Metroid Prime (GC): Difference between revisions

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(Copying over shader compilation stuttering from Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (Wii), some updates. As of the visor and texture fixes, there is no need to use EFB to Ram for this game!)
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== Problems ==
== Problems ==


=== Micro-stuttering Due To Shader Generation ===
=== Shader Compilation Stuttering ===
All of the Prime games suffer from stuttering caused by shader generation, though this game does not suffer the "black bar" issue that plagues the later installments. The only "fix" is to simply play the game; building up the shadercache will alleviate the issue over time.
The ''Metroid Prime'' games are some of the most susceptible titles to shader compilation stuttering, thanks to a combination of very complex effects and dynamic loading. The GC and Wii have no concept of shaders - everything runs directly "on the metal" without any APIs. Modern desktop and phone systems do not work in this way, requiring the use of shaders as an intermediary so your system's GPU can perform the tasks that the GC and Wii GPU performed. But shaders have to be created, and since GC/Wii games are not designed to create shaders ahead of time as a PC game would, when a new effect appears Dolphin has to delay the CPU thread while the GPU thread performs the compilation; a pause that does not exist on the consoles. For most games shader generation takes only a few milliseconds, but for the ''Metroid Prime'' series and a few other demanding titles, the shaders that they generate are so large that they can result in noticeable stuttering.
 
Eventually stuttering will reduce as a shader cache is built up, but there is no solution to this problem at this time.


=== Dolphin Savestates ===
=== Dolphin Savestates ===
Dolphin savestates may randomly fail, especially if a lot of activity is happening on screen when making the save. Use in game save stations to avoid any issues.
Dolphin savestates may randomly fail, especially if a lot of activity is happening on screen when making the save. Use in game save stations to avoid any issues.


=== Visors ===
=== {{s}}Incorrect Textures{{/s}} ===
The Thermal Visor will only work if '''EFB Copies to Texture Only''' is disabled. However, '''EFB Copies to Texture Only''' is disabled as default within the game INI, normally preventing the user from using anything but that setting for this game. Such can be overridden by opening/editing configuration options post the start of the game or modifying the game .ini, which can cause the issue to reoccur.
When using '''Store EFB to Texture Only''', some environment textures may be EFB Copies instead of proper textures. Fixed by {{revision|4.0-7630}}.
 
More problematic, however, is the X-Ray Visor, which becomes impossible to see through in most rooms after acquiring the Phazon Suit; usually, upon activation Samus's sight will be obscured by a static image, usually an extreme closeup of a wall or a giant Grapple Beam symbol. Unfortunately, the reasons for this glitch are unknown, as are the means by which it can be averted.


=== Background Music Stops ===
=== {{s}}Visors{{/s}} ===
Background music can stop randomly with any configuration; this could be caused by a lot of on-screen activity or changing map areas.
The Thermal Visor and Xray Visor will only work if '''Store EFB Copies to Texture Only''' is disabled. However, '''Store EFB Copies to Texture Only''' is disabled as default within the game INI, normally preventing the user from using anything but that setting for this game. Such can be overridden by opening/editing configuration options post the start of the game or modifying the game .ini, which can cause the issue to reoccur. Fixed by {{revision|4.0-5561}}.  


=== {{s}}Refraction Slowdown{{/s}} ===
=== {{s}}Refraction Slowdown{{/s}} ===

Revision as of 18:58, 3 October 2015

Metroid Prime
Metroid prime box art.jpg
Developer(s) Retro Studios
Publisher(s) Nintendo
Series Metroid, Metroid Prime
Platform(s) GameCube
Release date(s) NA November 17, 2002
JP February 28, 2003
EU March 21, 2003
AUS April 3, 2003
Genre(s) First-person action-adventure, First-person shooter, Action-adventure
Mode(s) Single-player
Input methods GameCube Controller, Game Boy Advance
Compatibility 4Stars4.pngEdit rating: Metroid Prime (GC)
Playable
GameIDs
See also...

Wii Version
Trilogy Version
Dolphin Forum thread
Open Issues
Search Google
Prime Wikipedia page

Metroid Prime is a video game developed by Retro Studios and Nintendo for the Nintendo GameCube. It is the first 3D game in the Metroid series, the fifth main installment, and the first of the three part Metroid Prime storyline.

