Star Fox Adventures in High Definition

[GammaRay256]

Today, I compiled the Dolphin Emulator from SVN (version 5802) in Linux (Ubuntu 10.04).  To my surprise, Star Fox Adventures now runs flawlessly in Dolphin (it wouldn't even start before).

This opens a lot of new possibilities, such as getting HD versions of the Star Fox Adventures cutscenes.

Unfortunately, my laptop is not nearly fast enough to emulate the game at anything near normal speed (it runs at about 10% speed), but, it is still somewhat playable.  It took a long time, but I was able to get to Krazoa Palace and save.  No glitches whatsoever (other than audio lagging behind because of the slow framerates, it should fine if the game can run at 100%).  I expect the rest of the game should work fine too.  I have been able to run the game at 720p with widescreen and anti-aliasing (albeit at about 5% speed) - it looks absolutely beautiful.

Although my laptop is not currently fast enough, I will be building a PC in a few weeks that should be able to play the game at 100% at 1080p with full 8X anti-aliasing - then, I will attempt to record a few of the cutscenes from the game in 1080p.

I've attached two screenshots.  When I build my computer in a week or two, I'll try to record a few of the cutscenes in 1080p.

(If the links below become broken, the images are also attached to the post)

[screenshots removed, I don't have the original domain name anymore.  See the posts later in the threads for screenshots.]

[attachment pruned to save disk space]

[Robert Monroe]

Just.... wow. Dem screens.

[Guest FoXXX]

Cool, somebody posted 720p screenshots and were acting surprised, but all you gotta do is use an emulator Oo

Also, install gentoo

[Guest DRL]

Also, Windows Wolf

Fixed.

O-T: C00L screenshots.

Once I upgrade my processor,

I might be able to do that too. :cool:

[GammaRay256]

Fixed.

O-T: C00L screenshots.

Once I upgrade my processor,

I might be able to do that too.

Sometime this next week, I'll be getting a quad-core i7-930 along with the rest of the new system I'm building.  I won't be initially overclocking if I don't need it, but I'll have a Corsair H50 cooler in case I want to do some light overclocking in the future.  Most people say they can get up to 4GHz on that CPU with the H50 cooler, I probably won't overclock that high, but maybe 3.4-3.6GHz.

I haven't tried this under Windows (I bet my framerates would be a lot lower) - I honestly don't know anything about compiling software in Windows, but it's so easy to do in Linux (I'm running Ubuntu 10.04 64-bit).  I also can't get a screen recorder in Windows that performs as well as RecordMyDesktop does in Linux (it uses almost no CPU, and can record 30 FPS at full screen, even in 3D apps; in Windows, CamStudio can barely do 30FPS on a small section of the screen!).

I was actually surprised how well my laptop ran the games in the emulator.  I have an older 2.00GHz Core 2 Duo T7200.  SF Assault was completely playable, it was smooth, but at about 50% of the speed it would be on the Real Gamecube.  Star Fox Adventures was much slower, but still smooth and playable at a varying 5-35%.  Dolphin is very good at running multiple threads, and could effectively use both cores at 100%.  I expect that the quad-core CPU I'm getting will be able to run both these games at 100% speed with at least 25-30 FPS (maybe even more) without overclocking.  Plus, the video card for the new system is a GTX 470, so it will easily be able to do maximum anti-aliasing and high resolutions.

I noticed earlier that some people had uploaded 720p videos of Star Fox Adventures to YouTube a few months ago (however, there were a few from this month).  I saw that many of them were using an older Dolphin SVN build (Star Fox Adventures was broken in Dolphin for a very long time).  In their videos, the computer displays in the Great Fox (on the menu) didn't work (or had serious graphics glitches) in the videos I saw, in addition, the game appeared to have slow-performance moments where their emulation speed would noticeably drop for a few seconds (and for apparently no reason).  In my experiments today, I did not see any graphical glitches and, although my emulation speed is low, it was fairly consistent and would only drop when you would expect it (during busy scenes and stuff).

[Guest DRL]

C00L, I expect to see a new build for Win32

soon. 2.0 RC4 (Or like that) is pretty C00L, I have

it and runs smoothly.

Try using the JIT interpreter, selectable in the options.

