Overlord II [BLUS30317]

Tested in: RPCS3 0.0.36-17967-1ff6bdd7 Alpha (Note: This was the latest version when I started playing and for consistency I decided against updating while I played for a consistent report.)

Processor: 12th Gen Intel Core i7-12700K  3.60 GHz ; 12 Cores / 20 Threads
RAM: 64 GiB DDR4 of which 63.77 GiB RAM is usable
GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti on driver 576.52.0.0 (latest version at time of test)
OS: Windows 10 Pro Version: 22H2 Build: 19045.5371 (Ameliorated)
Firmware: 4.92
LLVM version: 19.1.7
Gamepad used: 8BitDo Ultimate 2C Wireless Controller for Windows PC and Android, with 1000 Hz Polling Rate, Hall Effect Joysticks and Triggers, and Remappable L4/R4 Bumpers

I used a USA retail disc that I personally dumped on a PS3 Phat which was copied into the RPCS3/Games directory.

Note: Although GPU supports Vulkan, I have an issue where if RPCS3 crashes then I get the error "Vulkan device enumeration timed out" on subsequent launches until I reboot so not completely sure if Vulkan was actually in use during play for the first 2 log files though I believe it was disabled. This wasn't an issue for the third log file and after though since I rebooted the computer between the 2nd and 3rd log and as such Vulkan was certainly in use there.

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List of Issues:


1.) Multiplayer does not work. Cannot connect to server. My global settings are connected to RPCN and I previously played a game online so this is unrelated to my system.

2.) Saving and loading does work, but "saved states" does not work. Attempting to create a save state while the game is paused results in the following error:

"
E SYS: Failed to savestate: failed to lock SPU threads execution.
E SYS: Enabling SPU Savestates-Compatible Mode in Advanced tab may fix this.
"

While attempting to create a saved state while the game is not paused results in a near crash which the game recovers from (see screenshot). Pausing and resuming emulation does work though.

3.) During normal gameplay I noticed numerous little errors and TODO messages that did not seem to affect gameplay overall.

4.) After running the game for 7 hours and 14 minutes the game and RPC3 together abruptly closed. No error message, no alert sound. They just closed. I saved the log right afterwards and made a few notes and was able to load back up without much progress lost. It didn't crash at the same point after getting back into it so I am pretty sure it was related to how long I was playing. No other crashes were observed.

5.)  Starting with the 3rd log file I noticed minor graphical glitches. These began on the way to Everlight - specifically on the islands where the keystones are located. Initially I believed that this was specific to these locations, but when I later went back to Nordberg I noticed the same glitches when the camera was positioned such that a tree was in front of the camera specifically in the area at the top of the elevator. Since I didn't observe these glitches in Nordberg before (despite moving the camera allot in those areas without issues) I am inclined to believe that it's related to Vulkan since it was apparently not on for the first log files, but was on for the third. This was the only difference. I'd have tested this idea by turning off vulkan, but I don't know how to do that on a whim and didn't get the "Vulkan device enumeration timed out" error again before completing the game. (the error only seems to occur for me after the client crashes and only stops happening after a system reboot and I can't really induce a crash.)

Found the error later in a few particular parts of Everlight town so pretty rare. Also encountered it on the main road on the way to emperor city right near where the Gargantuan is (while possessing a minion) and in that case it happens without any trees around so was very jarring. Happens consistantly with the camera behind the last specific sentinal tower (regardless of which direction you are facing, as long as you are in front of it and the camera behind it) that you have to have the Gargantuan charge into which absolutely affects gameplay because you have to get it to charge at it more than once to get the Dark Crystal drop for upgrades. Even if you try to have it ram into nearby stuff (which is what I eventually did) panning the camera in front of the tower causes it too. Then when on the main road after happens so much it feels like walking blind though it's worse when going the wrong way. Then when trying to tear down the mansion it happened allot too. And one part of the mansion (around the fountain) was so bad I had to pause emulation just to see where I am. Really though, this map is so headache inducing I had to repeatedly pause.


Actually getting proof of these glitches was a challenge. They look like a bunch of randomly changing triangles which do affect gameplay by obstructing views. This occurs without any error in the Logs. When pressing F12 for a screenshot while the glitches are present the resulting screenshot shows no graphical glitches. Additionally, when pausing emulation the graphical glitches disappear. I don't understand why this is, but given that I couldn't get it with a screenshot the only way I could capture the image was by taking a picture of my monitor which I am attaching. Given that this error looks the same no matter where it appears, and the difficulty in capturing, I didn't bother getting more than 2.

If the glitched view was just rare and intermittent I'd have put this in the category of fully playable, but it got worse. I encountered it in a few particular parts of Everlight town which wasn't so bad, but while doing the quest "Find a way into Empire City" the glitches got so much worse. At first it only showed up around the towers while trying to fight the gargantuan, but the glitched view got more consistant on the road (though more in one direction than another) and then when I got to the mansion the glitch got so bad I eventually couldn't find a camera angle where it didn't show up. This directly prevents me from finishing the game because I can't see well enough to find the Sedan chair which is required to proceed in the story.

Since I think this problem is related to Vulkan, if anyone can tell me how to disable Vulkan (or at least how to induce the timeout on purpose) I can test the area again to see if that fixes it. I'd like to test to see if disabling vulkan makes those defects go away so this can be considered playable.

I am including my last save file which I saved right after encountering the worst of the glitches. If you are able to load them in dev_hdd0/home/00000001/savedata you should be able to right to the areas that caused me the most issues.

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EDIT:

In my previous test everything was working fine on default GPU settings, but with a Vulkan Timeout error. Given this I wanted to try to find a way to recreate that error, but in the GPU settings the renderer was already set to OpenGL which I find strange. So it worked fine while set to OpenGL, with a VUlkan Timeout error? I tried to artificially induce the crash that caused the timeout issue before, but I could not do so on the current version, so I resumed my test by changing the renderer from OpenGL to Vulkan. I noticed that when I did so "Asynchronous Texture Streaming" was turned off so I turned it back on so that I was testing just one change at a time.

I then booted the game with that custom configuration and the problems I was having went away again at least in the area I had to stop at before due to not being able to see anymore. I'm continuing my test and will report back if anything else breaks, but for right now at least it seems that the game is playable provided one of the following it true:

1.) Use OpenGL while "Vulkan device enumeration timed out" error occurs; OR
2.) Use Vulkan with "Asynchronous Texture Streaming" turned on.