Beetle PSX HW - Broken Sprites in (Capcom) games

Libretro Cores
#1

Heyho everyone

The PSX HW core is a thing of beauty, especially with 3D games. But i noticed some quirks and i just wanted to ask what might cause them.

So far, i noticed these issues in the MegaMan(X) games. Certain sprites are completely messed up, broken or create artifacts (interestingly enough, character sprites only do that while facing right). Games like, say, Legend of Mana, which was notorious for its broken and torn apart background on earlier emulators have no issue what so ever.

And no, its not a resolution thing either. It does this no matter what internal resolution is used. So yeah, im mostly curious. Did Capcom use some shenanigans that makes it harder to emulate certain sprites ?

http://imgur.com/msi5hIv

http://imgur.com/CifOVca

#2

I believe that just has to do with the way the hardware renderer handles the edges of sprites (that is, not great). You can see similar things in Metal Slug.

#3

Speaking of games with issues, looks like the core has some… “issues” with its framebuffer as well :smiley: http://imgur.com/jmeI3cf

Vagrant Story has issues whenever it uses “slow down” effects or on the map screen. Its a shame really, since otherwise, this core is a godsend, especially with its PGXP settings.

#4

Can you test this with the Vulkan renderer?

Vulkan renderer is more feature complete compared to the OpenGL one. I know that mask bit emulation in GL is a total stub so far whereas it’s completely implemented in Vulkan.

And no, people haven’t been able to backport that to GL. It’s complicated.

#5

@Twinaphex That was the Vulkan renderer ! That said, it was the BeetlePSX HW Core from the Retroarch 1.6.4 version, not sure about the core version from the top of my head. Sometimes, i really wish Retroarch would be able to search for updates to itself or to its cores automatically :smiley:

I updated to 1.6.7., pulled all cores via the online updater again after i found out that i missed out on releases again and both the broken sprites and the broken framebuffer seem to be fixed.

The only issue that seems to persist is Gran Turismo 2s frame pacer (correct internal FPS, reports 50/60 external FPS, but looks like half of that) and flickering HUD.