Althrough it does increase slightly the unstability, it can

push up to 5~10 Fps. :)

[GammaRay256]

C00L, I expect to see a new build for Win32

soon. 2.0 RC4 (Or like that) is pretty C00L, I have

it and runs smoothly.

Try using the JIT interpreter, selectable in the options.

Althrough it does increase slightly the unstability, it can

push up to 5~10 Fps.

I looked in the options and the JIT interpreter was already selected. 

Just for fun, I tried JITIL too though - it seemed to run about the same, I didn't notice any difference.

[Guest DRL]

I looked in the options and the JIT interpreter was already selected. 

Just for fun, I tried JITIL too though - it seemed to run about the same, I didn't notice any difference.

Well, according to the documentation

JITIL runs a little faster, but is more unstable.

I have it on, configured OpenGL options to

"turn fog off", and after that I switched to

DirectX plugin, which they say runs faster.

[Mr. Krystal]

We need Krystal HD video, STAT!

(btw, I will seriously pay you if you can get me all the frames or the actual HD video of the Krystal cutscenes in Adventures)

[Guest DRL]

We need Krystal HD video, STAT!

(btw, I will seriously pay you if you can get me all the frames or the actual HD video of the Krystal cutscenes in Adventures)

(DRL will try + )

[GammaRay256]

We need Krystal HD video, STAT!

(btw, I will seriously pay you if you can get me all the frames or the actual HD video of the Krystal cutscenes in Adventures)

Well... cool!

The parts for my computer should be coming later this week.  Once I get it all set up and I can run the game at full speed, I'll have everything ready to start recording cutscenes.

So, I'll probably be able to get at least a few 1080p cutscenes by the end of this week/early next week.

[Hakuhn]

Today, I compiled the Dolphin Emulator from SVN (version 5802) in Linux (Ubuntu 10.04).  To my surprise, Star Fox Adventures now runs flawlessly in Dolphin (it wouldn't even start before).

This opens a lot of new possibilities, such as getting HD versions of the Star Fox Adventures cutscenes.

Unfortunately, my laptop is not nearly fast enough to emulate the game at anything near normal speed (it runs at about 10% speed), but, it is still somewhat playable.  It took a long time, but I was able to get to Krazoa Palace and save.  No glitches whatsoever (other than audio lagging behind because of the slow framerates, it should fine if the game can run at 100%).  I expect the rest of the game should work fine too.  I have been able to run the game at 720p with widescreen and anti-aliasing (albeit at about 5% speed) - it looks absolutely beautiful.

Although my laptop is not currently fast enough, I will be building a PC in a few weeks that should be able to play the game at 100% at 1080p with full 8X anti-aliasing - then, I will attempt to record a few of the cutscenes from the game in 1080p.

I've attached two screenshots.  When I build my computer in a week or two, I'll try to record a few of the cutscenes in 1080p.

Hey, I was trying to run the game on another revision but I cannot manage to play it more than the R 4701 of Dolphin, could be good to share that one if you can for Windows  .

By the way, does the game runs like this video I made?:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHzeLG5FD4A I used Opengl and some of the options it has to make it, is not HD quality tho (I don't know how to do it either  )

Bye!.

[Scott7]

You gotta be kidding me...

I've been trying to get that damn ISO working for months and i'm also using SVN 4701 as well along with the newest verion and have had 0 luck even with the Plugins that are said to make it work...

It this rate it feels like i'll never be able to rip that map...

[Hakuhn]

You gotta be kidding me...

I've been trying to get that damn ISO working for months and I'm also using SVN 4701 as well along with the newest verion and have had 0 luck even with the Plugins that are said to make it work...

It this rate it feels like I'll never be able to rip that map...

Did you have the US version? its kinda easy to make it "run".

You just have to go at the emulator screen, select the game and enter on properties, go to patch tab and add this on selecting Dword: Offset: 8004A9F8 Value: 60000000

Then it may run or not, depends of the computer too  .

Besides, I ripped Krazoa palace (Not entirely, just the temple part)

No UV map for Krystal or enemies though  .

[Scott7]

Did you have the US version? its kinda easy to make it "run".

