NHL Faceoff 2001 seizes up when loading a game on ePSXe and pSX

[scoobydude512]

every time I play NHL Faceoff 2001, it seizes up after you choose a team on ePSXe 1.9.0 and pSX 1.13. on ePSXe, there is no menu music and stops loading prematurely on the team matchup loading screen. on pSX, the menu has music, but it doesn't even start loading on the same screen.


is this game broken or not yet working for these emulators?

[Zaladane]

Can you post your video settings? You can choose to copy to clipboard and then just paste it here (for epsxe)

[scoobydude512]

Plugin: Pete's OpenGL Driver 1.1.76
Author: Pete Bernert
Card vendor: Intel
GFX card: Intel(R) HD Graphics 4000

Resolution/Color:
- 640x480 Window mode
[32 Bit]- Keep psx aspect ratio: off

Textures:
- R4G4B4A4
- Filtering: 0
- Hi-Res textures: 0
- VRam size: 0 MBytes

Framerate:
- FPS limitation: off
- Frame skipping: off
- FPS limit: Auto

Compatibility:
- Offscreen drawing: 0
- Framebuffer texture: 0
- Framebuffer access: 0
- Alpha multipass: on
- Mask bit: on
- Advanced blending: on

Misc:
- Scanlines: off
- Line mode: off
- Unfiltered FB: off
- 15 bit FB: off
- Dithering: off
- Screen smoothing: off
- Screen cushion: off
- Game fixes: off [00000000]

[Zaladane]

Ok first off choose your vram size don't leave it on auto and select the highest which I believe should be 128 which is perfectly fine.


Secondly set your compatibilty section to:


- Offscreen drawing: 2
- Framebuffer texture: 3
- Framebuffer access: 2
- Alpha multipass: on
- Mask bit: off
- Advanced blending: off

Boot her up and give it a go!

[scoobydude512]

it looks like that didn't work. it still stops loading halfway at the loading screen.


I don't believe it is a video problem.

[Zaladane]

Try with the D3D plugin sometimes integrated Intel chips don't like opengl (you could try updating your drivers btw for your gpu) with those settings



Alternatively you could also test with the software plugin. The game doesn't look huge either so I'm downloading right now and will give it a twirl myself as I have an older Intel integrated GPU so hopefully our setup would be similar/compatible. Should be done downloading in about 20-25 minutes.

Edit: stick with the SPU core for audio too! And forgot to ask which version of epsxe you are using - the latest is 1.9 Did you grab the game from here?

[scoobydude512]

tried both options. same result.

[Zaladane]

Yeah I'm testing right now. No luck either so far.

I've tried running from the cue file both from the image and having the game mounted plus a whole bunch of graphics settings and such.

I'll keep going with it

All the menus are fine and everything but hangs about 2/3 of the way of the loading screen.


Edit: Funny enough I disabled audio and the game wouldn't even load so it may be an audio issue strangely enough. So I'm going to check that out.

Edit 2: Just for the hell of it I tried NHL Faceoff 2000 and that seemed to run perfectly fine. Dunno how different the games are but maybe you could roll with that? I haven't had much luck with 2001.

[Zorlon]

I got it running first time

PEOpS Soft GPU (You can use what you want I just find it easier to use the most compatible GPU)
ePSXe Core SPU
ePSXe CDR WNT/W2K Core

As far as I can tell all the annoying music and sounds are there

I only let it play to in-game as I only have X and start setup for controls (so that was Quick Play as I don't have a D-Pad setup either)

EDIT:....

Opps tested the wrong game.... I tested NFL 2001 not NFL FaceOff 2001

I will get that version as well and take a very quick look

Try the above anyway though that usually gets most games working fine, I would also stick to PEOpS Soft GPU to start with, to get games working them move back onto OpenGL or D3D after you know it works ok with the Soft GPU this just helps you solve any issues that are not with the GPU

Downloading the correct game now NFL FaceOff 2001 [NTSC-U] [SCUS-94577]

I checked the CRC of this one after I unecm'd it and it verifies with the info over at redump.org so I presume there is no errors in the file

On to testing... brb

Fixed sound but still froze on loading before a quick game could start

P.S. this game does have Anti Mod Chip protection :/ this may be the cause of it stopping on the loading bit just before the G of LOADING

On real hardware it will get as far as that showing the menu's ect but on selecting anything it goes to the error screen, for emulating it seems to get just as far but instead of the error screen we get it frozen on the Loading screen

I also tested Import Player Lite (this has some anti mod protection and anti Action Replay protection work around) this failed
I even tested using Action Replay codes to try and bypass the anti mod chip protection this also failed
This is one of the few games that was never cracked either so no patch file for it

EDIT:

So much for the very quick look

XEBRA can run this game though, but you do need a good system to run that emu smoothly and not the easiest of emulators to setup and use, but it does run this game.

[scoobydude512]

so, what you are saying this game is broken for ePSXe and pSX?

[gladiator (psx datacenter)]

THe game doesn't work in epsxe in any of the versions and no matter what plugin you use

[Zorlon]

Yeah the copy protection used in the game stops the game from working

Use XEBRA for this that is a very accurate emulator and the only one I could get the game working in

http://drhell.web.fc2.com/ps1/ Thats the official page Xebra the downloads are the screen grabs at the very bottom of the page.


To use Xebra extract it to it's own folder can be the ePSXe folder if you wish

copy the bios to the same folder as Xebra and rename it to OSROM [this does not have a file extention so make sure it does not have .bin on the end]


Running a CD Image
Start XEBRA.EXE
File>Open CD-ROM Image. (select the disc image)
tap F5 on your keyboard

Setup the Emulator
Start XEBRA
View> this has all the options you need, including controller



Hello gladiator.

[Zaladane]

Ita NHL not NFL dunno if you just made a typo.

Like I said though faceoff 2000 runs perfectly fine too.

[scoobydude512]

thanks Zorlon, I think I'll do that later. it is just one game in the series that doesn't work. if I really need to install that program, I will. but right now I don't think I'll do it at the moment.

[Zorlon]

Ita NHL not NFL dunno if you just made a typo.

Like I said though faceoff 2000 runs perfectly fine too.

Just a typo there is no NFL Faceoff

NHL Faceoff 2001 is the only one with anti mod chip protection, actually there are very very few games in general that have that kind of protection

Breath Of Fire 4*
Cool Boarders 2001
Crash Bash*
Dino Crisis
Emperor's New Groove
Grind Session
Legend of Dragoon
MediEvil 2
Mo-Ho Lost World
NBA Shootout 2001 US/NTSC
NCAA Gamebreaker 2001
NCCA Final 4 2001
NFL Gameday 2001
NHL Faceoff 2001
Resident Evil: Nemesis*
Resident Evil: Survivor
Spyro 3 - Year Of The Dragon
Strider 2
The Grinch
Tomba 2
Toy Story 2*
Vandal Hearts 2
Wild Arms 2

*It would appear that there are certain versions available that are not protected.

Most of those still play in ePSXe though but not all protection is bypassed in ePSXe