Star Wars Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike

From Dolphin Emulator Wiki
Revision as of 20:37, 12 December 2016 by Sam3 (talk | contribs) (→‎Configuration: remove config options that were automatically set by game.ini file)
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Star Wars Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike
Rogue Squadron III front.jpg
Developer(s) Factor 5
Publisher(s) LucasArts
Series Star Wars, Rogue Squadron
Platform(s) GameCube
Release date(s) JP November 21, 2003
NA October 15, 2003
EU November 7, 2003
Genre(s) Action, Arcade flight simulation
Mode(s) Single-player, Multiplayer (2), Co-op (2)
Input methods GameCube Controller, Game Boy Advance
Compatibility 4Stars4.pngEdit rating: Star Wars Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike
Playable
GameIDs
See also...

Dolphin Forum thread
Open Issues
Search Google
Search Wikipedia

Star Wars Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike is a Star Wars video game developed by Factor 5 and published by LucasArts exclusively for the Nintendo GameCube. Rebel Strike was developed as a sequel to Star Wars: Rogue Squadron and Star Wars Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader.

In addition to the arcade flight gameplay of the previous games, it added the ability for the player to leave their starfighter to participate in ground battles as well as to enter and pilot other vehicles during certain missions. The game also adds multiplayer; both a versus mode and a co-op mode that allows two players to play all but two of the missions from Rogue Leader together. Rebel Strike features the ability to use the Game Boy Advance screen and controls to issue orders privately in versus mode, via the Nintendo GameCube–Game Boy Advance link cable.

Rebel Strike uses the same base engine as Rogue Leader, but with even more advanced effects and hacks, including atmospheric weather, more enemies on screen at once, etc. The game has proven even more difficult to emulate than its predecessor.

Emulation Information

Shader Compilation Stuttering

Star Wars Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike is one of the most susceptible titles to shader compilation stuttering. The GC and Wii have no concept of shaders - everything is executed directly by the hardware without an intermediate programming language (API). Modern computers and mobile 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 directly. Shaders have to be generated though, 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 a few demanding titles, the shaders that they generate are so large that they can result in noticeable stuttering, in severe cases pauses of over a second may occur.

Since 5.0-4869, this problem can be solved by enabling ubershaders. Changing GPU, updating GPU drivers, or updating Dolphin may invalidate the shader cache, requiring specialized shaders to be compiled again. Since 5.0-6461, Dolphin caches shader pipeline UIDs independently of the video backend and compiles them on game start. This allows cached shaders to work across different video backends, platforms, hardware configurations and even Dolphin versions as long as changes aren't made to Dolphin's actual shader pipeline. These shaders are compiled in the background when the game starts, which may cause stuttering for a short period. Enable Compile Shaders Before Starting to avoid this.

Force 4:3 Not Respected

Using Aspect Ratio: Force 4:3 will not maintain 4:3 output on 16:9 displays with this title. It will swap to a near 16:9 display during it's intro animations. This does not distort the graphics in any way; but rather is zooming in because Dolphin is detecting parts of the screen not in use.

Missing/Broken Fades

Unlike Rogue Squadron II, Rogue Squadron III requires XFB set to REAL in order to properly display fade outs between menus. Otherwise, significant corruption that doesn't affect gameplay will pop up.

Problems

Transparent Objects Layering

Some transparent objects, such as rocket thrusters, are not layered correctly appearing on top of objects that should obscure them. Refer issue 8859.

Missing Transitions

There should be fades between various scenes that are missing in current emulation. This is noticeable in the intro of the initial stage "Revenge of the Empire" when transitioning from the Death Star explosion to the ship flyby, where edges of video effects that should be hidden by a fade out remain visible. Refer issue 8881.

Distorted Audio

Audio is garbled and distorted with DSP-HLE. Use DSP-LLE to rectify this.

Configuration

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

Version Compatibility

The graph below charts the compatibility with Star Wars Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike since Dolphin's 2.0 release, listing revisions only where a compatibility change occurred.

Δ
5.0-21264 (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
4.0-1843 Windows 7 Intel Core i5-3350P NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 Ti Hangs at splash screen. Viremaster
4.0-3976 Windows 7 Intel Core i7-4770 AMD R9 280X DCII Get ingame and fly with the targetcomputer to see enemies, because dolphin cannot handle the zfreeze buffer; RealXFB doesn't improve it; The Jump and Gun part of Rebel Strike is rendered correctly. Sound is limited by emulationspeed around 75 percent(very slowly). Tested only on NTSC-Version ToniStereo
4.0-5394 Windows 8.1 Intel Core i7-4790K AMD R9 290x Using settings of LLE audio on thread, EFB to Texture, skip EFB to CPU, and emulate format changes on the Open GL Backend. After caching I can maintain 95-100% speed. Because EFB to Texture is being used targeting computer doesn't work and some other graphical glitches occur. IceStrike256
4.0-8684 Windows 10 Intel Core i7-4790K @ 4.9GHz NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980ti Using default setting and LLE audio on D3D backend. outside of the graphical glitches on transition screens everything is perfect. Game is now full speed after caching and plays like I remember it being on console. MUST HAVE A STRONG CPU!! IceStrike256
5.0-9 Windows 10 x64 Intel Core i5-3570k @ 4.5GHz NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Game is running extremely well on DX11, x3 internal resolution, no AA/AF, LLE audio on, both Singleplayer & Multiplayer. After some more caching the game should play at 100% speed. Turnspit

Gameplay Videos