Shenmue 1 & 2 Possible Mod/Fix for frame pacing issues on PC Version?.

Joined
Feb 21, 2019
Location
Cumbria, United Kingdom
Hello, I am not sure if this is the right thread to post this in and if so I'm sorry but would it be possible to have some sort of fix/mod to make the frame pacing in-game correct?. I am sure Special K used to fix this issue but it does not seem to work anymore most likely because of a patch to the game at some point which broke it. Also if you have no idea what I am talking about then please take a look at the video below as it goes into depth of what the frame pacing problem is on the PC version of Shenmue 1 & 2.

Shenmue I & II's Shameful PC Port
 
The frame pacing is attached to the engine itself and locked to 30fps. Funnily enough we were talking about this the other day and changing the FPS would screw up the timing in the cutscenes among other things.

The PC version isn't that bad at all, not when you compare it to the originals on DC, which suffered from massive slowdown. I've never noticed anything horrendous at all on PC or PS4 for the frame pacing.

That video is a bit OTT in my view. I never had any massive issues in my first play of the games on PS4 before a bunch of patches came out. That said the audio was a mess, some still is, and I know many people had issues with crashes etc so the experience was sorta random in that respect. The best way to play is on PC with the mods already out there IMO.

I digress, @LemonHaze will be able to go into more detail.
 
Hello, I am not sure if this is the right thread to post this in and if so I'm sorry but would it be possible to have some sort of fix/mod to make the frame pacing in-game correct?. I am sure Special K used to fix this issue but it does not seem to work anymore most likely because of a patch to the game at some point which broke it. Also if you have no idea what I am talking about then please take a look at the video below as it goes into depth of what the frame pacing problem is on the PC version of Shenmue 1 & 2.

Shenmue I & II's Shameful PC Port

This is honestly kind of a multi-part, multi-layered question and as such requires an answer in a similar fashion.

One of the very first few things I have noticed immediately, however, is the misuse of (terrible) third-party software which attempts to 'fix' some issues, including 'framepacing'. I'm mainly talking about SpecialK but this also applies to RivaTuner, namely RivaTuner Statistics Server (RTSS).

I would strongly urge everyone who thinks they are affected by this issue(s) to: remove RivaTuner/forcefully disable any drawing overlay, remove SpecialK entirely and ensure you're running patch v1.07 (latest). With that out of the way, you should also look over your display settings both for your OS and the game itself. Then you can proceed to capturing raw footage straight from the game. Just a few seconds of Ryo walking would be fine. Once those have been performed^ and we can determine whether or not this is a valid issue, we can proceed with the discussions :p
 
This is honestly kind of a multi-part, multi-layered question and as such requires an answer in a similar fashion.

One of the very first few things I have noticed immediately, however, is the misuse of (terrible) third-party software which attempts to 'fix' some issues, including 'framepacing'. I'm mainly talking about SpecialK but this also applies to RivaTuner, namely RivaTuner Statistics Server (RTSS).

I would strongly urge everyone who thinks they are affected by this issue(s) to: remove RivaTuner/forcefully disable any drawing overlay, remove SpecialK entirely and ensure you're running patch v1.07 (latest). With that out of the way, you should also look over your display settings both for your OS and the game itself. Then you can proceed to capturing raw footage straight from the game. Just a few seconds of Ryo walking would be fine. Once those have been performed^ and we can determine whether or not this is a valid issue, we can proceed with the discussions :p
The only actual reason I actually had SpecialK installed in the first place was because of some mods on Nexus Mods seem to require it but I would rather do without it tbh as it's not a very good software as you have stated above.
 
The only actual reason I actually had SpecialK installed in the first place was because of some mods on Nexus Mods seem to require it but I would rather do without it tbh as it's not a very good software as you have stated above.
SpecialK is just outright weird AF when it comes to Shenmue. The time fuzzing stuff is kinda nice (the authors 'solution' to framepacing) but other than that, it creates a LOT more issues than it's worth.. and the features aren't great anyways. He expects people to live through the black texture bug all the way through to the end game, so that you can then experience the game from start to finish without the issue appearing again :ROFLMAO:

RTSS is a bit of an exception. It's not necessarily all bad software, it's just the code it uses to draw text etc on the screen is very temperamental when it comes to almost anything, it can interfere with the apps/games themselves or it can interfere with third-party software etc.
 
