsx_rearmed

This is the libretro core we're talking about:

https://github.com/libretro/pcsx_rearmed

Try running the game on the original pcsx_rearmed (non-libretro) version. If the error is there, it's less likely, but try it out. If it's not there, then it's on the libretro core and it's more likely that someone will look into it.

George Spiggott

@pjft I tried running this in the non libretro emulator but it crashes after the Sony USA presents... screen.

langest

I tried disabling the dynamic compiler on my RPi4 and the game runs smooth and the draw distance issue is gone.

George Spiggott

Does it still do so with the double resolution hack?

langest

@George-Spiggott
One caveat I forgot to mention. I have a small overclock on my RPi4.

code_textover_voltage=2
arm_freq=1840
gpu_freq=600
core_freq=600

I haven't tested the double resolution hack. How do I enable it?

George Spiggott

Just follow this video.

Note that when he says 'select' he means 'hotkey'.

langest

@George-Spiggott
Seems to work perfectly fine on my machine.
And wow(!), the game looks like a new HD release. I'm not sure I like it, but it is fun to look at how clear the image can look.

George Spiggott

Sewer Speedways is a great track to test the speed of the game on. If slow down is is only slight you won't notice the graphics lag but you will probably notice the music slow down.

Are you using the speed hack? That speeds things up a little but also causes missiles to glitch.

Darksavior

Interesting, didn't know a dynarec used for so long could have issues like this. Beetle psx is getting a dynarec sooner or later so I'll be testing the draw distance on that.

langest

@George-Spiggott
I tested on the airship level without speedhack.
I'll test on sewer speedways as soon as I get the time.

langest

@George-Spiggott
I played through Crystal Cup on resolution hack without speed hack.
The sound went silent a few times but the frame rate seemed constant. Sewer Speedways was without any issue. Roo's Tubes and the Dingo Canyon were the ones where sound went for a couple of seconds.
Worth noting is that I'm good at the game relative to the AI, so I rarely see multiple racers on the screen or items being used. That could be a cause of the better results. That being said, I have not over clocked my pi to the limit so you could crank up the clock speed even more and you probably wouldn't have the sound issue.

George Spiggott

Great, thanks for the results. I'm going to pick up a Pi 4 this weekend so I have this to look forward to.

George Spiggott

I now have a Pi 4 (4GB not overclocked) running Lakka/PsxRearmed.

I set the resolution hack on, turned off the dynamic re-compiler and set the internal FPS counter on. The game's internal FPS is 30FPS. The game does slow down a bit, sometimes as far as 25FPS while racing and further during animation scenes but the slowdown isn't really noticeable when you play.