How to run Melty Blood Actress Again on your PC (with Netplay)

[Dark Pulse]

...Why are you using 0.9.6? 0.9.7 (r3113) came out about a month or two ago... but of course, I have a more recent compiled build.

PCSX2 0.9.7 BETA r3422 can be gotten right'chere.

0.9.7 has native ISO loading, so no more need to mount it on a virtual drive or anything like that. Speeds should be faster, too.

Intro movies will be flickery unless you enable the "EE Timing Hack" in gamefixes, but otherwise the game runs 100% fine.

[Rubyiris]

...Why are you using 0.9.6? 0.9.7 (r3113) came out about a month or two ago... but of course, I have a more recent compiled build.

PCSX2 0.9.7 BETA r3422 can be gotten right'chere.

0.9.7 has native ISO loading, so no more need to mount it on a virtual drive or anything like that. Speeds should be faster, too.

Intro movies will be flickery unless you enable the "EE Timing Hack" in gamefixes, but otherwise the game runs 100% fine.

You've already covered this. I have on-board video and as such it is impossible for me to run the new build. This does not prevent me from using the previous build without a hitch in the past.

As such, I would really appreciate your help with getting GSdx 1650 to work.

[Tragic]

New here so I may be repeating already covered topics but...

Whenever I play MBAA, the game seems all "shakey," plus I get those annoying lines/boxes in the characters like everyone else.

May someone grace me with some guidance on this?

[Dintrao]

New here so I may be repeating already covered topics but...

Whenever I play MBAA, the game seems all "shakey," plus I get those annoying lines/boxes in the characters like everyone else.

May someone grace me with some guidance on this?

I hate pcsx2, but I found pressing f9 then f5 fixed that same problem for me 

Only downside is that you have to do it everytime you load the game.

[Dark Pulse]

New here so I may be repeating already covered topics but...

Whenever I play MBAA, the game seems all "shakey," plus I get those annoying lines/boxes in the characters like everyone else.

May someone grace me with some guidance on this?

The shakiness is due to the game running in Interlaced mode. Hold Triangle + X as it boots and select the top option twice; this will set it into Progressive Scan (which all PC monitors are) and that will stop the shakiness.

As for the lines, Config > Video > Plugin Settings. Make sure Scaling is no higer than 4x, and make sure Texture Filtering is unchecked, or cycle through the check states - one of them filters backgrounds (which is fine) and one of them filters backgrounds + sprites (which you don't want). Alternatively, simply tick the "Native" checkbox and it should definitely work.

Dintrao: Same thing will work for you, just set it in Progressive Mode. F9 switches the renderer from Hardware (GPU based) to Software (CPU based); F5 switches between various Interlaced blending modes. Since the game has a native Progressive Scan mode, simply using that will fix the shaking, guaranteed.

[academico]

Dark pulse can i play with you some online matches or you left MBAC?

[Narmo]

0.9.7 has native ISO loading, so no more need to mount it on a virtual drive or anything like that. Speeds should be faster, too.

If by "native ISO loading" you mean that you no longer need a CD plugin, then I suppose so. Grabbing Linuz's ISO plugin isn't that much of a hassle, however >.>

As for speed, I'm going to have to defend 0.9.6 here (****PLEASE TAKE NOTICE THAT WE OBVIOUSLY HAVE DIFFERENT COMPUTERS HERE -- DIFFERENT CPU, GPU, ETC ETC. THOSE MAY MAKE A DIFFERENCE****). For starters, I use rev 1888, along with the plugins it came pre-packaged with (GSdx, SPU2-X, etc etc). The game not only runs 60 FPS constantly, there are also no signs of slowdowns that the FPS reporter may fail to report.

I gave your compiled 0.9.7 a try (which was one from another thread about some guy wanting a command-line version.. odd), and while the FPS was reporting 60 FPS constantly, I noticed some slowdowns whenever I started getting into the usual "fast-pace" playing. The slowdowns weren't long-drawn (they were rather instantaneous for the most part), but a trained eye will notice them.

