Meta: GS Hack Tracking Thread

[tadanokojin]

We have many hacks. Many have been lost to time and their function is unknown. Others can be patched using out patching system rather than relying on CRC hacks. This is a thread dedicated to researching/replacing/working around GSdx CRC hacks.

Testers: Please provide before and after images for anything you notice different between CRC hack levels. Patch authors: Please attempt to replace any applicable CRC hacks with patches.

5/27/2024 - current issues:

Manhunt 2 Channel effect. Gamma correction similar to GT4 but page-based.

• [ ] patch available
• [ ] fixed
• [ ] workaround

Big Mutha Truckers Skips an extra texture shuffle call

• [ ] patch available
• [x] fixed
• [ ] workaround

DBZ: BT3 Upscaling misalignment

• [ ] patch available
• [ ] fixed
• [ ] workaround

Death By Degrees Broken shuffle effect, broken upscaling, possible broken channel effect, last hack unknown see: https://forums.pcsx2.net/Thread-GSDX-Texture-Cache-Bug-Report-Death-By-Degrees-SLUS-20934-NTSC

• [ ] patch available
• [ ] fixed
• [x] workaround

Ghost in The Shell Channel effect

• [ ] patch available
• [x] fixed
• [ ] workaround

Sacred Blaze Unknown. Listed a "rendering glitches"

• [ ] patch available
• [ ] fixed
• [ ] workaround

Sakura Taisen/Sakura Wars Unknown.

• [ ] patch available
• [x] fixed
• [ ] workaround

Street Fighter EX3 Distortion/doubling

• [ ] patch available
• [ ] fixed
• [ ] workaround

Burnout Games Yellow stripes from channel effect.

• [ ] patch available
• [ ] fixed
• [ ] workaround

Midnight Club 3 Heavy vram usage

Tested: tokyo default cruise.
Move around a bit, stop car, wait as vram goes down, start moving again, vram spike.

• [ ] patch available
• [ ] fixed
• [ ] workaround

Tekken 5 Aggressive hack to remove ghosting/blur on stages Moonfit Wilderness and Acid Rain. Hack appears to remove a channel effect. Black lines on stage Burning Temple.

• [ ] patch available
• [ ] fixed
• [ ] workaround Black lines possibly sorted by Merge Sprite hack

Ultraman Fighting Evolution Aggressive hack for "blur"

• [ ] patch available
• [ ] fixed
• [ ] workaround

Tales of Symphonia "Animated black screen to speed up the battle" and "Afterimage"

• [ ] patch available
• [ ] fixed
• [ ] workaround

Simple 2000 Vol. 114 Aggressive hack to sort blur due to upscaling.

• [ ] patch available
• [x] fixed
• [ ] workaround

Stolen Channel effect.

• [ ] patch available
• [x] fixed
• [ ] workaround

Kunoichi/Nightshade Shadows/Blackscreen. Aggressive speedhack to remove blur effect. See #3988

• [ ] patch available
• [x] fixed
• [ ] workaround

Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams Aggressive hack. Mostly unknown. Fog related?

• [ ] patch available
• [x] fixed
• [ ] workaround

Sniper Elite Blur/ghosting even on native caused by channel effect.

• [ ] patch available
• [x] fixed
• [ ] workaround

Xenosaga "E3" Don't know if Xenosaga III or E3 Demo of Xenosaga I. Mostly unknown. Ghosting and post processing.

• [ ] patch available
• [x] fixed
• [ ] workaround

Sakura Taisen V/Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love Unknown. Hack says "removes darkness" and "floodlight".

• [ ] patch available
• [x] fixed
• [ ] workaround

Channel Shuffle Any games known to use channel shuffle can be patched to remove it as a speedhack.

------------------FIXED/PATCHED------------------------------------------

Star Ocean 3 Expensive emulated stencil. Hack no longer exists

• [ ] patch available
• [x] fixed
• [ ] workaround

Valkyrie Profile 2. Similar to Start Ocean 3. Hack no longer exists

• [ ] patch available
• [x] fixed
• [ ] workaround

Radiata Stories Similar to Star Ocean 3. Hack no longer exists

• [ ] patch available
• [x] fixed
• [ ] workaround

God Hand Unknown. Says "blur". Hack was purged

• [ ] patch available
• [X] fixed
• [ ] workaround

Urban Reign Broken shadow effect on rain see: #3375. Fixed by Tex in RT

• [ ] patch available
• [x] fixed
• [ ] workaround

God of War 2 Speed hack that removes shadows. Possible haze/upscaling issue. Upscaling issue on water.

