Online PvP guides for playing AC on PCSX2 and PPSSPP

[NiX]

I made a guide some time ago for playing Last Raven portable multiplayer through PPSSPP emulation.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Nlpj...qt1b4/edit

See the link for now. I may format it for here eventually.

Getting to connect has been a bit unreliable so far, but Leperman and I have gotten to play a few rounds using the socom.cc server. Slight input lag for the second player though.

[comrade_vlad]

Nice guide, I wouldn't mind giving this a try.

[NiX]

Got this pack from the kind folks over at the Armored Core Discord server:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/16KwhBo4...yLJvr/view

The pack contains the PCSX2 emulator, ACLR and ACNB and complete save files.

Unpack the file and follow the included readme.

Once you've followed all the steps and installed Radmin, you can join the "Raven Republic" room. PM me for the password. There's now also "Raven Republic 2" in case there are too many playing in the first room.

We've tried a few rounds and it worked great even with 4 players assuming players are relatively close geographically.

EDIT: Careful about updating the build. Some of them keep crashing.

[Crimson Fury]

Got this pack from the kind folks over at the Armored Core Discord server:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1l-wo5Qr...sp=sharing

The pack contains the PCSX2 emulator, ACLR and ACNB and complete save files.

Unpack the file and follow the included readme.

Once you've followed all the steps and installed Radmin, you can join the "Raven Republic" room. PM me for the password.

We've tried a few rounds and it worked great even with 4 players assuming players are relatively close geographically.

Awesome, got it set up. PMing you.

[Grim]

Awesome, got it set up. PMing you.

Hey CF, just an FYI, many of the guys are in the Philippines so you're going to experience a lot of slowdown/bullet time in games with them. I'm currently the only one in the US (California), so let me know when you're on and we can get some games in.

[NiX]

Our discord for easier matchmaking: https://discord.gg/WuZaw2nfQX

[TMRaven]

Thanks for the link to that particular emulator and the guide. I played several matches against Nomrah on ACU, and it seems serviceable. At best it's fluid play but a constant ~100ms input delay. At worst it can get real sluggish and drop tons of frames. IIRC Kai using actual PS2s had less input delay and no slowdown issues, though it would randomly freeze at times.

This is a good way to play the PS2 games against one another if you don't have the actual hardware. What I can't figure out is how come the software rendering and native resolution option on this particular emulator is very blocky looking. It forces you to use upscaled resolution. On my other PCSX2 I just use native PS2 resolution, keep it weaved, and deinterlace using QTGMC in post.

[NiX]

Yeah I was able to catch a bit of the live stream. First time I'm using PCSX2 actually so I'm not familiar either. Maybe the difference is that this is the nightly build? And I think I saw a button in the settings that's supposed to reduce input lag in exchange for higher CPU demand.

edit:



Haven't tried though.

[comrade_vlad]

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1l-wo5Qr...sp=sharing

The pack contains the PCSX2 emulator, ACLR and ACNB and complete save files.

Needed to do a bit of troubleshooting only to realize it doesn't work with Win7. Oh well, have fun guys. I'll give it another go when I get a new machine for ACVI.

[TMRaven]

I have found a workaround to the game rendering a widescreen fov even while in 4:3 and unchecking 'enable widescreen patches.' This would result in lockboxes that look stubby, and the camera being a bit further behind your AC than usual.

If you manually drag the pnach files out of their cheats folders, the game renders properly. This also solves the issue I found where if you let the game render its native resolution from software instead of hardware, you would get blocky graphics. Now it renders properly, and you can set deinterlacing to weave top field, and the game looks great. This means you can render the game natively and use high quality deinterlacers in post if you ever want to upload footage.

Also thanks for the tip on the lowered input lag Nix! I tried that and it seemed to play marginally better. There' still some noticeable input lag, but honestly it's nothing bad and nothing too outside the realm of what kai had. Probably only a couple frames of lag.

Edit: I've settled on settings that I like. After dragging all the pnach files out and allowing the game to render properly while in 4:3, I change texture filtering to nearest neighbor to get nice and sharp ui and gets rid of some of the graphics glitches. Then I check manual hardware renderer fixes, and it allows the text to render without distortion.

Bad:


Good:

[Grim]

Edit: I've settled on settings that I like. After dragging all the pnach files out and allowing the game to render properly while in 4:3, I change texture filtering to nearest neighbor to get nice and sharp ui and gets rid of some of the graphics glitches. Then I check manual hardware renderer fixes, and it allows the text to render without distortion.

To be clear, you're using hardware rendering in your screenshots, right? They look too high-res to be software rendering at the PS2's native resolution.

I've often heard that software rendering is for accuracy, and hardware is for quality, but in 2023 I think hardware is good/fast enough that you can upscale without introducing lag and other unwanted factors.

Also, unchecking the "Enable Cheats" checkbox under Settings > Emulation will disable the application from reading the PNACH files, no moving required. Helpful for those who may have a larger library of PS2 hacks/cheats.

[TMRaven]

To be clear, you're using hardware rendering in your screenshots, right? They look too high-res to be software rendering at the PS2's native resolution.

I've often heard that software rendering is for accuracy, and hardware is for quality, but in 2023 I think hardware is good/fast enough that you can upscale without introducing lag and other unwanted factors.

Also, unchecking the "Enable Cheats" checkbox under Settings > Emulation will disable the application from reading the PNACH files, no moving required. Helpful for those who may have a larger library of PS2 hacks/cheats.

Oh damn guess I never saw the enable cheats option lol.  Correct I'm running hardware emulation now.  Up until now I've been unhpapy with the graphical glitches and weird UI that hardware emulation gave, but doing the nearest neighbor texture filtering with and checking the manual hardware fixes box helps greatly.  Instead of the blurry and weird looking font and random lines on the overlay, you get nice crisp graphics.  The only downside is that gradiants on backgrounds are a little blocky but to me that's far less of a distraciton.

[NiX]

Gdrive link has been updated to the newer version shared by val.