Anyone here played Chrono Cross with an emulator?

[Mouser X]

I finally got a computer that can emulate the PSX reasonably well. So, to see what it could do, I tried to emulate CC on my computer. It was going good, until I selected "New Game." After that, the screen went black, and it didn't do anything. The emulator still responded when I went to the menu, so I don't think it's a problem with the emulator.

I'm using ePSXe, and pete's plugins for audio and video. Also, the game runs fine on my unmodded, original model, PSX (not the smaller PS1 design). I think it's a problem with my CD drive.

Anyone have any ideas, or suggestions of what I can try to do to get it to run? I'd rather try some of those first, as I don't want to replace my drive...

Anyway, thanks in advance. Mouser X over and out.

[SILVERWOLF87]

I played it on an emulator a long time ago. However, I can't play it since I've installed win 2K on my computer.

[mp3guy]

use ePSXe version 1.5.2, version 1.6.0 has bugs. Use pete's opengl 1.75 if you've got an NVidia card, otherwise pete's D3D 1.75. Use Eternal's SPU. Also, download a program called ISOBuster, and make iso's of your cd's, they run ALOT smother off the HD.

[Mouser X]

mp3guy said:

use ePSXe version 1.5.2, version 1.6.0 has bugs.

Really? How so? I'm just curious, that's all. As for bugs, I really badly glitched up Valkyrie Profile the other day. For some reason, the memory card files I had ePSXe using were write protected. The game registered as saving, when in reality it didn't. So, when I restarted the emulator later, I tried to start off of my saved games. However they weren't there. So, I loaded a savestate. When I went to save my game, it showed that there were 4 saves on my card (I had made 4 saves). Since I knew those saves couldn't be there, I decided to load them to see what would happen. It was pretty weird...

First off, I started in a village, below the gound. The buttons had multiple commands mapped them (ex: D-pad left was also the action button) and some commands were mapped multiple times (ex: you can shoot crystals, which server many purposes. Normaly, this is the square button. However, with this wonky control scheme, there were 3 or 4 buttons that made you shoot crystals). Not only that, but all the character data was seriously messed up. Most of the HP was in the negatives, as was many of the stats in general. The thing is, what should be really interesting is that there were characters at all. Those that showed up were, it seemed to me, random sprites used to take up a place in the character fields. Some of them were even dead people. The really interesting one was were I got a bad guy on my team. Perhaps it was a hint of things to come? Perhaps it was going to be a character, and was taken out? I don't know, I've never played the game before, but it looked interesting.

Now, this in itself is really weird (as I said, a majority of the settings were in the negatives). However, one of the "ghost saves" I loaded actually started me in the sky. When I loaded, I landed on the ground, instead of under it. So, of course, I started walking, trying to see if I could get out, onto the world map. The village I saw (the background) is not the place I was at (the level design). As I tried to walk around, I kept running into things, and even started climbing an invisible ladder that lead, as far as I could see, into thin air. Luckly, the level design was simple enough that all I had to do was jump, and I could avoid most of it. When I finally got the the edge of the "village" a text box came up with some options on it. Since I couldn't read what it said, I simply accepted the one my cursur was on (which I couldn't tell where that was either). Another box came up, and this time there were some English letters in some of the options. It looked to me like they might have been names, or something. The rest of the options were giberish, but my guess was that it was Japanese, or some other oriental language, as some of the characters looked familiar. Anyway, I selected one of the options at random, and was taken (eventually? there might have been one more option box before this happened, I don't remember) to a cut scene. I saw this guy talking to a mermaid (named Yumweigh, or Yuffie, or something sort of like that). The whole thing was English, so it's probably a later scene that I'll come across in the game. The whole thing played through, voice acting included, and then when it finally ended, I was taken to the world map. I flew around, trying to figure out what to do next. I eventually came upon an enemy's layer, so I entered it. Moments after doing so, it locked up.

I was only able to do that 3 times. Another time was a cutscene where some guy was looking for a cure for his sister's eyes. When I got to the world map, I tried to access the status screen (to see if there was any way I could alter anything so that it wouldn't crash when I entered a town, or something). Since I wasn't able to do so, I entered another layer/dungeon, and immediatly tried again. I was able to get into the status screen, but I couldn't change anything. When I exited the status menu, it locked up again.

The 3rd time I did it, I accessed the end credits. I let them play through, and from what I could tell, all seemed normal. However, it wasn't until tonight (I played Valkyrie Profile yesturday and last night) that I realized that I was still on the first CD of a 2 CD game. Why would the end credits be included on the 1st disk? After all, how is anyone going to access them through normal gameplay? I thought that was kind of weird.

Another weird thing was that loading the "ghost saves" actually changed settings on the emulator itself. It turned off the "analog" mode of ePSXe every time I loaded one of those saves. I had to keep pushing F5 (it toggles the analog off or on, or something like that) after every load.