• [ ] patch available
• [x] fixed
• [ ] workaround

Wild Arms Games Unknown. Appears to skip calls relating to to the color attachment PSM being Z32.

• [ ] patch available
• [X] fixed
• [ ] workaround

Crash: Wrath of the Cortex Channel effect

• [ ] patch available
• [x] fixed
• [ ] workaround

Shadow of Rome Depth related issue do to alpha extraction with 8H format. Grey wall. Last hack unknown.

• [ ] patch available
• [x] fixed
• [ ] workaround

Spartan Skips depth sampling. Channel effect.

• [ ] patch available
• [x] fixed
• [ ] workaround

Ikki Tousen/Battle Vixens Upscaling blur

• [ ] patch available
• [x] fixed
• [ ] workaround

Genji Listed as "blur" and "white fog". Additional DX only hack for shuffling, may not be needed. (TS, depth, blur)

• [ ] patch available
• [x] fixed
• [ ] workaround

Evangelion: Jo Aggressive hack to remove blur and ghosting

• [x] patch available
• [ ] fixed
• [ ] workaround

Onechanbara 2 Special Aggressive hack to remove upscaling issues

• [ ] patch available
• [x] fixed
• [ ] workaround

Time Splitters 2 Used to fix 4-player overlay in HW renderers. Hack removes some post procesing.

• [ ] patch available
• [x] fixed
• [ ] workaround

The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age Unknown. Appears to skip shadows.

• [ ] patch available
• [x] fixed
• [ ] workaround

Tomb Raider: Anniversary Garbage due to texture cache?

• [ ] patch available
• [x] fixed
• [ ] workaround

Bully Broken upscaling causing blur

• [ ] patch available
• [x] fixed
• [ ] workaround

Tomb Raider: Legend Similar to anniversary. Additional hack for black screen underwater.

• [ ] patch available
• [x] fixed
• [ ] workaround

Tales of Legendia Mostly unknown.

• [x] patch available
• [ ] fixed
• [ ] workaround

Zettai Zetsumei Toshi 2/Raw Danger Very expensive channel effect that is currently broken on hw rendering.

• [x] patch available

  patch=1,EE,0011e104,word,00000000
  patch=1,EE,0011e10c,word,00000000
  

  patch=1,EE,0011e0f4,word,00000000
  patch=1,EE,0011e0fc,word,00000000
  

  patch=1,EE,0011e094,word,00000000
  patch=1,EE,0011e09c,word,00000000
  

  see: https://forums.pcsx2.net/Thread-Post-your-PCSX2-cheats-patches-here?pid=611591#pid611591
• [ ] fixed
• [ ] workaround

Fighting Beauty Wulong Aggressive hack to remove blur. Listed as similar to Tekken 5.

• [x] patch available
• [ ] fixed
• [ ] workaround

Knights of The Temple 2 "Ghosting" and "Light source"

• [ ] patch available
• [x] fixed
• [ ] workaround

Skygunner Vram usage

• [ ] patch available
• [X] fixed
• [ ] workaround

Steambot Chronicles Same as raw danger

• [x] patch available

  patch=1,EE,0010fdd8,word,00000000
  patch=1,EE,0010fea4,word,00000000
  

  see https://forums.pcsx2.net/Thread-Post-your-PCSX2-cheats-patches-here?pid=608507#pid608507
• [ ] fixed
• [ ] workaround

Yakuza Games Aggressive hack for upscaling issues

• [ ] patch available
• [x] fixed
• [ ] workaround

Getaway Games "Fog wall"

• [ ] patch available
• [X] fixed
• [ ] workaround

Tenchu Games Fog wall related to blending?

• [x] patch available
• [ ] fixed
• [ ] workaround

Sly Cooper Games Upscaling issue due to channel effect.

• [ ] patch available
• [ ] fixed
• [x] workaround

Grandia 3 Blur

• [ ] patch available
• [x] fixed
• [ ] workaround

Ace Combat 4 Aggressive speedhack to remove clouds and blur from airplane.

• [ ] patch available
• [x] fixed
• [ ] workaround

Bleach Blade Battlers Aggressive speedhack to remove body shading.

• [ ] patch available
• [x] fixed
• [ ] workaround

God of War Aggressive speedhack to remove shadows. Remove blur.

