Games running too fast.

[MRK64]

I have an issue in a lot of games, where they run too fast. Last game I tried with this issue is Perfect Dark. It just runs at a very fast speed even though the emulator is synced to audio and FPS Limiter is enabled.

What's up with that? The game runs normally in 1.6.

[retroben]

Maybe it is the VI Refresh Rate setting in Edit Game Settings.
Just enable advanced settings and right click the game to find that settings option and change the refresh to a somewhat lower value.
Or you could have the speed set higher than normal on the +/- keys.
If so,hit the minus key until you get to 60VI/s.
It might go uneven and you will need to use plus and minus until it hits exactly 60VI/s for the proper speed or 50VI/s if you are running a PAL/European version of the game.

[Frank74]

I have Vi Refresh Rate set at 1475 for Perfect Dark.

You should always uncheck Fixed Audio Timing as well. For all games.

[MRK64]

With VI refresh at 1475 and unchecked Fixed Audio Timing it seems to work normally now.

By the way, is it normal for this game to have such horrible framerate drops? I don't remember it being so bad on the N64, but I haven't played it in ages. I remember Goldeneye very often slowed down noticeably but not really PD.

[Kiihhu]

Originally Posted by MRK64

With VI refresh at 1475 and unchecked Fixed Audio Timing it seems to work normally now.

By the way, is it normal for this game to have such horrible framerate drops? I don't remember it being so bad on the N64, but I haven't played it in ages. I remember Goldeneye very often slowed down noticeably but not really PD.

Thank you retroben and Frank74 for the info, setting the VI refresh rate to 1475 fixed the game speed, although I have no idea why. Is this a value that you simply find by trial and error or can you make an educated guess what value to try?

And MRK64, the answer is yes... Perfect Dark indeed had terrible frame rate drops, much worse than GoldenEye did... Perfect Dark is difficult already, but the frame rate drops make some levels really, really hard as it is difficult to hit anyone with changing game speed (try Air Base - Espionage mission to see what I mean). I had this same problem with the original console in the days I was very accustomed to the controls (but I still did complete the game on Perfect Agent difficulty, except for the WAR!!! mission).

I am no emulator expert, but as far as I know the frame rate drops are the result of imitating a low performance console such as N64: it slowed down because it couldn't handle everything going on, and imitating such slow console makes the game also slow down in modern fast PCs. In the back of my mind I have been hoping that it would be possible to emulate N64 without its slowdowns and I was hoping that with luck Project 2.1 would have this possibility, so I upgraded from Project 1.6 to 2.1 today, just an hour ago. As PD was working too fast I was hopeful it could have been fixed, but now that the speed is normal also the slowdowns are there.

After a quick testing it seems like Perfect Dark ran better on 1.6 than it does on 2.1, there are a lot more graphics glitches, such as the game is now running in the upper half of my computer screen and the lower half being just black... and also some problems with sky textures that aren't there on 1.6.

[Kiihhu]

This post may be a little off the original topic, but I just wanna tell that I found solutions to a couple of problems I complained of yesterday, and I find it my duty to share any useful hints to other Perfect Dark fans using Project64.

1. The slowdown problem (FPS drop). It indeed is fixable in Project64 2.1! Changing the Counter Factor from 2 (default) to 1 fixed the slowdown issue completely! No slowing down at any point so far! Made the game so much easier and enjoyable, I actually passed many missions on Perfect agent difficulty that I yesterday found nearly unbeatable (at least with auto aim off). Can't wait to play multiplayer with my friends now! I love 2.1 now!!!

2. Halved screen problem. The game was running in the upper half of my computer screen and the lower half was just black. The problem was the Jabo's Direct3D8 1.7.0.57-ver5 graphics plugin. Changing to Jabo's Direct3D8 1.6 solved the problem.

I didn't come up with these solutions by myself, I think I saw some suggestions on these very forums and from google and tried them out, not quite sure anymore, but I wanted to spread the word.

[Frank74]

You should update to 1.6.1 Jabo. Many fixes for Perfect Dark.

h##p://jabosoft.com/articles/114

[retroben]

The 1.6.1 plugin is flawless with a LOT of games with no lag on self rendering!
In some random topic,I attached the 1.6.1 plugin from my pre-patched copy of PJ64 1.6 for those who want it immediately. (no viruses)

I wish the 1.6.1 plugin had an open source for porting it to android as well as PJ64 being ported since all existing emulators for android always exit the game after a short time. :angry:

There is a feature in Super N64 called frame limiter that smooths out the framerate of skippy games like Banjo-Tooie.
Can someone try to add that to a PJ64 2.1 mod for the games that don't have a no frameskip code or any other solution?
Where the hell is all of the PJ64 modifications?! :angry:
The only one I know of is fruit edition on smwcentral.

Believe it or not,I am posting this on my Amazon Fire TV with Opera Browser.

[Toph_Bei_Fong]

I'm having this same issue with 2.1. Perfect Dark just runs too fast and I cannot find any of the options you guys are talking about.

please help

[Toph_Bei_Fong]

I found the settings ad changed everything but nothing works. It's still fast. I'll go back to 1.6, but I have an issue with Perfect Dark on 1.6. Every time I finish a mission, the emulator freezes. When I restart the emulator, my mission progress is saved but it's annoying to have to do this all the time. I was using a i5 3570K, but I recently switched to an i7 3770K.