Broken Sword performance and a couple of other questions

sfaok · Post by **sfaok** » Sun Nov 13, 2005 10:48 pm

Not bought my PSP yet but been doing alot of research on the homebrew stuff (ScummVM and the other emu's have pushed me over the edge), and just have a few questions.

From reading the forum I get the impression that the older stuff runs well and at full speed whereas CoMI tends to chug a bit. First question, how well does the PSP cope with the Broken Sword games ? And secondly, noticed that a few emu's have the PSP CPU cranked upto 333mhz; is this what scummvm is running at ?, and if not, would it give CoMI a substanial enough boost to be playable ?

Thanks for answering and thanks for porting something which me actually want a PSP

not exactly bowled over with the games out there for it at the mo.

joostp · Post by **joostp** » Sun Nov 13, 2005 11:06 pm

ScummVM runs at the default clockspeed (222mhz), running CoMI at 333mhz helps a bit, but there are some tweaks in the engine needed to make it run without any slowdown (which occurs mostly when scrolling).

Broken Sword 1 & 2 should run at full-speed at 222mhz, except perhaps for the reencoded cutscenes.

sfaok · Post by **sfaok** » Sat Nov 19, 2005 8:25 pm

Well got my PSP, so finally got to test out scummvm, even when slightly strecthed in full screen mode all the games look great on the PSP. You're right about Broken Sword though , runs quite nicely bar the re-encoded FMV's, which only show a frame every couple of seconds. Though I did only play it briefly.

Is there any way to re-encode the FMV's with a less CPU intensive codec ? Or do you think the code can be optimized to run the FMV's smoothly on a later build ?

I had the PSP running on standard speed (222mhz), I don't think scummvm has the option for 333mhz and I don't know of any apps specifically for changing speed. Still new to the whole PSP homebrew thing

funetik · Post by **funetik** » Sun Nov 20, 2005 11:47 pm

Not too sure about other apps to change the clockspeed, but you can't on firmware 2.0 . Personally, if I could, I wouldn't. Nobody knows the full risks of using all the cpu's power, could set on fire and leave you with a melted lump of plastic. I remember a post here, saying that optimisation is the key, using 333MHz ,instead of 222, wouldn't make that much difference. It just needs cleaned up and it should be ok is what I gathered. Another thing is that there's a little bit more focus on the user-mode dev just now, a la firmware 2.0. Since there's no way of playing with kernel mode, then we're stuck on 222MHz, but this might change.

Just looked at UPS' tracker and mine is in Koeln just now, tomorrow, finally, hopefully it should be here

joostp · Post by **joostp** » Mon Nov 21, 2005 12:46 am

funetik wrote:Nobody knows the full risks of using all the cpu's power, could set on fire and leave you with a melted lump of plastic.

Don't be dramatic. People have been running at 333mhz without any problems for months, there's no risk involved.
The only thing it will do is drain the battery faster.

funetik · Post by **funetik** » Mon Nov 21, 2005 3:53 am

lol, ok. Maybe i'm being a touch dramatic, but the need isn't there for running at 333MHz. That's all i'm trying to say. I'm assuming, since he's only got his psp recently, it's got 2.00 firmware too, which makes it impossible to use the full 333MHz just now anyway, without a downgrade (which is undeniably risky).

sfaok · Post by **sfaok** » Mon Nov 21, 2005 12:15 pm

From what I've read the PSP is seemingly under-clocked to 222mhz to conserve battery life; all that 333mhz seems to do is drain the battery alot quicker. From playing some of the emulators on 333 for a couple of hours I didn't notice it melting in my hands, not yet at least

Its actually a 1.50 PSP I've got, imported from HK, didn't want to take the chance of buying a 2.01 and also the fact that they only seem to be selling them in expensive bundles in the UK at the mo. Though, when I buy GTA I guess I'll be forced to upgrade. Most emu's seem to work on 2.00 anyhow.

Just a couple of observations about ScummVM on the PSP. I've noticed that when watching cut-scenes the screen will darken slightly when you haven't pressed a button, moving the analogue will brighten the display again. Not sure if this is to do with a setting on the PSP or a quirk of the port. If its to do with the PSP then probably would be better disabling it or having an option to disable it.

