Messages

351

Akiha's Tea Room / Re: Well, it's that time again

« on: February 24, 2010, 09:18:01 AM »

Revisit? Hoo boy.

• Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. Come to think of it, just about any of the "Metroidvanias" I've played and beaten more than once.

• Gunstar Heroes. Still good. So is the GBA remake, although I never really had any trouble except in Black's stage, which was even more sadistic than the original. It had a good joke about how there was a "Save Destroyer" that'd delete your save if it caught you, though. Sadly, this got axed in the US release.
• Does playing Doom still count? Yeah, I still play that... I'm old, what can I say?
• Unreal Tournament. Why? It's Unreal Fucking Tournament, that's why. I'd love to take on any fellow UTers.
• Puyo Puyo. Either Puyo Puyo 15th Anniversary, or (lately) Puyo Puyo 7. I play a mean Feli.
• Tecmo Super Bowl. Back when my hometown team (The Buffalo Bills) didn't completely suck. At least in TSB, they'll always be gods, even if our quarterback is "QB Bills" instead of Jim Kelly.

I'm sure there's a lot more than what I'm remembering off the top of my head.

352

Melty Blood Auditorium / Re: The MBACPC Custom Music Topic

« on: February 24, 2010, 07:57:06 AM »

Has anyone investigated the possibility of finding out where the loop data is stored? I can tell you it's not in the oggs themselves, so somewhere the engine is getting that data.

If we can find that, the potential for mixes increases exponentially.

If Actress Again Current Code is the last Melty though, we should probably wait a little bit for that game. Current Code is supposed to come out this Spring in arcades, so hopefully that means a PC version should be out by late this year or early next year at the latest.

353

Akiha's Tea Room / Re: Introductory Thread (Take off your shoes, please)

« on: February 23, 2010, 04:20:57 AM »

Since my first post was in the topic on getting MBAA to run via PCSX2, I'll post myself here.

Nick's Dark Pulse. Been using it since 2002, so don't think I'm some Pokemon freak or something. (Although I must say I do enjoy the Pokemon games.)

I do a bunch of stuff. I'm pretty big on the emulation community, having help run some emulation sites before. I'm pretty well-versed there in just about all regards.

I'm one of the co-founders of the Sega Genesis/Sega Megadrive music site, Project2612.

Diehard Unreal Tournament Junkie. Ranked 56th worldwide at one point in Unreal Tournament 3. Usually I'm not quite that good, but still Top 1000. Haven't played it in awhile though... for that matter, I like most Sci-Fi First Person Shooters, but can't stand the realism ones. Never breathe "Counter-Strike" and "rules" in the same breath near me, or I'll maim you.

I honestly forget how I got into Melty Blood. I believe a friend of mine showed me a Nero Chaos sprite and then I dug up a wallpaper and from there I slowly found out about the games. Admittingly, I didn't play Tsukihime or Kagetsu Tohya until embarassingly recently, but now that I've finished them both up I find Melty Blood even more enjoyable, since now I understand everyone's motives, motivations and all that.

Amateur Voice Actor and writer. I've got ideas for a whole bunch of stories written down, I just need to find an artist willing to chip in the OTHER half of the work, since I couldn't draw if my life depended on it really.

Single, but in an online relationship with a girl as wonderfully weird as I am, and she's probably the one person who I can totally be myself around and not freak out. She's wonderful. Hopefully someday we can be closer, but for now... 

College graduate, Associate's of Social Sciences. Working on a Bachelor's in Social Work now.

Top 5 characters: Akiha (No, not just due to her defense, I like her character!), Sacchin (It's a given. And she'd better have a route in the Tsuki remake! Nasu's been teasing it forever...), Aoko (Something about a woman who doesn't dress up and can still wreck you), Len (As I've heard in many a video from here, "Fucking Cat!"), Ciel (Good backstory, and amazingly violent considering how she "looks.")

I wonder if Actress Again Current Code does, indeed, become the last version of Melty, if someone will eventually hack its engine more completely. We can put custom music in (kinda) and obviously the thing can be translated, so who knows... maybe eventually someone'll touch up the sprites. Or... dare I say... High-Rez sprites! Heaven have mercy...

Anyway, I'll be around. I'm nowhere near a competitive level player, but I enjoy the series deeply, and I figure that's all that matters, isn't it?

354

Melty Blood Auditorium / Re: How to run Melty Blood Actress Again on your PC

« on: February 23, 2010, 12:44:17 AM »

Apologies for bumping this topic, but I finally saw a topic that I felt I had to register up to this board for, having lurked here and read stuff for quite some time.

Therefore, my gift to the Melty Bread community: One of the most recent versions of PCSX2, 0.9.7 Alpha r2650. This is (as of February 28, 2010) the latest build. If new builds come out (especially with important feature or plugin changes) I will update, compile, and put a new build up. Please note this build will only work for Windows users; sorry Linux fans, but I don't have the know-how to compile it for Linux too. There's a guide on it, though, and odds are if you're on Linux you're hardy enough to take a look at it anyway, so here's the Linux Compilation Guide.

Put this in a new directory; don't reuse the plugins or INIs from the older version. You will, of course, still need a legal PS2 BIOS, as I don't include one in that package and never will for legal reasons. Dump your own BIOS, and of course, buy your own copy of the game. You can use the PS2 BIOS you've been using for 0.9.6; it will still work fine. Just copy it over to the new install.