Despite taking place in the first person view, Metroid Prime is classified by Nintendo as a first-person adventure rather than a first-person shooter, due to the large exploration component of the game and its precedence over combat. As with all Metroid games, players solve puzzles, perform platform jumps, and fight enemies in a large, open ended world. Along the way, the player finds power ups that improve her abilities, and clues about the mystery of the planet. The story is told organically; the story is revealed through scan logs, allowing the player to dive into the story or ignore it as they see fit.

An updated version exists for the Wii as part of the Metroid Prime: Trilogy; which also contains the sequels Metroid Prime 2: Echoes and Metroid Prime 3: Corruption.

Problems

Shader Compilation Stuttering

The Metroid Prime games are some of the most susceptible titles to shader compilation stuttering, thanks to a combination of very complex effects and dynamic loading. The GC and Wii have no concept of shaders - everything runs directly "on the metal" without any APIs. Modern desktop and phone systems do not work in this way, requiring the use of shaders as an intermediary so your system's GPU can perform the tasks that the GC and Wii GPU performed. But shaders have to be created, and since GC/Wii games are not designed to create shaders ahead of time as a PC game would, when a new effect appears Dolphin has to delay the CPU thread while the GPU thread performs the compilation; a pause that does not exist on the consoles. For most games shader generation takes only a few milliseconds, but for the Metroid Prime series and a few other demanding titles, the shaders that they generate are so large that they can result in noticeable stuttering.

Eventually stuttering will reduce as a shader cache is built up, but there is no solution to this problem at this time.

Dolphin Savestates

Dolphin savestates may randomly fail, especially if a lot of activity is happening on screen when making the save. Use in game save stations to avoid any issues.

Template:SIncorrect TexturesTemplate:/s

When using Store EFB to Texture Only, some environment textures may be EFB Copies instead of proper textures. Fixed by 4.0-7630.

Template:SVisorsTemplate:/s

The Thermal Visor and Xray Visor will only work if Store EFB Copies to Texture Only is disabled. However, Store EFB Copies to Texture Only is disabled as default within the game INI, normally preventing the user from using anything but that setting for this game. Such can be overridden by opening/editing configuration options post the start of the game or modifying the game .ini, which can cause the issue to reoccur. Fixed by 4.0-5561.

Template:SRefraction SlowdownTemplate:/s

Refraction effects, such as raindrops on Samus' visor, cause slowdown in OpenGL. Even the strongest computers are affected by this issue, and there is no solution with the OpenGL backend at this time. D3D is affected by this issue also, but only if anti-aliasing is enabled. Fixed by 4.0-5124.

Configuration

No configuration changes are known to affect compatibility for this title.

Version Compatibility

The graph below charts the compatibility with Metroid Prime since Dolphin's 2.0 release, listing revisions only where a compatibility change occurred.

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5.0-21264 (current)
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Δ
Δ
Δ
Δ
2.0 (r5384)
Compatibility can be assumed to align with the indicated revisions. However, compatibility may extend to prior revisions or compatibility gaps may exist within ranges indicated as compatible due to limited testing. Please update as appropriate.

Testing

This title has been tested on the environments listed below:

