SORRY
Some parts of the website are currently not accessable due to a few problems, I really apologize for that. I would try to fix those as soon as possible.
A sound recording feature has been added to the MSWindows plugin: if you activate that option in the spu config, an additional recording window will appear on spu startup. Using that window you can specify a WAV filename and start/stop the recording. The sound will get saved as a 44.1 khz 16 bit WAV stream, so you can use any media player for playback. But be aware that such files will grow quickly while the recording is active.
The biggest spu improvement is a good emulation of the psx reverb effects - based on the reverb notes of Neill Corlett. I've added a new reverb config option: now you can choose between "no reverb" (fastest, but boring), "simple reverb" (my old fake reverb mode) and "psx reverb" (the new mode, recommended).
I've also added an easy up/downsampling interpolation, to improve the sound quality. This will produce somewhat smoother sounds... it's not like a real sampling or low-pass filter, but on the other hand there should be no real speed impact as well.
linuzappz improved the linux ports further: he fixed the non-streched 2x modes for DGA2, added some more error messages, if the DGA2 init fails, and optimized all the Linux stretching funcs, for a little speed up.
All other changes were done by me (Pete), but before I explain them, I want to thank linuzappz for his never- ending support. He added improvements in nearly every release, I don't know how he finds the time beside his other emulation related projects
Ok, first a small bugfix: the main menu of Legend of Legaia is now displayed again (I screwed that somewhen in version 1.10 or 1.11).
For more changes and information you'll have to read the .txt file
Peops SPU
All changes were done by Pete: first a small crashing bug on plugin close has been fixed, when XA was enabled.
The internal reverb handling has been improved. It's a bit faster now, and even sounding better than before.
Spu IRQs are slightly better handled (see FF8 intro mdec), and also the frequency modulation and loop handling has been changed. Means better sound and compatibilty in some games.
Biggest change: the ADSR volume envelope is now done according to the timing notes of Neill Corlett (thanx to _Demo_ for the hint). Neill's ADSR timings are sample-based, which means a much better precision compared to my old millisecond- based ADSR functions. Result: very nice sound, but prolly also a bit slower (I haven't noticed any slowdowns on my Athlon XP 2000+ system, though)
Download section has been updated, you can grab the plugins from there.
I would like to apologize for such a late update, my papers caught most of my attention and time and kept me away from the PC, the plugin pack includes both the Peops and Petes Plugins released upto 12th of December,2002.
Pete Bernert and the Peops Team has released a new version of the todays most famous GPU, here are the listed changed.
linuzappz repaired the 2xSai modes for 15 bit color depths.
Pete added an improved frame skipping for slow systems. For full details check out the 1.68 version notes of Pete's hw/accel. gpu plugins, here's only a small summary:
* The 1.10 screen flickering with frame skipping will not happen anymore
* Still: frame skipping will cause missing graphics in some games
* For best results turn on skipping _and_ limitation. Try to reach a steady 50 (PAL) or 59.94 (NTSC) frame rate.
* For buggy motherboard chipsets: activate the new 'low- res fps timer' game fix.
I'v updated the download database with the new plugins, and yes a new plugins pack would be available tomorrow.
Fixed a small bug in the vram upload detection, this caused a strange flickering in ChronoCross with certain Offscreen Drawing modes.
Finally I was able to get Final Fatasy Tactics, to investigate the 'missing world map' issue, which was reported by some users. Well, that issue was no real one at all (you just need to set the correct framebuffer access/texture options to see that map), but the game showed me another small bug, which was in my plugins since ages: sometimes the 'fast palettized tex windows' option caused (wrong) transparent textures. Fixed. Ah, and no, it doesn't mean that now TNT2 or ATI cards can use that option, it simply means that a few text boxes in FFT are now drawn opaque, the way it should be.
And now the biggest chance: frame skipping. Ah, Lewpy's old skipping code hasn't been improved since I've added it in
gpuPeteTNT version 1.11 (released in May 1999!), so it was really about time, eh?
Well, good frame skipping is a bit tricky to do, the old method tried to measure the average psx frame rate, and skipped every second frame if the speed was too slow... yup, some speed up, but not very accurate. The new skipping will measure each drawn frame, and decide automatically how much skipping is needed to get the right speed... if you use it together with frame limitation (really recommended!), you will most likely get a correct speed in every situation: doesn't matter if you had 15 fps or 40 fps without skipping, or if speed was dropping only in certain situations, now you should always reach the magic 50 (PAL) or 59.94 (NTSC)framerate if you are enabling frame skipping + frame limitation together (well, there are some limits: if your system is only able to reach 1 or 2 fps without skipping, forget it).
Of course there are still some things to consider:
* Frame skipping will cause glitches/missing stuff in some games (depends how skipping-friendly the game has been coded). And most likely your favourite game will be one of them. That's life.
* Skipped frames make a game more 'jumpy', less smooth. You will not notice that very much if just a few frames have to get skipped, but the more, the uglier, of course.
* The plugin FPS display (at least in my or Lewpy's plugins) doesn't show the real PC gfx card frame rate, but the vsync count of the emulated psx gpu. Therefore:
* A big frame rate (higher than 50/59.94) doesn't mean a smoother display, it only means a too fast game play (and usually screwed sound). It's not like in a PC game, such games can draw additional frames, if your system is fast enough. In PSX emulation your goal should be a steady 50/59.94 frame rate, nothing more, nothing less.
* It's important that the main emu is generating the correct vsync timing. Otherwise the speed will be wrong. Luckily modern psx emus like ePSXe usually have the right timing, only in a few cases the 'PC fps calculation' special game fix will be needed (that fix is ignoring the main emu timing, but of course that will cause other issues most times).
* Some spu plugins are offering a framerate limitation as well (done with the SPUAsync interface, or by measuring the XA frequency). If you want to use the gpu frame skipping, you cannot use such external fps limitations at all.
Ah, and of course the golden rule: if you don't need frame skipping with your system and game, don't enable it!
Also related to the new frame skipping: some motherboard chipsets are having a bug with MSWindow's high performance counters (see also the version notes for version 1.52, 26. August 2001). While the plugin tries to correct that bug automatically if only the fps limitation is used, the correction cannot be done with the new skipping code. Therefore I've decided to add a new special game fix, called "low-res fps timer", which will fix that issue on that systems (by using a different, less perfect, way to calculate the times). So, if your system is having some weird timing behaviour, try the game fix, and check out if it helps.
The Plugins are available in the download section.
Peteplugins
is a support site for the Plugins Developed by Pete Bernert for
the playstation emulators. This website is best viewed at the resolution
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or above or some other compatible browser. All material in this
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