Make PSOBB Pretty and Run Smoothly

FriendPie

FriendPie

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Hey everyone! I wanted to make a guide on how I get PSOBB running on my GPDWIN2 using dgVoodoo2, Power Settings in Windows, and Ephinea’s client settings. If you’re seeing a lot of slow down, having high CPU/GPU temperatures or not familiar with some of these settings, I hope this helps you out.

I want to quickly mention dgVoodoo2. I’m sure many of you know about it, but for those who don’t, dgVoodoo allows you games to run games using older graphics APIs that Windows no longer uses. I’ve seen better performance in PSOBB and other games (FFXI in particular) that are made to run on older hardware.

If you’d like to try out dgVoodoo go to the developers site and download the latest stable version (2.63.2 at the time this guide was written).


Installation is simple:
  • Open the Ephinea folder.
  • Use whatever program you use to extract .ZIP files and extract dgVoodoo.
  • Move the dgVoodoo.cpl file into Ephinea’s root folder. Right click the .cpl file, Go to properties, compatibility tab, and check the “run as administrator” check box. Click okay.
  • Open the dgvoodoo “MS” folder, then x86 folder and move the contents into Ephinea’s root folder.
  • Open the orange dgvoodoo.cpl file. The program should be open.
  • The top of the window has a “path bar” and to the right of it there are some buttons. Click on the ./ button so dgVoodoo knows where to apply its settings.
  • For now, click on the DirectX tab and check the “dgvoodoo watermark” checkbox.
  • Run ephinea as normal and if you see the watermark on the bottom right, you’re all set! You can disable the watermark now that it is confirmed working.

Settings of importance for dgVoodoo:

General Tab:
  • API - Set to “Best API Available”
  • GPU - Select your dedicated GPU over integrated GPU if possible. If unsure, select “use all.
Glide tab is not important for PSOBB


DirectX Tab:
  • Make sure “Disable passthrough to real DirectX” remains unchecked. If checked, it disables dgVoodoo.
  • Videocard: I’ve found using ATI Radeon 8500 gives me the best performance with VRAM at 256mb. dgVoodoo’s 3D card also worked well for me too (VRAM maxed)
  • Texturing: This makes textures at a distance look better. Uses more resources so play with it to see what works best for your PC.
  • Antialiasing: Resource heavy, but smooths edges around models. Similar to the texturing setting, play with it and see what works best for your PC.
  • “Fast Memory Access” on the bottom has helped with frame drops on my device

If I left out a setting, it didn’t have much impact on my game or made it run poorly. You can always mess around and see if it impacts your hardware.


Power Settings:

I’ve found PSOBB is CPU inefficient. Before doing the steps below, one or two of my cores will be running at 100% and my computer gets hot and fan starts blowing like a hurricane.
  • Press Windows button and search for “Power.” Open Power Control Settings.
  • To the right of the window, there should be an option for “Advanced Power Setting.” Click it.
  • To the right of this window, there should be an option to “Create new power plan.” Click it.
  • Select a High Performance Plan, and create it. Find your new plan and select “Change Plan Settings” to the right. Click on “Change advanced power settings” on the next page.
  • Scroll down and open up the “Processor Power Management.” Change your Maximum Professor State to anything from 90-99%. 97% works well for me, any higher and my CPU overheats. You can fiddle with this to find what % works best for you.
You can change this power plan to your default plan once you’re done playing PSOBB. I’ve made icons on my desktop to quickly change plans using this guide.


Ephinea/PSOBB Settings:

  • Classic Fullscreen: I use this on my GPDWIN2. It’s not a powerful computer so disabling this is a big performance hit for me. The cost is that the game is played in a lower resolution. If you’re having a lot of issues with performance changing to classic fullscreen or just lowering your output resolution should help. Note that Classic Fullscreen breaks the game during character creation (has something to do with the video). Disable classic full screen when creating a character - make sure you close the video pop up and hit ESC afternoon to make your character.
  • Clicking on “More” from Ephinea’s settings bring you additional game options. I’ve found that enabling “Wait V-Sync” and disabling “Auto Frame Skipping” makes my game run better.
  • Make sure “Advanced effect” is off. I don’t see any real noticeable improvements with this enabled and it destroys my FPS.
  • I play with medium shadows since all it does is increase resolution of shadows and is an overall performance hit for me.
  • I play with Pixel Fog since it is the only one I’ve attributed to graphical improvements at a unnoticeable performance cost. You can see the effect in Forest 1 - distant terrain has a misty effect which I think looks nice.
  • Clip Distance is experimental and gives me problems with targeting. I leave it at default but you can play around with it. Note that it’ll give your PC more objects to render so it can be a performance hit.

And that's about it! I hope this helps some of you. If you have anything else you’d like to add or any questions let me know!
 
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Any possibility of a video showing performance? I'm very interested.