Plugin settings and such were kept the same.

If there's one fault with 0.9.6, it would be when you set the latency for the sound plugin to a lower value -- you'll hear some cracking when you press start >> go to the menu screen with all of the gametypes and options. But other than that, it gets normal fast (I'd rather hear the 1 second of cracking to get a sync'd sound).

P.S. I'm not inciting some argument here. If 0.9.7 (rev.??) works better than 0.9.6 (rev.??) for you, and the game runs just like how it would on a PS2, then obviously use that one. The main point of my post is to let others know that a different version & revision may be different for others.

[Dark Pulse]

0.9.6 will always be Rev. 1888. 0.9.7 can vary, as it's still not in "final" stage.

I did compile a new build last night, for those interested in it. It's Revision 3738.

And yes, the LinuzAppz plugin still has some minor uses, but most of it is down to compressing the ISOs. If you're that hurting for space, it's not a bad pick, but even 1 TB drives are rather cheap now, and 2 TBs can be had for about $130-140 USD.

And yes, speeds can matter quite a bit. There's obviously less speedhacks in newer revisions. Having your hardware would help greatly in letting me determine the weak spot on your system.

Academico: I never got into MBAC netplay. Even if we did, I'm in America, you're in Argentina. The ping would be fairly bad.

[Narmo]

And yes, the LinuzAppz plugin still has some minor uses, but most of it is down to compressing the ISOs. If you're that hurting for space, it's not a bad pick, but even 1 TB drives are rather cheap now, and 2 TBs can be had for about $130-140 USD.

And yes, speeds can matter quite a bit. There's obviously less speedhacks in newer revisions. Having your hardware would help greatly in letting me determine the weak spot on your system.

You misunderstood me about Linuz's ISO plugin. In fact, what I said before was wrong anyways: I was under the impression that that plugin was needed in order to load up an .ISO. Of course I only thought so because I kept using the "Run CD/DVD" option -- doing so w/ cdvdnull would just boot up the BIOs, whereas Linuz would pop up a prompt. 

**Shameless note: picked up a 2TB drive at slickdeals for ~$95 a little over a week ago, so I'm okay with space 

As for the whole computer specs dilemma, I was a bit unclear on that: I'm not necessarily talking about the "model", but rather the "make". For instance, an Nvidia card vs. an equally-specced ATi card: for some games, the Nvidia one is better, and vice versa (primarily do to whatever game being made w/ whatever vendor in mind). Of course, you can always just grab a beefier version of whatever to compensate for the lack of optimization (kind of like how FFXIV, during its Alpha stages, required a beefier setup than whatever setup is recommended now -- optimization is pretty cool  )

As for 0.9.6, 0.9.7, and the issue of speedhacks: I don't have any speedhacks enabled on 0.9.6 (if there are hidden hacks in 0.9.6 that 0.9.7 doesn't have for a more "correct" emulation, then that's different), nor did I have any enabled when I used 0.9.7. At the time I compared both, I merely drew the conclusion that 0.9.6 was more optimized than 0.9.7 for MBAA -- both versions playing the same game don't even come close to maxing out my CPU. It's kind of like how most people rollback to different version of an emulator due to the author(s) breaking some games but fixing others due to the coding being more supportive to the latter (unintentional? intentional? no idea). I remember an author for a Dreamcast emulator stating that he borked one of his later revisions, and suggested to rollback to a previous one due to the latter being more compatible (and faster) with the majority of the games (funnily enough, some games worked better than the borked version than on the previous)

As for the sound crack that I had, that only happened because I set the latency way too low  I only started caring about the problem after I brought it up.

And that's about it from me for this topic. Again, I only brought up 0.9.6 due to that little (by "little", I mean very little -- it's noticeable, but it affecting your gameplay would be a shameless excuse) lag I noticed in 0.9.7. I don't have the math to back it up, but I did have two MBAA buds to verify whether or not my eyes were playing tricks on me. 

