Grandia 2 Grey Floors in Battle

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1) Did the game ever work correctly (i.e. not have this problem) on the
Official PCSX2 build or an earlier version of PCSX2 playground?
(If so, please specify the latest pcsx2-playground or Official revision
that last worked.)

A::: Tried on two versions, 0.9.6 and r1888.

2) What steps will reproduce the problem?
1. Starting up the game
2. Going into battle

3) What exactly happens when you experience this issue (listing any console
errors or screen output you receive)?

In battle, when the camera moves some parts of the floor texture (at the
bottom of the screen) become grey.

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

r.1888 and 0.9.6
XP 32 Bit Professional
ZeroGS 0.97.1 Default Settings , I tried GSdx too, same problem.
NTSC Version of Grandia 2 - Using USA Bios V.2.0

6) Attachments.

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d27/Yuruka/grandia2bug.jpg?t=1261261415

Original issue reported on code.google.com by samurai...@gmail.com on 19 Dec 2009 at 10:23

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I can confirm this has never worked right, and that it affects the PAL version 
as well 
as NTSC.  I'm honestly not sure what causes it.  I tried all manner of 
roundmodes and 
clamp modes, Full FPU mode, etc.  Nothing seemed to affect it at all.  And it's 
pretty 
much been consistent between sVU, mVU, and many of Refraction's VIF/GIF changes 
(tho I 
hardly tested them all).

If anyone could shed light on the origin of this bug, it'd be swell ;)

Original comment by Jake.Stine on 20 Dec 2009 at 12:07

• Changed state: Accepted
• Added labels: Component-EECore

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Thanks f or shining some light on this.

I'm using D3D9 btw. I haven't tried 10.

I've tried different renderers too, so it could just be the game. I'm using an 
ISO, I
haven't tried booting from the Disc.

Original comment by samurai...@gmail.com on 20 Dec 2009 at 1:00

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I'm no expert on any of this stuff, but the port of Grandia II for PS2 was well 
known
for weirdness, even on a real console. Stuff like characters occasionally not 
even
having textures applied to them in battles (This happened to Roan quite a bit 
for
some reason) and things like that.

It might be possible, therefore, that the emulation is doing things "correctly" 
if no
emulation bug is causing this, and it's simply the game's glitchy programming 
rearing
its ugly head. However, I can't say I ever remember a place where the floor 
textures
were missing. Character textures, definitely.

Original comment by evolutionrevolution@gmail.com on 20 Dec 2009 at 6:07

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That is what I assumed too, evolution.

The character's lost their textures and were just all black outside of battle 
when I
tried to use GSdx.

Original comment by samurai...@gmail.com on 20 Dec 2009 at 12:49

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Good point.  If the game is coded in a way that doesn't follow the 
synchronization 
rules of the PS2's DMAC/GS/IOP interfaces, then it's going to end up having 
glitches 
that PCSX2 can never emulate exactly the same (in much the same way the 
behavior of 
the game would likely differ on a PS2 Slim, due to the changes in sync caused 
by the 
upgraded EE chip speeds).

On the other hand, it could end up that PCSX2 ends up being less glitchy, 
because it 
doesn't do true parallel execution of the PS2 subsystems.  This in turn 
actually 
limits games' ability to violate sync rules.  Go figure ;)

Original comment by Jake.Stine on 21 Dec 2009 at 3:15

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On that note, I was playing Shadow Hearts 3 Covenant earlier, and the same thing
happens in that. In battle, the floors go black at some points. less annoying 
than
Grandia 2, if it can't be avoided then I can still play through it :P

Original comment by samurai...@gmail.com on 21 Dec 2009 at 4:57

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I have problem with character's texture at first, but when I enable Logarithmic 
Z in
GSdx9 that problem's gone. Hope that this will help.

Original comment by storager...@gmail.com on 15 Mar 2010 at 10:14

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Hey there. Just wanted to pop in and say that this is still occurring in the 
game as of r5265, even with the GSdx plugin. I only tested GSdx (in DX11 
Hardware mode), I didn't check out the other video plugins. 

By the way, this game also uses a debugger similar to the one used in Grandia 
Xtreme and 3, but as it was stated before, this port is kinda messy. I don't 
have a code to activate the debugger at the moment, but you can do it easily by 
modifying the game's configuration files to turn the DEBUG from OFF to ON. You 
can check out the battle debugger to see if anything changes the problem.

Here are some videos of the debugger in action on the Dreamcast version, the 
PS2 version works the same way but some of the features are broken:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPh_jUITYnc (BATTLE)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWfqeD6g9nQ (IN GAME)

Maybe this might help iron out the problem some more.