Anyway, back onto the topic, I have a GeForce 4. I tried to use the OpenGL plugins (it was suggested that I do, if I have a Nvidia or GeForce card in some of the documentaton, somewhere) but it did't work. So I use pete's D3D 1.75 or whatever it is. I've been using Pete's SPU plugin as well. I guess I should try the Eternal one though. Can't hurt, really. As for creating ISOs with ISObuster, that didn't seem to work. I tried to run a few ISOs that were made with ISObuster, but they didn't load... It could also be the method to create the images in the first place though. I also have a CD burning program on my computer that creates *.cdi image files. I can't remember the name of it, but I could probably use that software, if I can't get ISObuster to work right. Also, yes, I do realize that ISObuster is a very awesome program. It can read almost any (if not all) CD image file(s) in existance. So, it's probably me, and not ISObuster that's causing the problem.

Last but not least, thanks for the reply! I really appreciate it. I'll have to give that a try then. I'll see if 1.5.2 (or whatever) runs any better than 1.60 does, as well as the plugins you mentioned. I guess that's it. Mouser X over and out.

[mp3guy]

hmm, use ISObuster to extra the session raw. Then name it to a .bin file, then use Run>Iso, shoud work. I' d recommend eternal's spu, use defualt settings, and switch on all of ePSXe's sound settings except the SPU IRQ hack, that gets turned on in the SPU plugin. I use these settings in Pete's opengl on my geforece 4 MX 440 AGPX8 64MB Ram, Athlon XP 2600+ 1.91GHz, 256MB PC2700 333MHz Ram:

Plugin: Pete's OpenGL Driver 1.1.75
Author: Pete Bernert
Card vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
GFX card: GeForce4 MX 440 with AGP8X/AGP/SSE/3DNOW!

Resolution/Color:
- 1024x768 Fullscreen - NO desktop changing [32 Bit]
- Keep psx aspect ratio: off

Textures:
- B8G8R8A8
- Filtering: 4
- Hi-Res textures: 0
- VRam size: 64 MBytes

Framerate:
- FPS limitation: on
- Frame skipping: off
- FPS limit: Auto

Compatibility:
- Offscreen drawing: 3
- Framebuffer texture: 0
- Framebuffer access: 4
- Alpha multipass: on
- Mask bit: on
- Advanced blending: on

Misc:
- Scanlines: off
- Line mode: off
- Unfiltered FB: off
- 15 bit FB: off
- Dithering: off
- Screen smoothing: off
- Screen cushion: off
- Game fixes: on [00001000]

[Mouser X]

Hey, thanks for the reply. I wasn't really able to use the help though, as the Eternal SPU plugin uses WAY to much CPU (I'm currently running ePSXe on a 450mhz system). Also, I didn't realize this until yesturday, but my GeForce 4 card is running using Windows default drivers, which really suck. Since I'm not home right now, I can't install the newest drivers. However, when I get the chance to, I'll try that out. That should improve the speed, and possibly the compatibility, of the card. Once I do that, then maybe I'll try your settings again. However, I'll still avoid the Eternal SPU, as it takes to much CPU for my liking. Actually, I'm considering getting a null driver so that the CPU cycles used for the music generating can be put toward smoothing out some framey games.

Also, I found some save files on the 'net. Using those, I was able to get into the game, but it ran reallly really poorly (slowly, but might have been more for all I could tell). However, when I went in the menu screen, and tried to view the status of the characters, I think it locked up. I'm pretty sure that there's an ePSXe patch for that, but I couldn't figure out how to enable it in ePSXe 1.60. I read the readme, but the menu selection they told me to go to doesn't exist (or at least it's not viewable under normal circumstances).

Occasionaly, I'll use the ePSXe frontend, epsxexecutor (or whatever it's called), and that allows you to turn on the "game patches." Perhaps that's what I'll have to do, if I can't do it any other way (though epsxexecutor doesn't support ISO files).

Anyway, thanks for that! Mouser X over and out.

[mp3guy]

oh yeah, dump ePXSe 1.6.0, it is known to have ALOT of bugs. Go download version 1.5.2 somwhere, it's much more compatible, and has the same features really

[Mouser X]

Oh yah, forgot to do that. I just got it from ePSXe's site. Also, I installed the most recent drivers for my GeForce 4 TI 4600 (or something like that) and I can't tell any performance difference between then (using windows default drivers from 2001) and now (using drivers from 10/29/2004). I've tried both OpenGL and D3D, and from what I could tell, they were about the same. Maybe it's just that my CPU is so slow that newer drivers simply make no difference. Oh, I'm on a 450mhz, in case I didn't mention that before. However, hopefully within 2 weeks I'll finally have a 1+ghz machine! Joy!

Anyway, thanks again for your help! I'll give 1.52 a try. Mouser X over and out.

[chronoct]

Im not much of a fan of chrono cross but no ps games Would work on my emulater

[DarkHawk]

dh88274 said:

where do I find images for game I emulate? CC doesn't look as good as it should and my friend told me to fine the "images" or whatever.

do you mean images from the game, or the image of the game, as in it being ripped off of the disk?

[mp3guy]

No ISO requests

[chronoct]

Im gonna try to get mine to work now that i know what i need And I already have a ISO so i dont need that anymore