Apologies for the misinfo and for any miscommunication I had in my former post. 

[Prototype909]

All right guys, I've just encountered this problem. My pcsx2 seems to be running on a policy of "Diminishing returns"

First 3 times I play - 100% FPS, everything runs at perfect speed

Next time - 70-80% FPS, noticeable slowdown

Next time - 50-60% FPS, what the ****


I mean...how is that even possible? Anyone have any clues as to what is going on and why it's happening?

PC specs -

Intel(R) Core (TM) i7 CPU
CPU Speed - 2.66 Ghz
6 GB RAM

[abitofBaileys]

This happened earlier to me, too. Until I found out that of course it stores temporary data on your system drive. If it's full, it gets slower. The other thing is the virtual drive. Set it to something like 4GB and you shouldn't have problems.

This is hypothetical.

[Prototype909]

So how would I go about doing this? And I mean...I have 6GB of RAM is this one program really filling that up so fast?


EDIT - Yeah, that's not the problem. My Virtual Memory is also 6000+MB

[Tokoyakiboy]

i just used PS2 PAL to NTSC Patcher with Y-FIX.. I managed to run the game with my own ps2 console..however every time i play it using my pc emulator, it stuck on booting screen..anyone has the solution for this?

[Dark Pulse]

...If you're doing it on an emulator, you don't need to run such fixes. The emulator will handle any region natively just fine.

On console, it may be a concern.

There's also the fact that homebrew development - such as this - is a lot more WIP than commercial game stuff since homebrew stuff tends to exploit little tricks that the games never touch.

[Light]

You know I have a feeling at some point this question has been asked...maybe even in this very thread.

Anyway, I just want to know how cheap of a PC can one build/buy to get MBAA to run smoothly, constant 60 FPS even in 2 player mode? Maybe even list the specs for this coveted "budget nugget"?

Also for anyone wondering, yeah, I got a PS2 and play MBAA on it. However if I ever feel sadistic I kinda want to play "Suggoi! Arcana Heart 2", but I'm not sadistic enough to play on PS2.

I built my new PC under $500. I reused my gfx though.

[Dark Pulse]

You know I have a feeling at some point this question has been asked...maybe even in this very thread.

Anyway, I just want to know how cheap of a PC can one build/buy to get MBAA to run smoothly, constant 60 FPS even in 2 player mode? Maybe even list the specs for this coveted "budget nugget"?

Also for anyone wondering, yeah, I got a PS2 and play MBAA on it. However if I ever feel sadistic I kinda want to play "Suggoi! Arcana Heart 2", but I'm not sadistic enough to play on PS2.

Basically, for a minimum, I would say you'd want either a Core 2 Duo or, if you must get a AMD (I wouldn't recommend it due to instruction set stuff - more on that in a second) get a Phenom II.

The AMD CPU will be cheaper; however, this comes at a cost of Instruction Sets. To avoid getting too technical/lingo-y here, basically, later versions of instruction sets mean that it can do more stuff in less CPU cycles. All current AMD offerings only SSE2 fully. AMD offers SSE3 and SSE4a, but PCSX2 does not use those instruction sets - it does use SSSE3 (Note the extra S) and SSE4.1 (AMD's SSE4a is basically just two of those instructions implemented) which, due to petty squabbling, only Intel supports and not AMD. Each successive instruction set can give a 5-10% speed boost, so you're looking at 10-20% more speed if you pick a Core 2 over a Phenom II - that's significant.

PCSX2 does not take advantage of quadcores yet (except in Software Rendering mode, although that's not recommended), and it would need a significant rewrite to do so. Thus, a faster dualcore would be better than a slower quadcore.