I've used my Nintendo Switch modded, but since it's shitty ARM all I can do is use Parsec to play PSO from my PC and it's a crummy method. I've contemplated getting one of these for a couple years now..how much is one these days?

Also, have you tried setting PSO as high cpu performance in task manager to see how it improves?
 
nadia said:
Any possibility of a video showing performance? I'm very interested.

I've used my Nintendo Switch modded, but since it's shitty ARM all I can do is use Parsec to play PSO from my PC and it's a crummy method. I've contemplated getting one of these for a couple years now..how much is one these days?

Also, have you tried setting PSO as high cpu performance in task manager to see how it improves?
Click to expand...

sorry for the late reply, took a little break from this game.

I bought my GPDWin on Amazon, about $800 at the time. It’s definitely a luxury device but it’ll cover any game from my childhood that I want to play - so for me it was worth the price.

I don’t think I could record the differences on my gpdwin but maybe can on my Desktop. You’d be able to see what DGVoodoo2 does for old games like PSOBB. If you’re still interested I’ll record before and after.

I’m not familiar with modded Switches. Even if you were able to run Windows on it, I feel like it’ll be poorly optimized and not a great experience even with my suggestions.
 
(sorry 4 bump) I have some separate experiences to share with this!
  • dgVoodoo2 versions 2_75 and 2_75_1 will in DX11 mode corrupt all text into unreadable giant white boxes. DX12 mode is fine but Anti-Aliasing doesn't work with it on my Radeon card. So if you need DX11 mode (e.g. for certain versions of ReShade) I'd stick to dgVoodoo2_74_1 for the moment.

  • DGV2 + ReShade on beefy machines: I strongly recommend using DGV2's 3D card w/ maxed VRAM and enabling "Fast Memory Access" as mentioned by @FriendPie . Fast Memory Access seems to dramatically improve performance when ReShade or similar is in use.

  • DGV2 is an excellent alternative to Crosire's d3d8to9 and will enable overlays such as Steam Overlay / Steam Input, Radeon Adrenaline, GeForce Experience, Overwolf, Xbox Game Bar, etc. to function, if you need one.

  • DGV2 has a very cool side effect: It stops PSOBB from crashing when your monitors go to sleep, you CTRL-ALT-DEL, lock your PC, or change screen resolution. The "Direct3D device has been lost" message is stopped from occurring. However, Classic Fullscreen mode can still crash on an Alt-Tab.
Questions for OP:
@FriendPie - What did you mean when you said VSync made things better? And what exactly happened to Targeting with maxed clip distance?
 
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@ZabaZu Until/unless a Mod weighs in on that, I will update my Steam Input setup-guide to crossreference both your threads. Both threads are excellent for different purposes: Yours is better as a "quick setup guide" (complete with prefabricated settings), whereas FriendPie's here dives deeper into manual setup and other optimizations such as Power Options and PSOBB's settings. I think they both have good merits.
 
Xira said:
(sorry 4 bump) I have some separate experiences to share with this!
  • dgVoodoo2 versions 2_75 and 2_75_1 will in DX11 mode corrupt all text into unreadable giant white boxes. DX12 mode is fine but Anti-Aliasing doesn't work with it on my Radeon card. So if you need DX11 mode (e.g. for certain versions of ReShade) I'd stick to dgVoodoo2_74_1 for the moment.

  • DGV2 + ReShade on beefy machines: I strongly recommend using DGV2's 3D card w/ maxed VRAM and enabling "Fast Memory Access" as mentioned by @FriendPie . Fast Memory Access seems to dramatically improve performance when ReShade or similar is in use.

  • DGV2 is an excellent alternative to Crosire's d3d8to9 and will enable overlays such as Steam Overlay / Steam Input, Radeon Adrenaline, GeForce Experience, Overwolf, Xbox Game Bar, etc. to function, if you need one.

  • DGV2 has a very cool side effect: It stops PSOBB from crashing when your monitors go to sleep, you CTRL-ALT-DEL, lock your PC, or change screen resolution. The "Direct3D device has been lost" message is stopped from occurring. However, Classic Fullscreen mode can still crash on an Alt-Tab.
Questions for OP:
@FriendPie - What did you mean when you said VSync made things better? And what exactly happened to Targeting with maxed clip distance?
Click to expand...
Late reply - but to answer your questions from what I remember and anecdotally:

VSync felt smoother as in fewer frame drops in certain areas in the game. Forest 2 has some spots that really slow down my device and enabling VSync made it feel less severe and choppy. It’s a setting anyone can toggle on and off to see how it impacts the game on their device.

I remember the target reticle going to boxes way across the map (doesn’t extend your attacks - just a visual thing) with max clip distance. I didn’t like that and I’m not too annoyed by object pop-in with the default high clip distance. It’s another thing users can play with to see how much it impacts performance and if they notice the targeting side effect.
 
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