Star Wars Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike Limited Edition Preview Disc

Star Wars Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike Limited Edition Preview Disc
Developer(s)	Factor 5
Publisher(s)	LucasArts
Series	Star Wars, Rogue Squadron
Platform(s)	GameCube
Release date(s)	NA October 28, 2003
Genre(s)	Demo
Mode(s)	Single-player, Multiplayer (2)
Input methods	GameCube Controller, Game Boy Advance
Compatibility	4 Playable
GameIDs	DLSE64, DLSP64 , GSWE64, RELSAB
See also...	Dolphin Forum thread Open Issues Search Google Search Wikipedia

Star Wars Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike Limited Edition Preview Disc is a rare demo disc for Star Wars Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike. It contains a demo of LucasArts' Rebel Strike game, a trailer for Rebel Strike and Gladius, and the complete, emulated 1982 Star Wars arcade game.

Emulation Information

Shader Compilation Stuttering

Star Wars Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike Limited Edition Preview Disc 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.

Problems

GameINI Detects Incorrectly

In the Dolphin front-end, the Rebel Strike preview disc will be detected as the full game and display the wrong name. It also automatically changes settings required for Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike which may not be optimal for this preview disc.

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 Limited Edition Preview Disc since Dolphin's 2.0 release, listing revisions only where a compatibility change occurred.

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5.0-20613 (current)

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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
4.0-4416	Ubuntu 14.04	Intel Core i3-3220 @ 3.3 GHz	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650	Dolphin incorrectly detects the preview disc as the standalone game and applies gameini settings. The menus all work but can slow down to around 80%. The playable Hoth stage from Rebel Strike did not work, after choosing the stage the emulator displayed pink and green garbage and then crashed entirely. The playable Star Wars arcade game is inconsistent: first try it was at 90-100% and then freezed during play, the second try it was at 50% and I was able to complete it. All movies/trailers work perfectly with zero issues.	Xerxes