The older games I've tried so far run very smoothly apart from the 2 Simon games (talkie editions specifically), which lag very slightly. However, disabling the music gets it back to full speed.

So far, finished Day of the Tenatacle without any issues, someone mentioned a possible bug with the chattering teeth in another thread, but no such issues for me. I've had these games in a box in the attic forever, its great to be able to beat them again after all these years and have a go at the ones I couldn't beat as well (No handy FAQ's on the net when these where first out

). Not to mention that they all look fantastic on the PSP. Really enjoying this PSP port.

joostp · Post by **joostp** » Mon Nov 21, 2005 12:53 pm

sfaok wrote:Just a couple of observations about ScummVM on the PSP. I've noticed that when watching cut-scenes the screen will darken slightly when you haven't pressed a button, moving the analogue will brighten the display again. Not sure if this is to do with a setting on the PSP or a quirk of the port. If its to do with the PSP then probably would be better disabling it or having an option to disable it.

You can disable this in the System Preferences of your PSP.

sfaok · Post by **sfaok** » Mon Nov 21, 2005 5:06 pm

Thanks for the tip though it didn't seem to work. Turned off all the relevant settings but I still get the screen dimming if I don't touch anything, kicks in about 30 seconds to a minute. Its as if you're turning the brightness down one level.

On a different note, found a bug in Beneath a Steel Sky (talkie version off the dowload page), nothing serious mind you as its easily avoided. However, if you goto the options screen and highlight volume or speed to drag it up, if you push the analogue stick up quickly and keep hold of it, the PSP will crash to a blue screen. Only a hard reset of the PSP will get it working again. I guess I was a little over zealous with the analogue pad.

Not sure if its a general scummvm bug or specific to this port.

joostp · Post by **joostp** » Mon Nov 21, 2005 6:12 pm

sfaok wrote:Thanks for the tip though it didn't seem to work. Turned off all the relevant settings but I still get the screen dimming if I don't touch anything, kicks in about 30 seconds to a minute. Its as if you're turning the brightness down one level.

Works for me. Maybe consult your PSP manual?

sfaok wrote:On a different note, found a bug in Beneath a Steel Sky (talkie version off the dowload page), nothing serious mind you as its easily avoided. However, if you goto the options screen and highlight volume or speed to drag it up, if you push the analogue stick up quickly and keep hold of it, the PSP will crash to a blue screen. Only a hard reset of the PSP will get it working again. I guess I was a little over zealous with the analogue pad.

Not sure if its a general scummvm bug or specific to this port.

This seems to be a general ScummVM bug (and is now fixed in CVS).

sfaok · Post by **sfaok** » Mon Nov 21, 2005 11:28 pm

I actually left the backlight auto-off setting on 10 minutes, but the manual states it darkens the screen after 1 minute (guess reading the manual does help after all

) Switched it off completely and problem now solved. Thanks for your help, I guess I'm still trying to get to grips with my PSP.

aliencowthatmoos · Post by **aliencowthatmoos** » Thu Nov 24, 2005 3:17 pm

I tried playing Broken Sword 1 on my PSP with Scumm 0.8.0, but there seem to be a few wierd things going on. First of all the video is a slideshow, like the previous poster mentioned. Also the mouse click seems off; you need to click 20 or more pixels below an object to select it. Finally, if I bring up the save/options menu at any time then the colors get all screwy and won't change back.

Has anyone else had these problems or is it just a setting I need to change?

Spoonroom · Post by **Spoonroom** » Tue Dec 06, 2005 10:39 am

Anyone found a way to fix the video playback yet? I really want to start playing this, but not if the video's doesn't play correctly.

Splashi · Post by **Splashi** » Fri Dec 30, 2005 6:39 pm

Is it possible to get the ogg and the mp2 together in one file?
Would it speed it up?

Post by **sev** » Fri Dec 30, 2005 9:57 pm

Splashi wrote:Is it possible to get the ogg and the mp2 together in one file?
Would it speed it up?

Imagine this. You have 2 complex and independent expressions to calculate, each one, say, in 3 steps. Will it ease claculation if you will mix those stages, i.e. instead of calucalting A A A B B B you do A B A B A B. No, amount of computations will be exactly the same. So no performance gain will be here. Only one different thing is that you will have only 1 file to open, nothing else.

Eugene