You just have to go at the emulator screen, select the game and enter on properties, go to patch tab and add this on selecting Dword: Offset: 8004A9F8 Value: 60000000

Then it may run or not, depends of the computer too  .

Besides, I ripped Krazoa palace (Not entirely, just the temple part)

No UV map for Krystal or enemies though  .

No way....

How much where you able to rip out? the whole room or just that one floor?

[Hakuhn]

No way....

How much where you able to rip out? the whole room or just that one floor?

Ripped a lot, All the 4 floors there, but not the top floor or the way coming from the start of the level.

[Scott7]

Ripped a lot, All the 4 floors there, but not the top floor or the way coming from the start of the level.

Could I possibly get those files? I've been dying to get a Krazoa Palace Map for Gmod. ^_^

[Mr. Krystal]

I don't need the audio. And I'm warry of running the game at full speed AND recording it. Is there a way to frame-by-frame get screenshots?

[GammaRay256]

I don't need the audio. And I'm warry of running the game at full speed AND recording it. Is there a way to frame-by-frame get screenshots?

I'll see how it runs - it might work just fine.  I definitely understand your concerns though, if the framerate drops below ~30 once (or the emulation speed slows below 100%), it would ruin the recording.

I will try to find a way to get it frame-by-frame (it would be possible on my current hardware too, but playing through the parts in-between the scenes would take too long - I'll try it with the opening scene).  I know it is possible, as Dolphin has the option of simply slowing the simulation speed without dropping frames (essentially, every frame is played, just very slowly; I just need to find a way to efficiently capture them...).

[Hakuhn]

I don't need the audio. And I'm warry of running the game at full speed AND recording it. Is there a way to frame-by-frame get screenshots?

Well, an idea comes to my mind but maybe is kinda weird, is recording the game lagging that badly and then with a video editor accelerating the scene to match with the scene audio you got. But maybe is not that good though, the tail is moving normal and accelerating the video will accelerate the tail too  .

Never heard on making frame by frame screenshots on Dolphin.

And about the Krazoa Palace I'm packing it up now.

EDIT:

Ok ready, send me a PM if interested.

[GammaRay256]

Well, an idea comes to my mind but maybe is kinda weird, is recording the game lagging that badly and then with a video editor accelerating the scene to match with the scene audio you got. But maybe is not that good though, the tail is moving normal and accelerating the video will accelerate the tail too  .

Never heard on making frame by frame screenshots on Dolphin.

And about the Krazoa Palace I'm packing it up now.

Yeah, that's exactly what we'd have to do I think.  But, if we had to do it manually, it could take forever.  If there's a way to automatically export an image every time the output changes, I could combine them with ffmpeg at the target framerate.

However, we need to make sure Dolphin is actually playing every frame for a set target framerate (it'll need to be set for this rather than being unlimited/auto).  Apparently, it looks like Dolphin tends to slow down the emulation speed rather than dropping frames.  Perhaps, when the target framerate is 30 FPS, it attempts to play (number of frames)x(seconds of video), but just plays them back very slowly.

I'll need to do some more testing later to even see if it will be possible (I think it should be though).  It's unfortunately kind of complicated because the framerate is kind of relative - it's not like a video that has a set framerate, it will try to play it at as many frames per second as possible (and the FPS can change every second).  If the FPS is constantly changing, it would be useless to combine it (even if all the frames are dumped) to a constant framerate.  If the framerate changes, you would get a video that plays fast when the emulator was running slow (less frames over constant time), and slow when the emulator was running fast (more frames over constant time).

Unless, of course, there's a way Dolphin can natively export frame-by-frame for a set FPS (I'm not aware of such a function).

Dolphin's method of handling slow performance is very useful for gameplay (keeps gameplay smooth by lowering emulation speed and keeping a reasonable framerate), but makes something like this far more complicated because the framerate is somewhat relative.

[GammaRay256]

Hey, I was trying to run the game on another revision but I cannot manage to play it more than the R 4701 of Dolphin, could be good to share that one if you can for Windows  .

By the way, does the game runs like this video I made?:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHzeLG5FD4A I used Opengl and some of the options it has to make it, is not HD quality tho (I don't know how to do it either  )

Bye!.

Sorry I didn't reply earlier, I wasn't at home and couldn't watch the YouTube link...

