Video Plugins: Grandia Xtreme flickering graphics

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1) Did the game ever work correctly?

The flickering graphics were always present in all video plugins as far back as 
I can remember. The oldest video plugin I have are the two GSDX plugins created 
in 12/18/2007 (there are no revision numbers), and while the game still 
flickers on any movie screens, the geometry doesn't flicker like the later 
revisions of GSDX. After this version, the next version of GSdx that comes 
after this one is R730, and that has all the problems the current revision of 
GSdx has.

2) Steps that will reproduce the problem

This is what currently happens in the latest revision of the GSDX plugin 
(currently r4839 as of writing) with both DX9 and DX10 hardware mode with a 
custom resolution of 1024x1024:
1. Load up any version of Grandia Xtreme with the GSDX revision and settings as 
mentioned above
2. The opening movies and logos will begin to flicker rapidly
3. When you get to the part of the title screen before you press start, you'll 
notice that the surrounding geometry will also flicker rapidly. But not all 
character, enemy, and object models will flicker.

3) What exactly happens when you experience this issue (listing any console 
errors or screen output you receive)?
From what I gather, anytime a movie plays and on some menus the entire screen 
will flicker. When you're on a field map or in battle, only certain geometry 
will flicker (like certain limbs on character and enemy models, and some 
surfaces on the walls and floors). The models that do flicker don't flicker to 
black, the geometry that flickers seem to just disappear and then reappear. For 
example, when a piece of wall geometry begins to flash, you can actually see 
through the wall on the other side.

Changing the interlacing settings on the GSdx plugin doesn't correct the 
flickering on the field/battle areas, but setting the interlacing to Blend 
bff/tff fixes any flickering on the movies and opening screens. 

The console reports no errors.

4) What version of PCSX2 are you using? On what operating system? Plugins?

This occurs with PCSX2 R4839. I'm using Windows 7 x64 SP1 with a NVIDIA GeForce 
9800 GTX+ (using the latest beta drivers). I use the following plugins while 
playing other games:

GS: GSDX R4838 MSVC 16.00, SSE41) 0.1.16 [GSDX32-SSE4]
PAD: Lilypad svn (r4797) 0.10.0
SPU2: SPU2-X r4843 2.0.0
CDVD: cdvdGigaherz (r4488) 0.8.0
USB: Null plugin
FW: Null plugin
DEV9: Null plugin

5) Additional Info

While this report is more geared toward the GSdx plugin, this problem occurs on 
all other plugins but in different variations. I definitely know that this is a 
problem with the video plugins, since I've checked the game running with 
interpreter settings and nothing in regards to the VU/EE changes anything. I 
tried running this game with no speed hacks enabled and nothing changes either. 

I went through most of the video plugins I have and I recorded what each one 
does in regards to this game:

1.) GSdx (R4838) - see report above
2.) GSdx10 (12/18/2007) - "Enix Presents" "Game Arts", and the opening 
cinematic for the game screens flicker, all geometry/polygons for 
player/map/enemy/object models don't flicker.
3.) GSdx (R730) - same as R4838 
4.) ZZOgl (latest revision, don't know what it is though - PG 0.3.0)- Opening 
screens/movies still flicker, geometry/polygons for player/map/enemy/object 
models don't flicker. Changing interlace settings doesn't seem to fix the 
movies that well.
5.) ZZGS (0.97.1 - no revision number) - Opening screens/movies still flicker, 
everything else doesn't though just like ZZOgl. 

6) Attachments.

It's difficult to capture this problem in a screenshot, but the best I could do 
was set the interlace settings in GSdx to Weave ttf and take a picture that 
way. If you look closely at the chair in the bottom of the screenshot, it's 
disappearing. In real time, this chair and some of the polygons on the other 
models flicker rapidly:

http://i.imgur.com/H5Pwt.png

I can get this problem to appear on video, so if you'd like a video please let 
me know.

7.) Conclusion

From looking on the forums, this problem is well known for the game and has 
existed for a long time. But I couldn't find a issue report on Google Code, so 
I decided to make one. I tried to be as detailed as I could, so if I'm missing 
anything that you'd like to know please let me know here and I'll do my best to 
answer.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by knuckles...@gmail.com on 6 Aug 2011 at 2:14

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Thanks for the report.
I've noticed this bug as well and worked on it before,
so far to no avail though..

Original comment by ramapcsx2 on 7 Aug 2011 at 12:14

• Changed state: Accepted
• Added labels: Plugin-Gsdx

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Zerogs 0.97.7 plugin i had flicker on into screens only none at all in the game.

Original comment by P7e7...@gmail.com on 4 Mar 2012 at 9:59

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Yeah, me too.

I decided to check and see if anything has changed since I made this issue and 
things are still the same. 

I'm currently using PCSX2 R5109 GSDX R5113. Hardware mode still flickers 
everywhere while software mode only flickers in game (movies don't flicker). 

Original comment by knuckles...@gmail.com on 4 Mar 2012 at 5:03

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Might've found out part of the problem. It might be because of the framebuffer. 

In the game's built in debugger, you can turn "Multi Mode" on/off. By default 
it's off. But when you turn it on, the flickering issue goes away.

Check it out in this video @ 5:43. 

http://youtu.be/65Dx36MxLJk

You can get the code from that video. To get to that option, press Start or 
Select (can't remember which) on the second controller then navigate to 
Framebuffer. You can turn it on and off by using either left/right or x or o, 
can't remember either, heh. But you can figure it out. The Grandia games have 
nice debuggers that basically give you complete control over the game's 
resources. So I hope that this helps you out.

Original comment by knuckles...@gmail.com on 13 Mar 2012 at 2:06

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My, that can actually tell where to look at to fix this. =O
Now to figure out what that Multi mode is all about.

Original comment by KrossX3 on 13 Mar 2012 at 3:06

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Awesome find!

Original comment by ramapcsx2 on 13 Mar 2012 at 2:54

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Here's the .pnach for NTSC-U. Don't forget to enable cheats.

Original comment by ramapcsx2 on 13 Mar 2012 at 3:30

Attachments:

• 8C49435E.pnach

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Can you post a gs dump, before and after the multi mode is changed please? 
Maybe with that it can be seen what registers change to follow them.

Original comment by KrossX3 on 13 Mar 2012 at 6:16

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Sure, here you go.

http://www.mediafire.com/?x3b5dwp52u34ros,u8e8rcohn6himc9

Hope this helps. Good luck!

Original comment by knuckles...@gmail.com on 13 Mar 2012 at 6:38

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Tested R5129 and I can confirm that it fixes the flickering! As I said, the 
Game Arts video and the opening logo are still flickering but that can fixed 
with software mode. 

Great job! :)

Original comment by knuckles...@gmail.com on 15 Mar 2012 at 1:31

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Just wanted to pop in and say that the videos in this game still flicker as of 
r5265. It's no big deal though as changing the interlacing options can get it 
to stop, but it'll dim the video a bit.

Should this be considered fixed yet?

Original comment by knuckles...@gmail.com on 3 Jun 2012 at 4:23

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Yeah, this is fixed. The video flicker is somewhat more generic and surely 
tracked elsewhere.

Original comment by ramapcsx2 on 3 Jun 2012 at 11:52

• Changed state: Fixed