Original comment by knuckles...@gmail.com on 3 Jun 2012 at 4:19

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I checked it out further, and I think it has something to do with the lighting 
of the area (I noticed this problem can occur on field maps as well). With the 
battle debug, I was able to slowly get the grey parts of the floor it's 
textures back by going to SCENE > LIGHT DATA > and increasing the RNG FAR 
value. The higher the number, the more the grey seems to disappear. Here are 
some screenshots:

(Note: These are the minimum values that alter the appearance at this angle):

http://i.imgur.com/AcpOB.png (196)
http://i.imgur.com/YrkEj.png (206)
http://i.imgur.com/u11L0.png (316)
http://i.imgur.com/WDqAC.png (646)

I would like to post a code so you can get to the debug stuff, but I'm having 
trouble finding out when the game loads FIELD.INI into memory, since I can't 
find these values from within memory either. I was only able to set the 
SYSTEM.INI's param for debug to 1 with a code, but that doesn't seem to do 
anything. So you have to modify your ISO to get it to work. I made a PPF patch 
that you can use for the time being. 

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/38216/Grandia%20II%20PS2%20(USA)%20debug.ppf

Just make sure to keep a backup of your original copy just in case. To get the 
debug stuff to appear, at the title screen after pressing start go to Settings 
and press Start/O/X (I forget) and then you'll appear in town. Just use the MAP 
JUMP debug feature to warp to a map instantly with monsters on it like 2401 by 
pressing and holding down Triangle and press Start to bring up the Top Menu. 
Then while Triangle is still being held down, use R1 to go the selected page 
and L1 to go back a page. Go to DEBUG MENU1 > MAP_JUMP > and change the CHANGE 
MAP value using the D-Pad. Once you   selected a value you'd like to try out, 
hold down Triangle and press Circle and you'll warp to that map. This is all 
done with Controller 1!

Then find a monster and get into battle with it. To access the debugger during 
battle, you need to use controller 2. It's not as crazy as the FIELD debugger, 
though. Just press X or O I think and browse through the menu like you would on 
any kind of menu. You can interact with the menu settings without "pausing" the 
game.

Hope this helps. If you need savestates/gsdx dumps let me know.

Original comment by knuckles...@gmail.com on 3 Jun 2012 at 5:35

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Hey, just posting that this is still occurring with r5492 with GSdx. My 
previous comment should help you fix the problem, though.

Original comment by knuckles...@gmail.com on 13 Jan 2013 at 9:18

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Thanks for the update but we've already looked into this and there's no obvious 
flaw here.
I suspect a problem with either the EE FPU (if the game does lighting in 
software) or one of the VUs if it uses those.
The debugger is interesting but not really helping out here, sorry.

Original comment by ramapcsx2 on 13 Jan 2013 at 9:43

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Well, one more update I just found:
The game has issues with the PS3 as well. The EE+GS PS3s work
but the ones where they emulate the EE (and VUs) has all kinds of glitches.

Original comment by ramapcsx2 on 13 Jan 2013 at 9:55

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Heh, I actually played through and finished Grandia 2 on a EE+GS PS3 and it 
does work, but the framerate can get pretty bad in crowded areas. I think that 
was always a problem though. I never saw any graphic problems like these 
though. Weird about the later PS3 models though. 

I tried running the game again with ZeroGS 0.97.1 (not sure if this was ever 
updated, I need to clean out my plugins folder)and the texture problem is still 
there. Fog has a incorrect color though, it's blue but should be orange. 
http://i.imgur.com/ABWul.png

The texture problem itself doesn't happen in all battle scenes though, as far 
as I can tell....

Original comment by knuckles...@gmail.com on 13 Jan 2013 at 10:09

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Well, from the cross check with software EE/VU PS3 models, we can tell that 
it's not a GS problem at least.
That leaves issues with a FPU or VU command. Either a PS2 hardware quirk that's 
not yet known or simply a floating point precision difference again.

Original comment by ramapcsx2 on 13 Jan 2013 at 10:14

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Has there been anymore updates on this issue at all?

Original comment by NaesakiS...@gmail.com on 13 Apr 2013 at 11:34

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I believe the problem still occurs as of 1.2.1 (r5875).

Original comment by knuckles...@gmail.com on 5 Feb 2014 at 8:29

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i am running r5878 and the floors are still grey. there is one point that i 
keep freezing on right after i return from the moon. Here is a screen,
 http://i.imgur.com/eBNsSbm.jpg
I Tried some of the stuff in the Gamefixes section as well as tinkering with 
some other options, but really this is the first problem i have had. Any ideas 
on how to get it to stop freezing on this one part?

Original comment by surfer5...@gmail.com on 19 May 2014 at 11:02