Hacking [RELEASE] EasyRPG Vita - RPG Maker 2000/2003 player for PSVITA

[Mastak]

Arafell is a stalling through the game.
Player movement halts and position zips to new place within half a second or so.
Not playable really.

I've just gone back to build #66 and it plays a lot better.
Player movement better. Still stutters but not as much.

There is no obvious reason why #67 is slower than #66 because the only map related change was a bugfix to fix high cpu usage when too many events collide into each other.

The problem is that the PSVita doesn't have a very fast CPU and our whole code is using software rendering, so graphic heavy games like Ara Fell have a really hard time to run until we find more ways to optimize this further.

How well is Yume Nikki is running on this currently?

Yume Nikki is known to be completable on EasyRPG.
Transfering of the japanese (or mojibake, depending on how you install it) filenames should be possible with the new USB-transfer mode because it supports Unicode compared to the FTP transfer.

 

[Kerbangman]

There is no obvious reason why #67 is slower than #66 because the only map related change was a bugfix to fix high cpu usage when too many events collide into each other.

The problem is that the PSVita doesn't have a very fast CPU and our whole code is using software rendering, so graphic heavy games like Ara Fell have a really hard time to run until we find more ways to optimize this further.



Yume Nikki is known to be completable on EasyRPG.
Transfering of the japanese (or mojibake, depending on how you install it) filenames should be possible with the new USB-transfer mode because it supports Unicode compared to the FTP transfer.

There is a difference between #66 and #67 using Arafell just try it.
#67 looks like a heavy frame skip. Characters jump locations due to missing frames?

I know you can overclock a Vita game but I guess this is a PSP port/route so can't?

I'm happy overall with what you have done and not pushing just for one game to be sorted as most 2k ones work great.

Have tried Yume Nikki and works fine. Very Trippy game.

 

[Kerbangman]

Just tried #68 and it's the same as #67 with regards to slow down.
What I have noticed is that Arafell slowly degrades. It starts off fine then bit by bit slow down increases.
0Fps
Also when exiting the game into EasyRPG menu Arafell's music is still playing.
Then exiting to vita main screen I get a black screen untill Arafell music and effects stop.
Looks like things are not getting cleared?
I dont remember that happening in #66

Looking at Arafell log and it's having problems.
I guess this is why it's slowing down so much.

 

[Filippo94]

Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't understand your request

Here's an actual photo, sorry for the delay, and the quality, that's the best cam we have...

Edit: No clue why the image isn't working, here's the link: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0inVd_QpaqWaEpmSWI2YWlaN3M

 

[Mastak]

Just tried #68 and it's the same as #67 with regards to slow down.
What I have noticed is that Arafell slowly degrades. It starts off fine then bit by bit slow down increases.
0Fps
Also when exiting the game into EasyRPG menu Arafell's music is still playing.
Then exiting to vita main screen I get a black screen untill Arafell music and effects stop.
Looks like things are not getting cleared?
I dont remember that happening in #66

Looking at Arafell log and it's having problems.
I guess this is why it's slowing down so much.

I wonder if I can reproduce the Music problems at the Computer, most of the code is shared (except how the audio output is controlled).

Is there anything interesting in the logs?

Does the slowdown also happen when you do nothing and just keep the game running? If yes it could be possible for me to find the cause by keeping the game running on a computer for a long time .

Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't understand your request

Here's an actual photo, sorry for the delay, and the quality, that's the best cam we have...

Edit: No clue why the image isn't working, here's the link: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0inVd_QpaqWaEpmSWI2YWlaN3M

Ooh, excellent. What I wanted https://twitter.com/EasyRPG/status/829018740012482560

 

[Kerbangman]

I wonder if I can reproduce the Music problems at the Computer, most of the code is shared (except how the audio output is controlled).

Is there anything interesting in the logs?

/QUOTE]

Theres a fair bit happening on the logs.

Where shall I send it to?

 

[Mastak]

you can send it to mail easyrpg-easyrpg-org

 

[Kerbangman]

you can send it to mail easyrpg-easyrpg-org

Sent log

 

[Mastak]

Sent log

At first we should try to make the logging of these debug messages not too verbose. One of the reasons why it becomes 0 FPS is probably that log writing is not the fastest on PS Vita .

"Event 2 exceeded execution limit" means that "Event 2" executed 10.000 event-script commands this frame, after reaching this limit the event is canceled, a message is logged and the next event executes (the official engine does the same, minus the logging). Next frame the problem repeats. In general this happens when an event-script runs an endless loop which is a real performance killer, usually an event consists of <100 commands. The game developer designed this badly.

For Ara Fell the title screen runs an event in parallel which increments a counter. And when the counter reaches a high enough value the title screen fades in. You can skip this by pressing the confirm button. (I analyzed this already in this game months ago, so nothing new to me).

 

[Kerbangman]

At first we should try to make the logging of these debug messages not too verbose. One of the reasons why it becomes 0 FPS is probably that log writing is not the fastest on PS Vita .

"Event 2 exceeded execution limit" means that "Event 2" executed 10.000 event-script commands this frame, after reaching this limit the event is canceled, a message is logged and the next event executes (the official engine does the same, minus the logging). Next frame the problem repeats. In general this happens when an event-script runs an endless loop which is a real performance killer, usually an event consists of <100 commands. The game developer designed this badly.

For Ara Fell the title screen runs an event in parallel which increments a counter. And when the counter reaches a high enough value the title screen fades in. You can skip this by pressing the confirm button. (I analyzed this already in this game months ago, so nothing new to me).

During the game there is plenty of stuttering as the title screen.
maybe he uses the same technique during the game?

Could you make the logging optional?