Test Entries
Revision OS CPU GPU Result Tester
r6569 Windows 7 x64 AMD Phenom II X4 @ 3.7GHz ATI Radeon HD 5770 Great, but heavy FPS drops in some places
r6569 Windows 7 x64 AMD Phenom II X2 550 3.1GHz ATI Radeon HD 4850 Playable: 30-60FPS with DX9 plug-in, OpenCL Enabled and Recommended Configuration
r7338 Windows 7 x64 Intel Core i5 @ 2.53GHz NVIDIA GeForce 330M It runs great, though when heavy particles kick in, it gets a little sluggish, but recovers. Rymar
r7417 Windows 7 x64 Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 @ 2.66GHz NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 It started when i loaded it the first time. After saving in the first level, it only plays audio and shows a black screen. I can´t play it anymore. AssAsSin
r7647 Windows 7 x64 Intel Core i7-2600 @ 3.4GHz NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 Crashes in "Temple Entryway" (Phendrana Drifts) after you get the wave beam, when you go back to Phendrana Shorelines. Forced passage. Seems to freeze when loading the next location data, in the middle of the corridor.
r7661 Windows 7 x64 Intel Core 2 Quad 9550 @ 3.2GHz AMD Radeon HD 6950 Great, no significant performance drops so far, sound problems sometimes
r7670 Windows 7 x64 Intel Core i5-2500K @ 4.1GHz AMD Radeon HD 6850 Runs perfectly fine. There still is glitches along the edges of the screen using "stretch to window". MegaJump
r7719 Windows 7 x64 Intel Core i5-2500K @ 3.4GHz NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti DX11, 1920x1080, 3x Native, 2x AA. Game runs smoothly at 60FPS at almost all times. Audio popping and crackling problems persist, but the frequency of audio errors appears to be drastically reduced when using XAudio2. Occasionally sound effects will drop out for a bit or fail to play. FPS drops immensely when splashing into water, and when looking upwards at rain droplets in large rooms. Helvetica
3.0-153 Windows 7 x64 AMD Phenom II X4 @ 3.4GHz NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 Used Recommended Configuration; Fullspeed 60FPS, Audio still cracks and pops (happens when pressing digital type controls e.g. D-Pad, A, B) extreme framerate drop 95%+ when water droplets get on HUD (but does not happen from visor being covered in condensation), same effect from Arm Cannon overheat smoke and when falling in water. Some rooms cause framerate drops, not sure why yet. Sometimes when using the Scan Visor framerate will drop to 20-21FPS, not sure why yet. AnonMX
3.0-201 Windows 7 x64 Intel Core 2 Duo P8700 @ 3GHz NVIDIA GeForce GT 220M Used Recommended Configuration with 4xAA. Very little audio popping. Speed was mostly good, dropped to 60s% in some areas due to weak GPU (overclocking GPU helped). Widescreen hack doesn't work here, models that are outside of the 4:3 ratio disappear. Maave
3.0-201 Windows 7 x64 Intel Core i5-760 @ 2.8GHz ATI Radeon HD 5850 DX9, 2x IR, 4xAA, and running very smooth. Haven't noticed any negative effects from Cache Display Lists. XAudio2 distorted various sounds, using DSound instead. Maave
3.0-201 Windows 7 x64 Intel Core i7-2620M @ 2.7GHz Intel HD 3000 Using recommended settings and dx9 back-end. Its playable, with a consistent 30FPS, however it will glitch only in certain rooms, and sometimes in morph ball form it will drop to 11FPS. Some audio issues but for the most part very good and consistent. Also playing in 720p and frame set to auto instead of native. cohn
3.0-415 Windows 7 x64 Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 @ 3GHz NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 With recommended settings, XAudio2 and 2x native resolution I get almost perfect emulation speed, but will drop at larger boss fights to around 60% and snowy areas to around 80%. Sound and music are sometimes missing or playing strangely, like if you are far away or closer to the source. The alcove room sky bug mentioned in the wiki didn't trigger. Got a single crash after the second boss.
3.0-586 Windows 7 x64 AMD Athlon II X4 640 @ 3GHz ATI Radeon HD 4200 With recommended settings works almost flawlessly. Lava, water, and snow sometimes lowers the FPS, but the FPS will go right back up if you turn the visor to scan mode. IMPORTANT: I don't know about other revisions, but save states are broken; loading a state results in a black screen.
3.0-631 Windows 7 x64 Intel Core i7-920 @ 3.7GHz AMD Radeon HD 6950 Absolutely fluid FPS even with 2.5x native on HLE audio, however, massive audio glitches occur (cracking, noise and 90% of sounds are wrong), LLE audio fixes this but yields a comparatively pathetic performance, even on 1x native with settings trimmed on extreme performance very annoying lags occur in fights with more than 2 opponents. LLE on a discrete thread seems to improve this a bit, but not satisfyingly. High FPS drops in large outside areas when water drops come onto the visor. UPDATE: I have recently found the solution: Enabling "Accurate VBeam emulation" causes a slight lag and FPS-drop in the menu and just after entering new areas, but increases overall performance substantially and makes it well playable.