• [ ] patch available
• [X] fixed
• [ ] workaround

SoTC Nop bloom. Can be removed.

• [ ] patch available
• [x] fixed
• [ ] workaround

FFX Games Unknown. Post processing?

• [ ] patch available
• [x] fixed
• [ ] workaround

Okami Unknown. Possible channel effect.

• [ ] patch available
• [X] fixed
• [ ] workaround

Red Dead Revolver Blur

• [x] patch available

  patch=1,EE,004c4b78,word,03e00008
  patch=1,EE,004c4b7c,word,00000000
  

  see: https://forums.pcsx2.net/Thread-Post-your-PCSX2-cheats-patches-here?pid=611544#pid611544
• [ ] fixed
• [ ] workaround

Extra stuff

Display Offset Hacks Undo the hack mentioned here https://github.com/PCSX2/pcsx2/pull/1433. Will need a custom version of GSdx without the hack. I'll put a PR up at a later date. Patch the games listed in the original PR and any games that pop up.

SMT Nocturne Recently removed aggressive hack.

• [x] patch available

  Shin Megami Tensei - Nocturne SLUS-20911 CRC E8FCF8EC
  patch=1,EE,202FC0E4,word,00000000 // 00000001 motion blur off
  //patch=1,EE,202FC0E8,word,00000000 // 00000001 radial blur off (not recommend, because it also affects color correction same as aggressive crc hack)
  

  see: https://forums.pcsx2.net/Thread-No-interlacing-codes?pid=611562#pid611562
• [ ] fixed
• [ ] workaround

SMT DDS Recently removed aggressive hack

• [x] patch available

  Shin Megami Tensei - Digital Devil Saga SLUS-20974 CRC D7273511
  patch=1,EE,2032E594,word,00000000// motion blur off
  

  see: https://forums.pcsx2.net/Thread-No-interlacing-codes?pid=611562#pid611562
• [ ] fixed
• [ ] workaround

SMT DDS2 Recently removed aggressive hack

• [x] patch available

Shin Megami Tensei - Digital Devil Saga 2 SLUS-21152 CRC D382C164
patch=1,EE,203899AC,word,00000000 // blur off 

see: https://forums.pcsx2.net/Thread-No-interlacing-codes?pid=611725#pid611725

• [ ] fixed
• [ ] workaround

[MrCK1]

Here is an example of on-screen garbage in Tomb Raider Underworld (and associated games in the series) - it's an old image, so this should still be checked by someone who owns the game or has a GSDump.

[MrCK1]

Around last year me and @lightningterror also tested Urban Reign a while back but had no luck triggering the CRC hack.

[MrCK1]

The CRC hack is no longer required for Timesplitters 2 and a patch isn't necessary. It was used for removing a 4-player overlay in HW renderers. The CRC meta issue mentions that OGL has been fixed (as of May 2019) but both GL and DX are fine on current master branch.

On master (July 2020), the hack behavior removes 2 things:

• A processing pass that slightly unblurs the image (DoF effect maybe?)
• Color filtering/scope blur when using the sniper rifle

Original bug (image)

Sniper scope: (Automatic CRC, master):

(None, master):

Environment: Automatic CRC, master)

(None, master):

[lightningterror]

Spartan, Crash are channel effect, Urban Reign skips bad draw (black rain, black stage) #3375 Tekken 5 is also half screen issue, one part of the hack. SOTC can be removed, HPO works perfect. VP2, Star Ocean you will need to add SW blending support to dx. Kunoichi/Nightshade some are needed which are broken depth effects.

[ghost]

I remember i made some patches for Steambot Chronicles, and Raw Danger! For Steambot i posted it on forum here, but some tests are probably needed. For Raw Danger! i didn't posted it yet (i will today), those are 100% tested on other platforms.

Added Raw Danger! patches on forum: link

[tadanokojin]

Thank you all. I updated with your information.

I'll note that for CS effects the patch is the superior solution as it can remove expensive code on the EE side of things. It's even good as a speedhack even after we fix it.

For the other stuff, I'd like to patch it if we can (of course we'll try to fix it too). Stuff that is really broken we can discuss gamedb solution for (I'd like to avoid it as much as possible) but I still want to track everything even if it gets patched.

Added note about Stolen.

