Puppeteer [BCES00935] incorrect lighting & render

[Parotaku]

The game goes ingame correctly but the render is incorrect and the screen is often black (see included image comparison for map/act selection) or missing rendered objects... Same results with both Vulkan & OpenGL

RPCS3 v0.0.7-8677-53e7f6c5 Alpha | HEAD | Firmware version: 4.83 Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-5820K CPU @ 3.30GHz | 12 Threads | 15.90 GiB RAM | TSC: 3.30GHz | AVX+ Nvidia RTX 2070 Super

Incorrect render on rpcs3:

Internet screenshot from real PS3:

RPCS3.log.zip

More infos : https://forums.rpcs3.net/thread-177684-post-306458.html#pid306458

[Parotaku]

I don't know which recent commit is responsable, but there's some progress with the broken rendering... Far from perfect but it's... less dark... RPCS3 v0.0.7-9203-c3862b74 Alpha | HEAD | Firmware version: 4.83 Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-5820K CPU @ 3.30GHz | 12 Threads | 15.90 GiB RAM | TSC: 3.30GHz | AVX+ RPCS3.log.gz

[Parotaku]

Rendering has improved a lot with 10518. The characters are now clearly visible and a lot more of the world is shown... The broken motion blur is fixed too! Some effects like fog or bloom are still broken but it's a great improvement!

EDIT: don't know why exactly, but it seems to be fixed ONLY with vulkan renderer...

[Asinin3]

I just tested, OpenGL is still dark, even with WCB and other settings. Vulkan seems okay with default settings. But i never tested it against real HW.

[Parotaku]

It's better but some effects are still missing or incorrectly rendered (shadows, etc)... For instance, on the first intro on real hardware, there are some foggy clouds on the foreground which are completely missing for the moment on rpcs3: look at 1m20 here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slYdCfWVtno

[kd-11]

This ticket needs an update and new RSX captures.

[Parotaku]

Sorry, not much to report... Vulkan, with or without Multithreaded RSX, still has broken (spiky) shadows and missing some effects like the purple fog/smoke on the intro... (there's some tiny purple haze appearing briefly on the right of the screen but nothing like on real PS3) OpenGL rendering is still mostly pitch black... kd-11, if you need something specific just tell me...

[RainbowCookie32]

He needs new RSX captures

[Parotaku]

Sorry, don't know how to capture this... I thought that meant screenshots with Multithreaded RSX enabled...

[RainbowCookie32]

Boot the game, get to a point where the issue is on screen, then go to Utilities on RPCS3's main window and click Create RSX Capture.

The capture will be saved to the captures folder on RPCS3's directory, you can then compress it and then upload it here.

[Parotaku]

Thanks for the help, RainbowCookie32. Here it is... BCES00935_20210809221450_capture.zip

[Parotaku]

On a more positive note, the shadowy tadpoles under the water in the swamp level are now displaying correctly... it looks very nice!

[digitaldude555]

#10823 retest with this pr. @Parotaku

[sampletext32]

Please refer to this article, if you don't know how to test a PR.

[Xcedf]

Tried demo, no difference with https://github.com/RPCS3/rpcs3/pull/10823, but the issue itself perhaps was already fixed the game itself is pretty dark, see here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSR5XCKrAas&t=256s The only issue I noticed for now is missing purple smoke/mist on Vulkan, aside form that colors are fine to me

[Parotaku]

No change on my side either with the full game... As @Xcedf already said, the purple smoke/mist is still missing, and many projeted shadows are still blocky/spicky (see the capture I've done of the castle from the intro on my previous post... the shadows on the floor are supposed to be smooth, not blocky... same with the plateforms' shadows in the swamp level...) Colors are OK indeed...

[Parotaku]

With recent builds, some flickering lighting errors have started appearing in cutscenes & ingame... (the purple band on top of the screen in my capture) EDIT: It's supposed to be the searchlights, following the characters movements...

[Parotaku]

Here's an RSX capture of it on screen: https://www.dropbox.com/s/po7sdipuvosdj7t/BCES00935_20220423085720_capture.zip

[Jonathan44062]

Not sure if this issue is related or not, but, there's an small issue, let me show an comparison PS3

RPCS3

Those sheets of paper that are floating to teleport you to another area, are not rendered correctly.

RSX Capture: https://www.mediafire.com/file/nr2w1m2bzjkz6ho/BCJS30078_20220503184055_capture.rrc/file

RPCS3.log.gz

[Linear524]

With recent builds, some flickering lighting errors have started appearing in cutscenes & ingame... (the purple band on top of the screen in my capture) EDIT: It's supposed to be the searchlights, following the characters movements...

Parotaku, you need to use WCB+RCB+WDB+RDB and if needed - also activate Force CPU blit. This will help to render some deep layers FX, but not all unfortunately..

[Linear524]

Pupeteer is a truly brilliant game and unique title in terms of used technologies in rendering. Right now RPCS3 is almost reached the correct image rendering state, but some functions are still broken or unimplemented... Here I'm made some overall issues compilation for this title:

1. • Broken light shader or color clipping: Something similar was some time ago in GoW Ascension flame pots issue, and KD-11 fixed those shaders.
2. • Broken geometry wave effect: Looks like broken vertex shader or broken geometry animation.
3. • Missing dynamic particles volumetric fog: Puppeteer uses high quality dynamic particles fog, and RPCS3 currently doesn't have this function implemented yet. I bet some SPU/PPU instructions are missing...
4. • Dynamic shadows are pixelated/broken shadow filtering:
5. • Particle rendering are missing.
   • Candles are not receiving light (subsurface scattering lighting missing ? or just light shader).
   • MLAA are not working.

[Linear524]

I think KD-11 very close to fixing all this remaining issues, and once it will be done - a lot of other titles will have benefits too. (Like TLoU, Uncharted 2,3, e.t.c.) PS3 RSX:

[ThiagoAnd]

Is there a fix for the hidden gem (the one that we need to reach to jump to next screen)

[Jonathan44062]

Sadly no, just waiting for more improves in the emulator

[TryingToLove]

Sadly no, just waiting for more improves in the emulator

Does the hidden gem issue prevent you from finishing the game? Would love to start this on my Steam Deck but don’t want to bother if I can’t complete.

[Jonathan44062]

I completed the game in the past, the only problem is some visual effects are not rendered correctly (Like R&C A Crack in Time did), are invisible, like those sheets of paper that are floating to teleport you to another area for example, is hard to see where they are, it's like playing puppeteer in hard mode

[TryingToLove]

I completed the game in the past, the only problem is some visual effects are not rendered correctly (Like R&C A Crack in Time did), are invisible, like those sheets of paper that are floating to teleport you to another area for example, is hard to see where they are, it's like playing puppeteer in hard mode

Ok thanks. Are there any settings adjustments you recommend? Should I just use the latest default RPCS3 settings or are there any things I absolutely must change? The Wiki doesn’t really recommend any changes.

[Jonathan44062]

It works with default settings, no need for special configuration

[TryingToLove]

It works with default settings, no need for special configuration

Sounds good…thanks.

[ThiagoAnd]

Any news on these issues? About the hidem Gem maybe?

[Jonathan44062]

Updating status, the papers that were not visible before, are now rendered correctly