Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II Plus

From Dolphin Emulator Wiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II Plus
PhantasyStarPlus.jpg
Developer(s) Sonic Team
Publisher(s) Sega
Series Phantasy Star
Platform(s) GameCube
Release date(s) JP November 27, 2003
NA September 15, 2004
Genre(s) Action role-playing
Mode(s) Single-player, Multiplayer (4), Online (*)
Input methods GameCube Controller
Compatibility 4Stars4.pngEdit rating: Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II Plus
Playable
GameIDs
See also...

Dolphin Forum thread
Open Issues
Search Google
Search Wikipedia

Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II Plus is a re-release of Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II, and is another combination port of the Dreamcast releases Phantasy Star Online and Phantasy Star Online ver2. Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II Plus was released only a year after the original release of Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II, due to a cheating glitch in the original title. Players discovered that if they connected PSO to a computer, the PC could pretend to be a server and allow easy hacking of the game. In addition to cheat protections, exclusive content and online only missions were added to the offline mode. Now that the servers for online mode have been taken down, Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II Plus is the best PSO experience currently available on a console.

Problems

Calendar

At the beginning of the game, when the game asks if you want to go to the Calendar Screen, choosing Yes makes the game freeze. You can avoid this by simply selecting No instead. If you need to adjust the date and time, you can do so in your computer's settings, or if that is not possible, the Advanced tab of Dolphin's configuration.

Creating Network File Crash

When configuring a provider the game will error creating the network file in a GCI folder. Configure Dolphin to use a raw memory card file.

Dual Core De-sync

PSO EP1&2 and PSO EP3 tends to easily de-sync GPU/CPU threads when Dual Core is enabled (the default setting for most games on Dolphin) and since this game is constantly writing to your memory card while playing online there's a chance these de-syncs will happen while the game is writing to the memory card. This may result in game data corruption making you lose all your progress and characters. So to avoid this it's recommended to disable Dual Core for this game.

Misrendered Text

Texture cache accuracy must be set to Safe to avoid rendering some text incorrectly. Fixed by 5.0-16479.

Black Video

Scenes that play pre-rendered video appear black unless the External Frame Buffer is enabled and set to Real and Scaled EFB Copy is disabled. Setting the Internal Resolution to 1x reduces image shaking. Fixed with Hybrid XFB in 5.0-5874.

Configuration

Only configuration options for the best compatibility where they deviate from defaults are listed.

General

Config Setting Notes
Enable Dual Core Off Avoid desyncs that can corrupt save files

Graphics

Config Setting Notes
Texture Cache Accuracy Safe Render text appropriately

Version Compatibility

The graph below charts the compatibility with Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II Plus since Dolphin's 2.0 release, listing revisions only where a compatibility change occurred.

Δ
5.0-21222 (current)
Δ
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
r7555 Windows 7 Intel Core i7-950 @ 3.71 GHz ATI Radeon HD 5850 Playable, average of 30FPS Bigyimmy007
3.0-373 Windows Vista Intel Core i5-2500K @ 3.4 GHz Intel HD 3000 appearing white square(s) D3D, use OpenGL jarupxx
3.5-367 Windows 7 Intel Core i7-3770K @ 3.5 GHz ATI Radeon HD 7970 Unplayable, it hangs after confirming the time and only even gets that far using OpenGL with disabled Scaled EFB and EFB set to Real, otherwise it white or black screens even before that, though it seems to run up to that point in the background still. Alex
3.5-1340 Windows 7 AMD Phenom II X6 1100T @ 3.8 GHz ATI Radeon HD 6770 x2 First off use OpenGL, anything else doesn't work. Second scaled EFB has to be off. Set EFB to real and make sure you have it set to native x2 for quickest boot up. Problem game won Proceed past loading screen you accept the terms and system freezes any ideas? Zuch0698o
3.5-1484 Windows 7 Intel Core i3-3220 @ 3.3 GHz NVIDIA GeForce GT 640 The game works fine. I forgot to put in the fixes for black screens during videos, but that is not important to me anyway. I used OpenGL and made sure that I didn't set the system date. I got through the black screen by pressing pause, and was able to create the character I wanted, though there is some slowdown when selecting a class caused by a blur effect in the text describing them, but its very minor. In game, I was able to play a few offline quest and beat two Episode II bosses with no slowdown or glitches, well except for the Gol Dragon Fight when it creates a clone of itself. Using DSP LLE as well for sound. Yugix
3.5-1686 Windows 7 Intel Core 2 Quad Q9650 @ 3 GHz ATI Radeon HD 5700 Playable only with OpenGL. All versions of Direct3D malfunction at initial loading screen then freeze. Compatibility settings in main article (i.e. EFB Enabled/Real, Scaled EFB Copy Disabled, Internal Resolution 1x) work for me with OpenGL renderer. All other settings were left at default out-of-the-box values. Some letters missing (e.g. Japanese on the language menu appears as "apanese") but game playable.
4.0 Windows 10 Intel Core i7-4770 @ 3.4 GHz NVIDIA Quadro K1200 Worked well with DX9, launch game with DX11 wait for white screen over menu, close then start with DX9 and game will run with any settings or enhancements, i never did the black screen fix and did not notice any black screens. David R.
5.0-11701 Windows 10 Intel Xeon E3-1245 @ 3.3 GHz NVIDIA GTS 450 Settings: OpenGL, Asynchronous (Ubershaders), Per-Pixel Lightning, 2x native resolution. Other settings left to their default value.

I played about 70 hours in Normal difficulty, did all Episode 1 (including all quests) and Episode 2 up to Gal Gryphon. It works very well and the frame rate was stable at all time. The only issue I have is that some texts are missing a few letters. It's rare and it happens only in-game in the white dialog popups. I may have seen that before on my GameCube though, comparing with original hardware might be useful.

Nolendil

Gameplay Videos