Emulator freezes

[LimaBeanMage]

I've been trying fft with the 1.3 and 1.4 patches and have been running into some problems that might be isolated to them, I think.

Basically when non specific abilities go off, at random times, the game will freeze for a few seconds. It gets quite annoying after a while and makes the game a lot less playable.

Laptop specs:
os: windows 7 32-bit
cpu: intel i5 2.27 ghz
gpu: ati HD6580 (ccc 11.3)
ram: unspecified 4gb

I've tried epsxe, pSX, and psxeven with the generally well known plugins for graphics, sound, and cd-rom.

Has anyone seen or heard of such a problem inside or outside of patches provided by ffhacktics?

[philsov]

are you burning the iso onto a CD and then using that CD to play the game?  

If so, just play the game straight and it'll remove that sort of loading lag.

ps - WELCOME TO FFH, WHERE ALL YOUR DREAMS COME TRUE.

[bsides]

I'm having no issues with ePSXe. I played the original about 3 times with it and I'm now playing Easytype 1.3 version without any issues.

My specs:
CPU: Athlon 64 X2 5200+
RAM: 4 GB DDR2
VGA: ECS NVidia 512MB GeForce 8800 GT
OS: Windows 7 64 bits Ultimate

ePSXe Config:
Video: Pete's OpenGL Driver 2.9
Sound: Eternal SPU Plugin 1.41
CDROM: ePSXe CDR WNT/W2K core 1.7.0
BIOS: scph1001.bin
2 Memory Cards

If you need the detailed info on each video/sound setup I can paste here too. I don't play via CDROM drive, I play straight through the ISO (which I think it's way faster).

Hope it helps

[LimaBeanMage]

Thank you for the welcome.

I play straight from the ISO as well, and that's what I thought it might have been. I played around with different cd rom plugins but they didn't make a quantifiable difference. I'm starting to come to the conclusion that it is my gpu or driver; of course I've already updated the driver, but the gpu is a bit more solid, hehe.

[philsov]

or if you ripped the iso from your own CD, it may have blipped on itself on the way in.  it's worth locating another iso imo.

[MagiusRerecros]

I've occasionally had that kind of issue as well, assuming we're on the same page. For example, say Agrias uses Stasis Sword. Every once in a while (it doesn't happen too often, for me anyways), it'll do the sword swing, and then just kind of sit there for like three seconds or so before proceeding with the effect animation. It's like it had to reload the effect animations in to the RAM or something. Haven't really found a way around this yet.

[LimaBeanMage]

Well, getting a new disc image was a promising idea, but it unfortunately didn't work.

Yes, Magius, we share the same problem. Though, the issue is more common for me. I'd guesstimate an average of one every three abilities, magical or not, freezes the game for a few seconds.

[Ashram]

when changing damage formulas heavily like in 1.3, it causes this freeze problem from what i noticed when i mod my game. even simplifying a equation for damage can cause a freeze. im not sure why, but when i changed my sound and video codecs it fixed most of the freeze ups for me.

[MagiusRerecros]

I suppose it's theoretically possible that the different codecs help load and play the effect animations faster.

[LimaBeanMage]

Hmm, then it might be a matter of isolating which ones would work for me. It sounds like more experimentation to me.