3.0-688 Windows 7 x64 AMD Phenom II X2 550 Black Edition > X4 B50 @ 3.2GHz ATI Radeon HD 4890 Been playing for a few hours. Default settings yield 60FPS. Sometimes Audio is choppy. Random glitched noises appear when "boss" fights start. Once in a while certain textures appear black. Works great otherwise. Oerg866
3.0-787 Windows 7 x64 Intel Core i5-2450M @ 2.5GHz NVIDIA GeForce GT 635M Running at 2x internal resolution, 720p screen res. Minor audio issues: sometimes audio clips make a crackling sound, sometimes they play at odd volumes and occasionally they don't play at all. Stable 50FPS, drops during cutscenes and action heavy sequences, but never drops below 30. It will sometimes freeze for a few seconds, but this has only happened twice so far and it corrects itself. Overall its a very stable game.
3.5-126 Windows 7 x64 Intel Core i7-2670QM @ 2.2GHz NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560M Running with D3D9, 1x native, 9xSSAA, EFB to Ram, Fog/Per-Pixel Depth and DSP HLE usually results in a solid 60FPS, although significantly lower during bosses/fights with Aerotroopers, still playable though having it beat it all the way through. Audio glitches are annoying but no big deal, all I ever encountered in that regard was music disappearing randomly or when loading Save States Phazon Lord
3.5-134 Windows 8 x64 Intel Core i7-3520M @ 2.9GHz Intel HD Graphics 4000 Occasional sound glitches, common for background music to drop out. After uncovering a large portion of the map, viewing it drops FPS dramatically (around 10FPS in some cases (this is ONLY for viewing the map)). Otherwise, runs consistently at 50FPS and 50VPS. Very playable. I don't use the LLE recompiler because it still appears to have the same sound issues, and will also decrease FPS, I would suggest you just deal with the sound issues, and use the HLE engine. QwertyMaster
3.5-380 Windows 7 x64 Intel Core i7-5960X @ 4.5GHz NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Perfect, no slowdowns due the great performance of i7 5960x and GTX 980, but, background music still stop, please fix it AngelX
3.5-2215 Windows 8 x64 Intel Core i7-4700HQ @ 3.2GHz NVIDIA GeForce GTX 765M Playable, 40-60FPS with proper config. Sound was perfect thanks to the new DSP HLE engine. Autofire
4.0-263 Windows 8 x64 Intel Core i7-3630QM @ 2.4GHz NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M Very Playable, 45-60FPS, but VPS was a constant 60. Occasional loud static accompanied with cutscenes. nos770
4.0-4199 Windows Vista x64 Intel Pentium D @ 3.2GHz ATI Radeon HD 3800 Somewhat Playable, 40-50FPS, Particle effects and fire caused FPS to drop lower than 40, VPS was jumping from 60 to 45. Cutscenes ran mostly at 60 with exception of scenes with fire or explosions. Opening Visor and Entering Morph Ball caused short 2-3 second freeze, Levels with explorable space (such as the first) lag the most, in general, The game is playable, but not pretty. Madamunkey
4.0-4478 Windows 8 x64 Intel Core i7-3520M @ 3.3GHz NVIDIA GeForce GT 640M LE Played with D3D, 1.5x resolution. Near perfect, slows down only in very large areas or when splashing in water for some reason. FPS is constantly at around 60, VPS is stable as well. Micro-stuttering still an issue but barely noticeable; the sound is fantastic with the HLE engine, not a single error. I managed to complete the game with minor problems; the x-ray and thermal visors failed to work once for some reason, but worked again after resetting the emulator. It crashed four times in total, always in the same situation; when entering rooms where purple energy enemies are found, those that can only be killed via wave beam, the game randomly crashed. In other cases a FIFO overflow error occurred, although it didn't stop the emulation or crash the game. This is very close to perfect, and my computer is nowhere near powerful for Dolphin. Modifications to the JIT and FIFO have made a huge difference. UDEM42
4.0-5347 Windows 7 x64 Intel Core i7-4770K @ 4.2GHz NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 Ti Played through the pirate frigate section, it seems perfect and running at full speed. Using D3D, auto rescaling at 1920x1080, 2xAA 4xAF, other settings at defaults. The microstuttering is there but isn't really a problem. It was present at places like the pan over the frigate during the opening cutscene and using the morph ball for the first time. Each pause was 150ms or so. Repeating these actions did not result in stuttering since the shaders were cached. ThatBum
4.0-7816 Windows 7 x64 Intel Core i5-2500k @ 3.3GHz ATI Radeon HD 6870 Completed a 100% playthrough. D3D, auto rescaling, fullscreened to 1920x1080, all other graphics options set to default or auto. In certain areas there was extreme slowdown, namely the completed map screen for most sections, and the Chozo Temple, which made fighting Meta Ridley a tad difficult. There is also slowdown during special visor effects, such as when jumping into or exiting water, shooting a beam at a wall directly in front of you, or stuff splashing on it when killing Scarabs, but those were only a minor nuisance. The microstuttering shader cache issue still seems to exist here and there but the pauses were always extremely short and not too noticeable. BallsOfSteel

Gameplay Videos


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