Metal Gear Solid 4 Game freezes and light effect issue

[wahahasunk]

Quick summary

Turn on the "write color buffers" function, pressing the pause button during the game will cause the game to freeze。

Details

Sorry, I used Google Translate to report the bug. Metal Gear Solid 4 runs smoothly on my PC, but there is a high chance that it will freeze and cause "VM: Access violation" error when pressing the menu button in the game. I found that it is likely to be the "write color buffers" problem. But if this function is disabled, the light and shadow effects will become abnormal, and some scenes will be very bright. I enabled PATCH for this game. I don’t know if I describe the problem clearly. If you still need me to do anything, please let me know. Thank you very much!

1. Please attach RPCS3's log.

RPCS3.log.gz

2. Please attach screenshots of your problem.

1.write color buffers OFF 2.write color buffers ON 3.Error information 4.The patch I am using

3. Please provide your system configuration:

• OS: Win10 LTSC 1809 17763.2090
• CPU: 5900X
• GPU: 1080ti

[Xcedf]

I was palying MGS4 recently with WCB, is it Snake and Rat patrol squad vs Frogs battle on screens? If so, I also had VM access violations there, the mission is possible to pass through but only without pressing start button. WCB is for sure required in MGS4, but if this issue happens with WCB only perhaps it's a regression, try to play some other RPCS3 versions.

[Megamouse]

We don't allow issues with active patches. Disable the patch and confirm that it still happens.

[Xcedf]

Seems to be WCB issue after all, I able to trigger access violations here in this place on screen, when two companions models are missing, but still works fine with WCB Off.

[wahahasunk]

We don't allow issues with active patches. Disable the patch and confirm that it still happens.

I disabled the patch, the game still crashes, even before I plan to press the menu button. But it looks like the error has changed. After disabling WCB, the fps increased. When tested in the same way, the game was normal, at least it seemed like this, but the stage in the screenshot was still a bit overexposed. crash1.gz crash2.gz

[wahahasunk]

I was palying MGS4 recently with WCB, is it Snake and Rat patrol squad vs Frogs battle on screens? If so, I also had VM access violations there, the mission is possible to pass through but only without pressing start button. WCB is for sure required in MGS4, but if this issue happens with WCB only perhaps it's a regression, try to play some other RPCS3 versions.

Exactly. I also encountered the problem you mentioned. I tried almost every combination of settings, and the problem still exists. I also tried a lot of custom builds. As long as WCB is turned on, the game will definitely crash.

[wahahasunk]

regression

[wahahasunk]

I was palying MGS4 recently with WCB, is it Snake and Rat patrol squad vs Frogs battle on screens? If so, I also had VM access violations there, the mission is possible to pass through but only without pressing start button. WCB is for sure required in MGS4, but if this issue happens with WCB only perhaps it's a regression, try to play some other RPCS3 versions.

And you are quite right about regression. I just tried this custom build, these two characters didn't vanish. https://github.com/cipherxof/rpcs3/releases main build:

custom build by cipherxof:

[Xcedf]

@wahahasunk Nice find! Will try to find where those two went missing, and VM access violation is certainly WCB.

[wahahasunk]

@Xcedf Thank you, You guys are doing great. found that without WCB and patch, the game still has a small chance of crashing caused by "VM: access violation......" error.

[kd-11]

This issue needs some clarification:

1. You mean opening the in-game pause menu, or using the rpcs3 pause button causes the crash?
2. There are some screenshots of 'crashes' without access violation. Ignore the red text, it is not a crash unless you see purple text. What happened in those screenshots? Comment link: https://github.com/RPCS3/rpcs3/issues/10684#issuecomment-894923765
3. As Xcedf mentioned, we will need to find the triggering build for the regression. Custom builds will often have math hacks that can hide serious problems.
4. As for WCB itself, it is more accurate to PS3 behavior and in theory should be always enabled, but it will slow games down so we allow users to turn it off for performance reasons. The exposure problems with it turned off are therefore totally expected.

[wahahasunk]

1. In-game pause menu, by press "start" button during the game.
2. When patch disabled, errors become more diverse. If I enable patch, usually I only encounter access violation.
3. Very much agree with No. 4, and this is why I have to enable it even if I often experience game crashes. Apologize again for my bad english.

[wahahasunk]

Here, it crashed just now, when I press "start" button, you can see that the game menu is about to pop up. Without patch, WCB is ON. Access violation.log.gz

[Xcedf]

Elad's Spurs patch is totally needed to debug this, cause normal builds go 24fps freeze at the level beginning, will take some time.... Tried my old custom build (11743), two companions are missing, but WCB seems to work fine, no crashes so far.

[wahahasunk]

https://github.com/RPCS3/rpcs3/issues/10265#issue-882744904

[Xcedf]

Not sure that this freeze is WCB anymore, even older builds may freeze even with WCB Off, while being unable to freeze on recent, but #10265 is correct. Yet one issue may lead to another, on one of my old builds I have BGM cutoff always and it eventually leads to Access violation all the time, this issue may also be some SPU audio processing fail.

[wahahasunk]

I think it is indeed related to WCB. Disable WCB, enable PATCH, I played for a long time，and I can press start button anytime I want without crashing.

[Xcedf]

@wahahasunk even if it's actually WCB, this issue exists even on very old builds, quite hard to verify if aregression or not, but applied fix for FNMS inst from #10265 to Illusion mgs build, those two are no longer missing, you can try if you want https://mega.nz/file/eNJnxIzS#rh8jC9xITY4YoQTEdWP810kfXZ6ULAuyCa71bhatqFk

[wahahasunk]

@wahahasunk even if it's actually WCB, this issue exists even on very old builds, quite hard to verify if aregression or not, but applied fix for FNMS inst from #10265 to Illusion mgs build, those two are no longer missing, you can try if you want https://mega.nz/file/eNJnxIzS#rh8jC9xITY4YoQTEdWP810kfXZ6ULAuyCa71bhatqFk

If you shoot these two people before they disappear and let the game not continue according to the original action script, they e will not disappear, including the cutscenes that follow, which I stumbled upon last night.

[Xcedf]

@wahahasunk Hi, if you still have this problem of crashing with WCB On, can you please also try to enable both Write Color Buffers and Write Depth Buffers and see if it still crashes.

[personaone]

Anyone encountering this hang? it's the PSN PKG version: just hangs after this.

[wahahasunk]

@wahahasunk Hi, if you still have this problem of crashing with WCB On, can you please also try to enable both Write Color Buffers and Write Depth Buffers and see if it still crashes.

I tried it, same as before, the game still freezes, the emulator doesn't crash. And now those two game characters will still be invisible.

[wahahasunk]

Issue still not resolved on v0.0.20-13317-6b8b23c4 Alpha RPCS3.log.gz

[digant73]

probably still an issue, but please provide an update on what has been fixed, changed etc.

[DerpyTurtle3]

probably still an issue, but please provide an update on what has been fixed, changed etc.

I was able to pause the game before, during and after the battle with the frogs with WCB enabled.