Yes, it runs almost exactly like that video.

I've uploaded the Dolphin build I'm using, download it here: http://www.mediafire.com/?wmmcmwlmowm

It's currently compiled for Linux 64-bit, but, all the source code is there too, so it could be compiled for something else.

I had heard before that the last build it ran on was 4701.  Perhaps, I've just gotten lucky with this particular build (5802), I haven't tried compiling anything newer yet.

I don't have an ISO, I'm using a file with a ".gcm" extension.  I don't know much about it, other than it runs fine.  The file looks more like a ROM-dump than an archive or ISO to me.

[Scott7]

Oh right, I keep forgetting thats what i'm using..  :facepalm:

[Thu'um]

well i got plasma flat screen and the graphics look simlir

[GammaRay256]

I just wanted to let everyone know, I am making progress!  My custom PC build was a success and it will now be practical for me to actually get the Star Fox Adventures cutscenes in 1080p.  At the moment though, there are still some technical issues preventing me from actually recording and uploading the 1080p cutscenes.  However, there are ways around them and they will not prevent me from getting the cutscenes - it just may be a little more difficult.

Dolphin will only use two CPU cores.

The Dolphin emulator is programmed in a way that it can use a dual core CPU very well, but the developers are not interested in programming it so that it can effectively use more than two CPUs.  I have an i7-930, which is 8 virtual CPUs (because of hyper-threading), but only two will be used during emulation.  The good news is that running a screen recorder shouldn't be difficult as those extra cores aren't being used during the emulation.  The bad news is that, even with a 3.8 GHz overclock, I can only run SF Adventures at 80-100% (but not a consistent 100%).  If Dolphin could only it could use all the CPUs potential, it would be a lot better.  Anyway, even if it were an i7-980X OCed to 4 GHz, it probably couldn't even run it 100% consistently because Dolphin only runs as a two-thread program AND Star Fox Adventures does not run very efficiently under it.

HOWEVER, I CAN limit the FPS to 30 at run the emulation consistently at EXACTLY 50%.  This is good because if I can record the cutscenes running at 50%, it would be easy to speed them up 2X in a video editor.

I currently do not have a way to capture every frame of an OpenGL output.

Ideally, I would set Dolphin to emulate the game at exactly 30 FPS and dump all the frames to PNG images - then, I would use ffmpeg to recombine the PNGs at 30 FPS into a video.  Sadly, I do not have a way to do this right now.  If anyone can think of a way to dump every frame of an OpenGL application in Linux, please let me know!

Currently, I am having some unrelated technical difficulties with screen capturing software.  I would like to use an OpenGL video capture program like glc or yukon, however, I haven't been able to get them to work reliably for various reasons.  If I could get one of those, or something similar, to work, that would be ideal because they are lossless and actually do capture every single frame without much CPU power.

I have been using "traditional" screen capture software so far.  However, these have their limitations: they're not designed to capture OpenGL 3D applications (especially in full screen) and they like to drop frames.  Using ffmpeg's x11grab and the Huffyuv codec, I *think* I can get a smooth capture.  However, these lossless Huffyuv files are difficult to work with, and I am forced to convert them to high-bitrate MPEG2 streams after capture.  I then load that into the video editor and do the post work.  Of course, a small amount of quality is lost in the process.

As I said before, these are unrelated and something I've been working on for other projects too.

I do have the first cutscene in 1080p, but, the file is big and there are some minor technical issues I'd like to work out before uploading it.  Trust me though, this is going to work, I just need time.

But, I can't leave you guys without a screenshot!  So, I remember Mr. Krystal mentioned that the image in the back of the Great Fox in Star Fox Adventures has been debated for awhile.  Thanks to one of my testing videos, I was able to get a 1920x1080 screenshot of the wall with that image as the game moves the camera between Peppy and Fox.  I hope this is the one Mr. Krystal was talking about.  I certainly didn't notice it before, but, I now have a fairly clear screenshot of it.  I think it is a poster that says "Foxy Ladies".  A link to the screenshot is below.  Let me know what you think!

(Download: http://www.mediafire.com/i/?zmynj0nt4nw)

Alternate Link: http://adastra.us/i/Great_Fox_Poster.png