Personally, I have a Core 2 Duo E8400, which is a stock speed of 3.0 GHz. Your mileage may vary, but I have it overclocked to 3.4 GHz on the stock cooler. I know a friend who has a weaker Core 2 Duo (I forget the exact model) but she said she got a full 60 FPS as well. I'd recommend at least a Core 2 Duo E7/E8xxx line or Core 2 Quad Q8XXX/Q9XXX. These are the "Penryn" models, which are the ones that support SSE4.1. Older Core 2 Duos/Quads will only support up to SSSE3. Of course, any of the Core "i" series (i3, i5, i7) will also support SSE4.1 (and 4.2, but PCSX2 doesn't use that) so those will work as well. The Core 2s by now are probably around $100-150 USD - the Core i-series CPUs will probably be a bit more, but are FAR more powerful than the Core 2s.

Videocard? Nothing special is needed, but you should get a "real" videocard and not depend on onboard video - while you can have PCSX2 do rendering entirely through the CPU (Software Rendering) not many games will play fullspeed if you do (Melty is one of the few exceptions - it really doesn't use much of the PS2's power.) I'd say it should have at least 128 MB of VRAM, preferably 256, and be capable of supporting DirectX 10 or DirectX 11. The renderers are *MUCH* better on DX10/DX11 as opposed to DX9, but obviously, for DX10 you'll need a DX10-class card and be running Vista, and for DX11 you'll need a DX11-class card and Windows 7. Basically, any card released within the last 3 years (GeForce 8 or so) should be DirectX 10 capable, and anything in the last 12-18 months or so should do DirectX 11. The difference between DX10 and DX11 right now is extremely minor for PCSX2, so you can save a few bucks here if you'd like, though if you plan to do PC gaming, it wouldn't hurt to future-proof and get a DX11-class card.

If you're still on XP, you should really consider getting Windows 7 and at least a DX10-class card. There are lots of glitches and artifacts that are in DX9 mode that simply do not occur on DX10/DX11.

[Dark Pulse]

Wow Dark Pulse saves the day yet again.

Thanks, now I'll just stash that reply away and hopefully find it coming [hologram] summer. 

I'm handy with emulation, that's all. I've been part of that scene for nearly a decade, so I'm pretty pro at knowing my shit there.

[Shiawase]

Can someone give me a hand? I tried to get this to work but I got this error (at least, I'm assuming it's an error because I can't get progess)

http://img218.imageshack.us/img218/4528/ps2error.png

[fiendmaw]

I think that is what you get when the emulator doesnt detect your virtual cd image.Check if the emulator is looking for the image where it actually is...

[CrimsonMoonMist]

I believe it's not detecting your ISO as a ps2 disc.
You're using the in-built ISO loader, right?

[Dr.Faust]

how do i dumb the bios file form my ps2 or is it agenst forum rules to talk about that kind of stuff

[djenkov]

Hm,I have a question about gsdx.Its not showing directx 11.
I'm on windows 7 my directx is updated,today I updated my windows just in case and now I'm on sp1.
video card:radeon hd 5670
processor:athlon II x3 445 3,10 Ghz
So the question is:Is there any way to fix that?

Oh and MB is running perfectly.I really don't have problems with the emulation of the game and I know that there wont be any visible difference if I emulate it on 11 but its just.......bugging me.

[Roy-Kr]

Was just at a store where i negotiated to buy a laptop from them, if i could first confirm that MBAA runs flawlessly on PCSX2 on it.
Already works perfectly on my desktop, so i know it shouldn't be that much of a problem.

Need it if I'm gonna bring the game to tournaments and casuals. Norway's biggest fighting game event is coming up and I'm gonna have fun with Melty while waiting for the boring games to end.

[Komidol]

Just so you know, despite the smoothness of the emulation it will not be the same as running the program on your PS2.  The input buffer will be different, and it is really NOT the same game at all.  I wouldn't buy a computer to play MBAA when you could just get it for much cheaper and haul out that PS2 and TV.  That's what I've always done.  It's a hassle, but it's what it takes to start and keep a good small scene running.  Small sacrifices. 

[Roy-Kr]

I don't have a car and i don't plan on getting one, so carrying a TV around with me just isn't a possibility.