 

[Mastak]

During the game there is plenty of stuttering as the title screen.
maybe he uses the same technique during the game?

Could you make the logging optional?

I will make the logging less verbose later.

At first please use this VPK: http://easyrpg.org/downloads/tmp/EasyRPG.vpk
I can see in your logfile that you were not using mine ^^.

It's important to use this one for further tests because the audio code got improved (you said this didn't make a difference in Ara Fell but in other games it did )

Try renaming the Music and the Sound folder, the game will still start but will be silent. Check if this reduces the stuttering. If yes: Name one of the folders back, still fine, then try the other folder...?
And report, thanks.

If it stutters without music its something different :o

 

[Kerbangman]

Ok
no sound or music.
Title still shows 0fps
in game movement looks Ok not character stutter/slowdown

Sound No music
Title 0fps
in game movement stutters/slowsdown

Music No sound
Title 0fps
in game movement stutters /slowsdown but not as bad as prior No music.


with music and sound.
title sound stutters at begining 0fps
in game movement stops dead for a number of seconds when entering new location.
Once the few seconds of static is over the movement looks ok music and sound fine.

I can see a difference with this new version.

I will change both sounds and music to a small Mp3 compression.

Do you think that would make difference?

I had changed the music to mp3 once but not the sounds.

 

[Mastak]

Ok
I can see a difference with this new version.

I will change both sounds and music to a small Mp3 compression.

Do you think that would make difference?

I had changed the music to mp3 once but not the sounds.

So you can confirm, that the new VPK from the tmp folder solves your audio lags? (besides that hang, for that try mp3).

I removed the "10000 events" log and increased priority of the Audio thread, please retest if it improves:
http://easyrpg.org/downloads/tmp/EasyRPG.vpk

 

[Kerbangman]

So you can confirm, that the new VPK from the tmp folder solves your audio lags? (besides that hang, for that try mp3).

I removed the "10000 events" log and increased priority of the Audio thread, please retest if it improves:
http://easyrpg.org/downloads/tmp/EasyRPG.vpk

Just tried that build and it's goes black screen and does not boot. returns to PSvita home screen.

Have tried mp3 but makes no difference.
MP3 sounds throws up error of unsupported type.

 

[Mastak]

Okay, so I think there is not much room for improvement, because my idea crashes.
I will only make the "10000 events log" less verbose to reduce lag.

Will report when the new official build is out with the improved audio code (hopefully by next weekend...)

The latest jenkins/continious build (with bad audio) added shader support btw, to switch between shaders you have to use the 4 corners of the touchscreen display (not very intuitive but works).
Also the rendering code was slightly altered which should give a minimal boost in framerate (not more then 5 FPS, probably less) because the "wait for rendering" code does not block the Player code anymore and there is only a very short synchronisation point where graphic + player will block each other.
Some shaders (xBR) don't feel like 60 FPS but the framecounter will still show 60 FPS, that's because the "render to screen" code runs now independent of the remaining code and the framecounter won't consider this.

 

[Kerbangman]

Okay, so I think there is not much room for improvement, because my idea crashes.
I will only make the "10000 events log" less verbose to reduce lag.

Will report when the new official build is out with the improved audio code (hopefully by next weekend...)

The latest jenkins/continious build (with bad audio) added shader support btw, to switch between shaders you have to use the 4 corners of the touchscreen display (not very intuitive but works).
Also the rendering code was slightly altered which should give a minimal boost in framerate (not more then 5 FPS, probably less) because the "wait for rendering" code does not block the Player code anymore and there is only a very short synchronisation point where graphic + player will block each other.
Some shaders (xBR) don't feel like 60 FPS but the framecounter will still show 60 FPS, that's because the "render to screen" code runs now independent of the remaining code and the framecounter won't consider this.

Just tried #73 and #75.

Games take a lot longer to load.

Ara fell runs at 8fps where yours runs around 38fps.

I cant see any speed up only slow down on that game.

2K games seem fine.

I'm not really bothered about filters as none seems fine. Which is what I set Retroarch at.

 

[Mastak]

The new audio code is slowly moving in the official repository, at least the pull request builder (code that is "under review" and not merged yet) already ran: https://ci.easyrpg.org/view/Pull Requests/job/player-vita-pr/17/
Is the framerate still as bad as with #75 ?

Also tell me if you get no audio at all, then I messed sth up

 

[Kerbangman]

The new audio code is slowly moving in the official repository, at least the pull request builder (code that is "under review" and not merged yet) already ran: https://ci.easyrpg.org/view/Pull Requests/job/player-vita-pr/17/
Is the framerate still as bad as with #75 ?

Also tell me if you get no audio at all, then I messed sth up

#75 is pretty bad with the arafell and Zelda copy. I have downloaded a few other 2003 so will test out later.
The 2000 rpgs seem fine in framerate but the 2003 are suffering low frame rates.
Sound is still working on both

I'm back on your version which just has a delay when changing locations. Once in a location it runs full speed.

 

[Mastak]

I'm back on your version which just has a delay when changing locations. Once in a location it runs full speed.

Thanks for testing, at least this confirms that the shader code and the library updates were unrelated with the framedrop and that the framedrops were just a bad combination of old audio code and the new rendering code...
Keep testing with the PR-builder version (#17), this one be #76 (or a slightly higher number) soon.

 

[Kerbangman]

Thanks for testing, at least this confirms that the shader code and the library updates were unrelated with the framedrop and that the framedrops were just a bad combination of old audio code and the new rendering code...
Keep testing with the PR-builder version (#17), this one be #76 (or a slightly higher number) soon.

There seems to be a limit of 11 games on the games list.
Is that correct?