Final Fantasy 9 - No sound EPSXE

[Del_Boy]

Been playing this game for a while, now on Disc 2 - and had no problems until now.

Using Epsxe 1.52 (tried 1.60 too just to check), Petes OpenGL 1.7, and Eternal SPU set to SPU Async/Smooth and FF fix turned on.

Today I decided to start playing it again and loaded in a save state - upon loading in a state or a memcard save, the sound fails to start (no error messages are shown in the console window that is open behind Epsxe).

The only sound plugin that actually plays sound now is PE.Op.S Dsound audio driver 1.9.

Sound works fine with all plugins until I load in a save. The top 3 options in the sound config are all checked. Running the FF9 Pal .iso patched with the correct .ppf file.

Any suggestions as to what could be wrong here?

Computer specs: P4 2ghz, SB live, Radeon 8500, WinXp - no hardware or driver changes since this last worked, checked for spyware/viruses too.

[Borman]

Have you tried saving the game using the savepoints then loading via that? It could be the savestate messing it up?

[Das98]

What version of Eternal SPU are you using? Versions above 1.41 are known to have problems.

[Del_Boy]

I didn't even know there was a version about 1.41, d'oh So I'm using 1.41, so sadly it isn't that I guess.

At the moment the sound is perfect with the other driver mentioned above, but I'm erring towards this being corrupted save states (5 of them in fact). Loading from a previous Memcard seems to work, albeit I am a little bit further away from the spot I was than I would like.

[Das98]

The newer Eternal SPU plugins past 1.41 are all betas I believe.

So your saying your last memcard save was corrupt, but one before it worked fine? You still might want to try loading a save state and making a memcard save at the nearest save point, then restarting ePSXe and loading the memcard save. That might get your sound back with your latest save.

[Del_Boy]

I'm going to give that a try now Das98, I'll report back. If it doesn't work, then I'll just have to think about starting from the last proper save that works, and moderating my save states in future or I may just Shift delete the whole thing!

/edit

Das, you are a genius Loaded in a save state without sound, went outside and called a Kupo, saved, quit and reloaded. Sound came back - did 1 save state, and now that save state works perfectly.

You saved me having to delete the whole thing, as the last place I saved was in one of those annoying places where you have to fight a million and one annoying little enemies to pass. I would have lost the will to live :p

[Das98]

Just glad I could help.

[pkt-zer0]

Savestates not loading back music is due to the sound emulation, or simply the SPU state not being saved. Since it's a long, streaming sound, you'll only get it back when the music changes (sometimes). It also helps to exit to the GUI and then get back to the game in some cases.

[Borman]

Thats what I was getting at

Have you tried saving the game using the savepoints then loading via that?

Thats alrigth, glad everything is sorted

[aratorn]

Not only in FF9, but also in many other games when using quicksave and quickload the sound fails to start, or starts some noise only. I dont think it's something with plugins it is rather epsxe problem itself...

[Del_Boy]

Yeah, same things happen with N64 emulation at times - 1964 in particular.

[Das98]

Happens to me sometimes in just about every emulator I've ever used. Even rarely in ZSNES. Same thing I suggested earlier works for me just about every time with various emulators when encountering a similar problem.

[aratorn]

Happens with me all the time in epsxe,very rarely in project64. Never encountered this problem in any other emulator...

[SegNin]

Happened to me with Star Ocean T+Eng by DeJap and SNES9x, although that may have happened because of a bug in the game, and not because of the emulator.

[Das98]

Yeah, that's a known bug with Star Ocean that even happens on the original cartridge. The music just dies, then sometimes the game crashes.