Metroid Prime 2: Echoes (GC): Difference between revisions

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(→‎Problems: Purging Visors, as it's not an issue with default settings.)
(added a note about the scan visor. As of v3.5 Snow Leopard, don't know if it's fixed or fixable thereafter.)
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When playing above 1x Native internal resolution, there is a dot in the center of the screen. It's small and easy to ignore, but it is present whenever the HUD is on screen. There is no fix for this problem.
When playing above 1x Native internal resolution, there is a dot in the center of the screen. It's small and easy to ignore, but it is present whenever the HUD is on screen. There is no fix for this problem.
{{image|MP2GC Thedot zoom.png|The dot, zoomed in 8x|br}}
{{image|MP2GC Thedot zoom.png|The dot, zoomed in 8x|br}}
=== Broken Scan Visor ===
If 'Skip Destination Alpha Pass' is turned on, the scan visor will display nonsensical data and fail to work. Running the game without this option fixes the problem.


== Configuration ==
== Configuration ==

Revision as of 11:19, 14 January 2014

Metroid Prime 2: Echoes
Metroid Prime 2: Echoes
Developer(s) Retro Studios
Publisher(s) Nintendo
Series Metroid, Metroid Prime
Platform(s) GameCube
Release date(s) NA November 15, 2004
EU November 26, 2004
AUS December 2, 2004
JP May 26, 2005
Genre(s) First-person action-adventure, First-person shooter, Action-adventure
Mode(s) Single-player, Multiplayer (4)
Input methods GameCube Controller
Compatibility 4Stars4.pngEdit rating: Metroid Prime 2: Echoes (GC)
Playable
GameIDs
See also...

Trilogy Version
Dolphin Forum thread
Open Issues
Search Google
Search Wikipedia

Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, known as Metroid Prime 2: Dark Echoes (メトロイドプライム2: ダークエコーズ Metoroido Puraimu Tsū: Dāku Ekōzu) in Japan, is a first-person, action-adventure video game developed by Retro Studios and published by Nintendo for the GameCube. It is the seventh published game in the Metroid series and a direct sequel to Metroid Prime.

Like it's predecessor, Metroid Prime 2: Echoes takes place in an open-ended world with interconnected regions, revolving around solving puzzles to uncover secrets, platform jumping, and shooting enemies. Echoes features parallel dimensions gameplay, Light Aether and Dark Aether, where changes in either dimension often reflect changes in the other. Dark Aether's atmosphere is caustic and damages Samus' Power Suit, requiring the player to move between designated "safe zones" that allow Samus' health to be regained slowly.

An updated version exists for the Wii as part of the Metroid Prime: Trilogy.

Problems

Black Bar and Severe Stutters

At seemingly random points throughout the game, the game will freeze for an instant, flashing to black and "redrawing". When it comes back, a black bar will be at the bottom of the screen, taking up 15% of the screen space and "squishing" the game in the remaining space. From thorough testing, this apparently occurs whenever the emulator stops the GPU thread for a split-second, causing the GPU and CPU threads to desync. Most games don't care about this, but Prime 2 freaks out and creates this error. Creating a new shadercache, from first run of the game or from going into a new area, will immediately cause the desync, as well as going in and out of fullscreen and even taking a screenshot. Building up a shadercache of an area helps, but it will still desync if a new effect or region is loaded. Playing with Dual Core disabled or using Sync GPU Thread is the only solution at this time. See issue 4336.

Micro-stuttering

All of the Prime games suffer from micro-stuttering: small stops in the video that can become very annoying. It occurs in all graphics backends, but the OpenGL backend has consistently been the most resistant to the problem. Its severity varies depending on the revision and settings used, so if you want to play the game you should try a wide variety of combinations.

Refraction Slowdown

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 not affected by this problem in this game.

Dot

When playing above 1x Native internal resolution, there is a dot in the center of the screen. It's small and easy to ignore, but it is present whenever the HUD is on screen. There is no fix for this problem.

Broken Scan Visor

If 'Skip Destination Alpha Pass' is turned on, the scan visor will display nonsensical data and fail to work. Running the game without this option fixes the problem.


Configuration

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

Version Compatibility

The graph below charts the compatibility with Metroid Prime 2: Echoes 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
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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
r1943 Windows Intel Core i7-920 @ 4GHz nVidia GeForce GTX 285 Metroid Prime 2 on Dolphin 1943 (Emulator) - High Quality (Normally running on 45-60 FPS!!!)
r6569 Windows 7 x64 AMD Phenom II X2 550 @ 3.1GHz ATI Radeon HD 4850 Playable: 30-60 FPS with OpenGL plug-in and Recommended Configuration
r7346 Windows 7 x64 Intel Core 2 Quad Q6700 @ 2.66GHz nVidia GeForce 8800 GTS Playable: 30-60 FPS with DX9 plug-in and Recommended Configuration. Just like Metroid Prime 1, if there are too many enemies, you will occasionally have some slowdown, especially since EFB copy to RAM is REQUIRED for the scan visor, which is an essential part of the game. Essentially runs flawlessly as of r7346. ShobuPrime
r7436 Windows 7 x64 AMD Phenom II X4 955 @ 3.8GHz ATI Radeon HD 4650 Playable: Runs fine except for occasional loading pauses and the scan visor. Using slightly tweaked config based off of recommended config. MechWarrior001
r7661 Windows 7 x64 Intel Core 2 Quad 9550 @ 3.2GHz AMD Radeon HD 6950 Perfect thanks to Dolphin DX 11 renderer without any issues and with the scan visor fully functional. 60FPS all the time. Xenon
^3.0 Windows 7 x64 AMD Phenom II X6 1100T AMD Radeon HD 6850 Perfect, just some slows when rain drops or water on the visor,audio some times crashes, graphics are clean and perfect Aldaris
4.0-256 Windows 7 x64 Intel i5 2500k @ 4.3GHz AMD Radeon HD 7950 Near perfect. Some slowdown when jumping out of shallow water, or looking up at open sky, but neither are significant issues due to their rarity. The green dot and black bar bugs persist, but I've yet to encounter flickering or micro-stutter.

Gameplay Videos

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