[lightningterror]

For the other stuff, I'd like to patch it if we can (of course we'll try to fix it too). Stuff that is really broken we can discuss gamedb solution for (I'd like to avoid it as much as possible) but I still want to track everything even if it gets patched.

I'm against removing such crc hacks and replacing them with gamedb patches. You'll be affecting the sw renderer too. We fix the issues properly then we can remove the hacks like we always do.

[tadanokojin]

Appeal to tradition arguments are bad arguments. Maybe the gamedb or the patch system needs improvements.

Let's get SotC and Timesplitters removed since those two are low hanging fruit.

[tadanokojin]

In GSState there is a hack for handling invalid PSM in International Star Soccer https://github.com/PCSX2/pcsx2/blob/91326e1d93b9e1d06fe6e91346d2138cd3eaa92e/plugins/GSdx/GSState.cpp#L895-L902

This is undoubtedly a core issue as 0x3 PSM while paletted wouldn't work in place of PSMT8 as it features different swizzling. Here's an example of a PSMT8 texture:

Here is that same texture with the PSM set to 0x3:

Additionally, DobieStation manages to display the textures in question correctly for this game. This game has symbols and should be debugged to find the issue.

[i30817]

There is a patch to remove blur for digital devil saga 2 in the thread (doesn't work on cutscenes for some reason, maybe different camera object).

[tadanokojin]

@i30817 thank you, updated

[ghost]

https://forums.pcsx2.net/Thread-Fixing-unplayable-games?pid=614740#pid614740 This should work as Tales of Legendia CRC hack replacement according to patch description.

[felixthecat1970]

Evangelion - Jo (Japan) SLPS_259.32 CRC = 0xCBB87BF9 i think CRC hack now can be removed with this pnach https://forums.pcsx2.net/Thread-Fixing-unplayable-games?pid=619142#pid619142

[felixthecat1970]

Fighting Beauty Wulong (Kakutou Bijin Wulong (Japan) SLPS_256.57;1) Game CRC = 0x4A4B623A) another game i think crc hack can be removed https://forums.pcsx2.net/Thread-Fixing-unplayable-games?pid=619179#pid619179

[felixthecat1970]

Ikki Tousen - Shining Dragon (Japan) SLPS_257.98;1) Game CRC = 0x9E98B8AE another game can be retired from crc hack and be reemplaced by this pnach https://forums.pcsx2.net/Thread-Fixing-unplayable-games?pid=619441#pid619441

[tadanokojin]

@felixthecat1970 @kozarovv thanks for your hard work. I'll get these hacks purged when the merge is done in the meantime feel free to keep looking into more of them. Thanks a million!

[felixthecat1970]

Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams (Usa/Japan) editions not require CRC Hack Level, upscaling missaligment can be addressed with half-pixel offset>"Special texture" (still missaligmen upperscreen but no so notable), about post effect metioned "fog" or better "dirt" in this game is intense because first levels are designed to look like "western town" disabling post effects code look too pale but i make some codes for partial disable BLUR -DOF making image more clearer, IMAGE with "tweaked" post-effects

IMAGE with no post-effects

for codes thread https://forums.pcsx2.net/Thread-No-interlacing-codes?pid=619401#pid619401 keeping in mind effect like "blur" has a impact in GS disabling reduce game load from 98% to 64% also for DOF in some scenarios (ryzen 3400g with integrated vega 11 gpu HW mode 3x default options) apart the game still has the bug about IPU corrupted images (reduced corruption by kozarov lastest workaround in forums)

[ghost]

Hack replacement for one of Tenchu games: https://forums.pcsx2.net/Thread-Post-your-PCSX2-cheats-patches-here?pid=619981#pid619981 . Probably other one use the same engine, so should be easy to port when needed.

[RedDevilus]

https://github.com/PCSX2/pcsx2/issues/4309#issuecomment-976040356

FFX CRC Hack 'fixes' the transition effect from world map to random encounter battle.

[marcoluc97]

See https://github.com/PCSX2/pcsx2/pull/5593 for the first PR. We still need to track all of these or something is changed? There are many games updated in these weeks about GS involved.

[dio-gh]

Crash: Wrath of the Cortex Channel effect

Partially fixed / worked around by #5990, through the utilization of Frame Buffer Conversion and Preload Frame Data. To the extent I can tell, these features delegate work back to the CPU, so in a sense they could be considered as not a real fix.

Still an issue on DX backends.

The given hack also helps upscaling. Without it, the fog on the first level is striped and generally broken on all backends still.