Be warned: Some of the configuration stuff (and the look of the emulator) has changed MASSIVELY since the 0.9.6 revisions you guys are using. I'll be glad to help out and answer questions on stuff like this.

Also, keep in mind: PCSX2 runs FAR better on a Dual Core system, period. IT IS STRONGLY RECOMMENDED THAT YOU HAVE AT LEAST A DUALCORE CPU; this means at least a Intel Core 2 Duo, or an Athlon X2. The faster the Clock speed, the better. The faster the FSB frequency, the better. The more L2 Cache, the better. That said, a friend I know has a fairly modest system, and she can get full speed with NO speed hacks. Dual cores are really the key factor. Note that having a Tri or Quad Core will not produce much further speed (yet) due to how the emulator is coded. Also, the instruction set of your CPU really helps: The speed difference between a CPU that supports SSE2 and SSE4.1 can be a good 20-30% in the emulator, as the emulator can use less instructions to do the same work. You can find out what instruction sets your CPU supports with a program called CPU-Z. Use the version of GSdx that is equal to the highest version CPU-Z reports. The only ones that matter are SSE2 (If you don't have this, the emulator won't run - pure and simple), SSSE3 (NOT SSE3 - note the extra S!) and SSE4.1. (ATTENTION ATHLON USERS: SSE4a does *NOT* count for SSE4.1 compatability!) Always use the highest one supported by your CPU; it really helps the speeds. Having a fairly good videocard helps a bit, but it's not as important as the CPU. Anything from a GeForce 7 or higher (ideally, GeForce 8 or higher) or a Radeon X1900 or so should be just perfect.

If you feel you got plenty of horsepower to spare, you can make things look a tiny bit nicer. Sadly, the character sprites cannot be improved (this causes the infamous "lines" problem many of you experience) but you can make the game look a bit nicer and play a bit better:

• First, use Progressive Mode if you can. Hold Triangle + X when the game is loading, and select the top option twice. (The game is notifying you it's switching to progressive mode, then asks to confirm if you can see it.) As we are all on PCs, all monitors are progressive scan, and this produces a nice, clean image without interlacing artifacts. The only reason not to do this is if it kills performance on your PC.
• Use GSdx's DX10 mode if you can at all. GSdx runs FAR better and less glitchy in DX10 than DX9. If you want a good reason to get Vista or Win7, that might be one. Linux users are pretty much stuck with ZeroGS or ZZOGL - sorry.
• GSdx options: (Config > Video (GS) > Plugin Settings...) D3D Internal Rez to 1024x1024, Scaling to 4x, Texture Filtering a solid square/grayed checkmark. (NOT a regular checkmark - this is what causes the "lines." This option attempts to filter sprites AND backgrounds if just regular checked, and obviously the sprites aren't filtered very nicely...) If on DX9, check Logarithmic Z and Alpha Blend Correction (FBA). Leave everything else unchecked. In DX10, those will be unselectable so don't worry about it. GSdx should now auto-detect what version of Windows you have and use the appropriate one, but you can switch it if you really want to. Always use Hardware if you can, NOT Software, although if you have a Quad-core CPU and a poor videocard, setting this to software and using 4 render threads might give you more speed.
• Sound options: (Config > Audio (SPU2) > Plugin Settings...) Interpolation to 1 - Linear, Module to 1 - XAudio2. Tick the WIP 5.1 option if you want to, but it's WIP and thus can be buggy.
• Speedhacks: (Config > System Settings, Speedhacks tab) For me, Actress Again is fully playable without speedhacks - but then again, I have a Core 2 Duo E8400 running overclocked at 3.4 GHz and a GeForce GTX 285. Here's where you can adjust speedhacks after enabling them. "Enable INTC Spin Detection" and "Enable BBFC0 Spin Detection" are generally pretty safe hacks to enable. Only check "IOP x2 Cycle Rate Hack" if you're seriously struggling for speed; same with adjusting the "EE Cyclerate" and "VU Cycle Stealing" options. Touch those only if you absolutely, positively cannot get 60 FPS.
  
• More GS Options: (Config > App Settings) Here you can set a custom window size, as well as tell PCSX2 if your monitor is 4:3 or 16:9. PCSX2 will letterbox the game on Widescreen displays unless you force it to stretch it by selecting "Fit to Window/Screen." It's also where you can tick to start in fullscreen as opposed to windowed. "Use Exclusive Fullscreen Mode" only works on DX10 I think, so you'll need to use GSdx for that, and so it only works on Vista/Win7.
• One final tip: Run the game off a ISO if you can. Switching between your DVD Drive and the ISO loader can be done in the CDVD menu in the main PCSX2 window, and it's also how you'd access the BIOS if you needed to for some reason. (Select "No Disc.") Besides saving your disc, it will obviously load considerably faster, to the point there's very little to no loading at all. If you're really struggling for space, set your CDVD plugin to "Linuz ISO CDVD 0.9.0" and click Configure. Point it to your MBAA ISO, and have it compress it in BZ format. You'll have to then select the BZ'd image and then use "Boot > Run CDVD" to load it though.
  

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this gift of mine. I might have a few more if the demand is up for it.

And of course, what would all of this talk be without a nice test shot? Be warned, the image is LARGE - 2560px × 1792px and 1341.76 KB. Yeah, I like lossless PNG.