MiSTer FPGA Forum

Xbytez wrote: ↑Sat Apr 30, 2022 3:04 pm Just setup your DE10-Nano switches as show below.


psx-core-mister-dual-sdram-swithch-setting.jpg

midnightgamer wrote: ↑Sun May 29, 2022 4:59 pm Is the position shown on the picture the "on" position?

midnightgamer wrote: ↑Sun May 29, 2022 5:05 pm Thanks ... in this case I need to undo what I just did.

Xbytez wrote: ↑Sun May 29, 2022 7:42 pm

midnightgamer wrote: ↑Sun May 29, 2022 5:05 pm Thanks ... in this case I need to undo what I just did.

You are not required to have a dual SDRAM module setup on the PSX core any longer. If you are downloading the official PSX core release this now only supports a single SDRAM module.

midnightgamer wrote: ↑Sun May 29, 2022 9:01 pm BUT even if I setup the switches correctly the "SPU Ram option" is still greyed out in the most current official core. It says DDR3 (but greyed out). Is there anything I can do to take full advantage of Dual RAM?

• I replaced the BIOS update routine and added a softlink to the latest nightly called: PSX_latest. It will always point to the last download. So unless you want to run a specific version you can launch " PSX_latest"
• All known good bioses (redump) are used and stored in PSX/.bios and then softlinked to boot/1/2.rom.

  Code: Select all

  boot.rom  -> ps-41a.bin = SCPH-7001 USA/NTSC-U 
  boot1.rom -> ps-40j.bin = SCPH-7000 JAP/NTSC-J 
  boot2.rom -> ps-41e.bin = SCPH-7002 EUR/PAL
  

• You can change the softlinks manually to point to any of the bioses (24) currently in the biospack.

FPGAzumSpass wrote: ↑Mon Oct 24, 2022 4:25 am

Turbo CPU? Are you kidding me. I must admit I jumped around a bit like Ross after I enabled it:

Thank you for awakening my inner child again

held wrote: ↑Tue Dec 13, 2022 8:04 pm

FPGAzumSpass wrote: ↑Mon Oct 24, 2022 4:25 am

Turbo CPU? Are you kidding me. I must admit I jumped around a bit like Ross after I enabled it:

Thank you for awakening my inner child again

Seeing Alien Ressurection going up to 60 FPS in Widescreen mode (at least when the game is not streaming new assets from CD) is pretty nice.

I'm geeking out right now, and that does not happen very often. What a treat!

Hi, I have noticed some audio micro stutters in some Squaresoft rpgs. For instance FFVII, VIII and IX, during a battle or just before the battle (I guess is when is reading the CD). I don't remember if this also happens with original hardware (maybe it was) but I have seen this problems with some emulators.

You can check if the problem is gone if you set "Pause when CD slow" to "off"
If yes, your storage is too slow.
(better don't actually play with this setting to off, as it can crash your game, just test with it)

If not, you need to describe futher what the issue is and maybe create a video, as i don't experience that in FF8. Didn't try 7 or 9 much.

Thanks @FPGAzumSpass! I have checked and it seems that with the setting off I don't get that stutter. I'm using a 2Tb external HDD but it's usb 3.0 it should be fast enough, right? Faster than a CD in the PSX... It's formatted to exfat, not sure if there's a better format.

Any suggestion? Thanks!

The DE-10 Nano is USB 2.0 so your HDD won't be faster than that. It should be faster than the PS1 CD.

jca wrote: ↑Fri Dec 16, 2022 7:41 pm

The DE-10 Nano is USB 2.0 so your HDD won't be faster than that. It should be faster than the PS1 CD.

That was my intuition that the CD reader of a PSX is slower. Any suggestion? I know that some HDD stops after some time without using and I used your solution for keeping it always on.

The issue is not transfer speed, but latency.
USB has latency and the HDD has latency and the transfer to the core also has latency, but every sector in double speed only has _6ms of time.

If you have this issue, make sure to use bin/cue and not chd, otherwise you also get the decompression in the path.

I can't really do anything about it otherwise. The game expects 150 sectors per second at exact points in time. Every time the data isn't ready, the core will pause for at least 1 frame, also pausing the audio, leading to stutter.
Turning that off, will make the CD drive present the data late, which can lead to all kind of random problems.

The FF games are usually very stable in terms of CD handling and probably can do that(not 100% sure!), but i know some other games that would just crash.

edit:
also leave you a comment from discord channel here. I have not validated it, but maybe it helps:

"Adding this as a followup to my message about a week back in case somebody runs into the same issue. I did end up picking up an external SSD (because my games are too big to fit on an SD card reliably/price-wise). The SSD fixed most stuttering, but I still had very rare stuttering in some games (Mainly Star Ocean Second Story) with the drive formatted as exFAT (default it came with), both bin/cue and chd. Tried formatting again to exFAT, same issue.

Not really sure why, but formatting it to NTFS actually made all the problems go away. Games run great now."

FPGAzumSpass wrote: ↑Sat Dec 17, 2022 7:01 am

The issue is not transfer speed, but latency.
USB has latency and the HDD has latency and the transfer to the core also has latency, but every sector in double speed only has _6ms of time.

If you have this issue, make sure to use bin/cue and not chd, otherwise you also get the decompression in the path.

I can't really do anything about it otherwise. The game expects 150 sectors per second at exact points in time. Every time the data isn't ready, the core will pause for at least 1 frame, also pausing the audio, leading to stutter.
Turning that off, will make the CD drive present the data late, which can lead to all kind of random problems.

The FF games are usually very stable in terms of CD handling and probably can do that(not 100% sure!), but i know some other games that would just crash.

edit:
also leave you a comment from discord channel here. I have not validated it, but maybe it helps:

"Adding this as a followup to my message about a week back in case somebody runs into the same issue. I did end up picking up an external SSD (because my games are too big to fit on an SD card reliably/price-wise). The SSD fixed most stuttering, but I still had very rare stuttering in some games (Mainly Star Ocean Second Story) with the drive formatted as exFAT (default it came with), both bin/cue and chd. Tried formatting again to exFAT, same issue.

Not really sure why, but formatting it to NTFS actually made all the problems go away. Games run great now."

Just a question: If a certain game should stutter while loading from SSD, would runnig it from the SD help with the problem, introduces the SD port latency also?
I guess fitting whole libraries of CD games on the SD card wouldn't be an option for most people, but if it only affects certain games, maybe this could help.

Thank you for the clarification, @FPGAzumSpass. Didn't think about the usb port lag! That makes a lot of sense. Just wondering if the usb purge script could help with this issue?

I'll do some testing using cue bin (I have my whole CD library in CHD ), also using NTFS and the secondary SD port too. Unfortunately soon I'll be out from my place and I won't have access to the MISTer but whenever I end my testing I'll post my conclusions so it might help other users.

@Chris23235 indeed not all games have this issue. Klonoa or Grand Turismo don't suffer for any stutter that I could perceive. Seems that the Squaresoft titles, since they were quite hard in CD use, are the worst for this. Also, I can confirm that FFVII has the worst case of stutter from all the FF games (and with the official PSX core, the stutter is even worse).

Anyways, I'll do my testing and probably in some weeks I'll post my conclusions .

Thank you again!