[BLES01298] NFS The Run has behaviour and rendering issues

[jenci8888]

Quick summary

NFS The Run has some weird behaviour and rendering issues, due to using a Frostbite 2 Engine.

Details

Describe issue:

• If I enable "SPU Loop Detection" and "Lower SPU thread Priority" are completely halts game while shows ups or before "HDD save icon" message, It ran very solid 30fps here but If I disable both, it allows go further but suffer performance 8fps. Anything SPU toggle option can't do anything with "SPU Loop Detection" same situation as before, Only disable both in order go ingame.
• Some buildings are invisble in some during cutscenes before begins gameplay.
• The beginning cutscene has some framerates the display became overlapped display, as soon disappear frames after long period, when starts ingame, while I am unable to see anything due to black vertex explosion, which it is massive, other race stages some do appear or not.
• Terrains are invisible, but If I use strict render + wcb, the grass became visible and correctly rendering exception terrains.
• SPU behaviour, If I use SPU LLVM and Recompiler both are normally fine but sometimes do SPU destroyed in during gameplay. As soon begins gameplay after ends cutscene, itself turn left into crashed wall. SPU Interpreter doesn't work auto-drive before begins gameplay. You have to accelerate it from stopped car, same as AI.

Describe regression:

• Character almost like T-Pose but not moving animation (yet and went gone after 1 seconds the began cutscene) and appears vertex explosion, the regression introduced in 10401-201d54ee the master build, PR: #8218 FIXED BY #8393

Note: This game has weird behaviour, everyone else has tried to run this game for used my configuration but unable to main menu. Fabian (discord) and me were able to go ingame with my config method.

Build: 0.0.10-10477-b75af69c Alpha

Screenshots:

"regression" MARKED SOLVED

Before:  After: 

The current state ghosting and vertex explosions:

 

Comparison WCB off and on

The grass isn't there... Without WCB:  The grass appears! With WCB: 

RDC: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pZaNJgJ_Zdz02DuhXW5G_hKh9_rp8unH/view?usp=sharing Log: RPCS3.log.gz

System config: i5-4690k, Nvidia GTX 1050Ti 442.19 driver, Windows 10 1903 build

[jenci8888]

Please re-open again on this issue, the one "regression" was fixed, but other "Issues" aren't fixed, I'm waiting for kd-11 look into this render issue. In the future if game gets fixed freezes with PPU/SPU with SPU Loop Detection and I'll close this issue

[jenci8888]

1 year after... The game is now able to in-game further with the clock scale, which is already implemented. The terrain render fixes with WCB. It appears unstable with emulation timings and rare fatal errors. (The "RSXIO memory not mapped" is very commonly at 10% to 60% clock scale, the 70% clock scale and above are unable to the past main menu) The game can be stable maximum 20fps. (The more lower framerate and better stable game)

• Light renders aren't corrected with WCB, and the headlight appears bit too bright. Without WCB doesn't work light just barely visible surface light.

• Terrains aren't corrected with WCB (see left-side)

But I am unable to provide RDC capture :( (Because It FIFO desyncs, after I used 7000us maxed out on the RPCS3 custom config) RRC: https://drive.google.com/file/d/13x8Q6s9qMOhO72HmfhIyBj6766St60vK/view?usp=sharing Log: RPCS3.log.gz ("RSXIO memory not mapped")

And this is a rare error "Unknown transfer source format 0x1b" Log: RPCS3.log.gz

[Megamouse]

please test again

[Ordinary205]

The game now runs further with higher clocks scale after LLVM 16.0.0 update (14846 Build).

But sadly there are still some random freezes like when getting busted by the cops, it freezes when trying to trigger a quicktime event gameplay.

Log: RPCS3.log.gz

Without WCB I can go up to 60-80% clocks scale to go ingame. However when enabling WCB, I can go up to 30-60% clocks scale to go ingame.

[Ordinary205]

I decided to show a comparison between RPCS3 and a real PS3, so that it would be easier to tell the difference.

RPCS3 without WCB:

RPCS3 with WCB:

Real PS3:

Without WCB: RPCS3.log.gz With WCB: RPCS3.log.gz

[Ordinary205]

I manage to figure out a solution on how to go ingame without lowering the clocks scale, is by using VBlank Frequency above 300Hz.

(VBlank Frequency 600Hz)

Screenshot


(VBlank Frequency 1800Hz)

Screenshot


So apparently the more I raise up the VBlank hertz, the better the stability gets, sometimes it's still mandatory to lower 100% clocks scale, simply due to random freezes when using WCB+ATS+Multithreaded RSX and 1800Hz. Playing the game without Write Color Buffers seems to be more stable.

Unrelated

The game mostly runs at 30 FPS when WCB are enabled, but when activating the nitrous, the performance cuts to 15 or 20, which is the same thing that happens to Need for Speed Rivals.

Without WCB: RPCS3.log.gz WCB: RPCS3.log.gz

[Ordinary205]

I've added a list for this game that no longer contains bugs or still has one.

Bugs that has been fixed:

• [x] SPU regression causes Approximate XFloat audio to break (Fixed)
• [x] SPU loop detection halts the game. (Fixed)
• [x] Vertex explosions on NVIDIA drivers. (Fixed, requires WCB to fix this issue)
• [x] Some buildings are invisible during cutscenes. (Fixed)
• [x] Ground/mountains are invisible. (Requires WCB+RCB to fix this issue)
• [x] The lighting appears very dark. (Requires WCB+RCB+RSX Tiled memory to fix this issue)

Bugs that are still NOT fixed:

• [ ] RSX crashes commonly occurs when WCB is enabled.
• [ ] The Lighting is broken with RCB. (Enabling RSX Tiled memory partially fixes this issue)
• [ ] Artifact reflections occurs on vehicles, mountains, and characters.
• [ ] Mountain textures renders incorrectly at far distances.
• [ ] Trees/bushes spawns on the road or midair. (Still exists after shaders gets compiled)
• [ ] Ghosting.
• [ ] Increasing the vblank to maximum or lowering 100% clocks scale is required to go ingame.
• [ ] The UI sometimes flickers or gets messed up the more you progress the game.

[Ordinary205]

The Need for Speed UI sometimes flickers or gets messed up the more you progress the campaign mode. Notice the UI at top of the screen where it shows "CLEAN PASS" corrupted: RPCS3.log.gz I also added this bug on the list.