Yeah, that video is kind of over the top, but there are definitely "framepacing" issues with the PC version (most people won't even notice that, though).
At least, that's how it runs on my PC: the frame rate is locked at 30 without drops (and thank god for that, lol), but it still feels somewhat sluggish and stuttery every now and then, it really reminds me of Bloodborne on PS4 and Mario Kart 8 on Wii U.
I even tried Special K but it didn't seem to do much for me, and of course it just broke everything else.
I would love to see this issue addressed, if this is a true, objectively widespread one and not just my hardware being shit for some reason, but just like most things Shenmue-modding related i honestly don't hold any hope about that, the comunity has already done a lot considering its size and in the end no one cares, especially Sega.
 
The only actual reason I actually had SpecialK installed in the first place was because of some mods on Nexus Mods seem to require it but I would rather do without it tbh as it's not a very good software as you have stated above.

Feel free to send over some video footage without SpecialK and RTSS and we can go from there. I just don't feel it's worth the headache trying to iron something out when questionable software is involved.

Yeah, that video is kind of over the top, but there are definitely "framepacing" issues with the PC version (most people won't even notice that, though).
At least, that's how it runs on my PC: the frame rate is locked at 30 without drops (and thank god for that, lol), but it still feels somewhat sluggish and stuttery every now and then, it really reminds me of Bloodborne on PS4 and Mario Kart 8 on Wii U.
I even tried Special K but it didn't seem to do much for me, and of course it just broke everything else.
I would love to see this issue addressed, if this is a true, objectively widespread one and not just my hardware being shit for some reason, but just like most things Shenmue-modding related i honestly don't hold any hope about that, the comunity has already done a lot considering its size and in the end no one cares, especially Sega.
I definitely care I'm currently in the middle of trying to figure out a solution for native 60fps cutscenes. But I agree with everything you're saying, there's only so much time I can dedicate to one thing.
 
Now this might just be something the game does on my setup but when I set the sound device to none in the options, the game becomes even more jerky. The framerate actually drops. To somewhere in the mid 20s.
It even chugs around randomly when the game is set to 60 with the misc tools.

Certainly an odd issue in itself. Maybe, just maaaybe the game has some odd thing about it syncing the gameplay with the sound and that causes the wonky framepacing? Since no solution has been found yet, the origin of the issue must be something weird so this might be worth going after.
 
I decided to test the original Shenmue 1 & 2 on the Redream emulator and to my eyes it seemed to have better frame pacing than the re released Shenmue 1 & 2 on Steam. Can anyone else confirm this as well?.
 
Native 60fps cutscene status:


Now this might just be something the game does on my setup but when I set the sound device to none in the options, the game becomes even more jerky. The framerate actually drops. To somewhere in the mid 20s.
It even chugs around randomly when the game is set to 60 with the misc tools.

Certainly an odd issue in itself. Maybe, just maaaybe the game has some odd thing about it syncing the gameplay with the sound and that causes the wonky framepacing? Since no solution has been found yet, the origin of the issue must be something weird so this might be worth going after.
MiscTools needs the FPS stuff updating, since that implementation I've found numerous offsets which fix a lot of issues, like stablization. I just need the time tbh. Hoping to kinda kill two birds with one stone by looking at native 60fps cutscenes, because a lot of that stuff is intertwined with framepacing/rendering.
 
Feel free to send over some video footage without SpecialK and RTSS and we can go from there. I just don't feel it's worth the headache trying to iron something out when questionable software is involved.


I definitely care I'm currently in the middle of trying to figure out a solution for native 60fps cutscenes. But I agree with everything you're saying, there's only so much time I can dedicate to one thing.
I will definitely get down to recording some footage at some point.
 
Since no solution has been found yet, the origin of the issue must be something weird so this might be worth going after.
Solutions have been found, it's just a matter of implementation and finding time. But again, the exact issues need to be clarified in this thread, because it's just "there are framepacing issues" as opposed to "this is the issue .. XYZ".
 
It's the game's frame rate limiter. Forcing half vsync and changing the game's limiter to 60 (since I don't think there's a way to just disable it) fixes the framepacing issues and the game runs completely smooth at 30fps. That's my experience anyway, and I told this in the steam forums and another guy confirmed that this worked for him too.
The arcade games need to run at 60fps though (probably why that address is there), so that's a bit problematic but not too much.
 
It's the game's frame rate limiter. Forcing half vsync and changing the game's limiter to 60 (since I don't think there's a way to just disable it) fixes the framepacing issues and the game runs completely smooth at 30fps. That's my experience anyway, and I told this in the steam forums and another guy confirmed that this worked for him too.
The arcade games need to run at 60fps though (probably why that address is there), so that's a bit problematic but not too much.
With what you're saying I'd say that's still too vague, exactly which limiter stuff are you talking about? Because there are multiple including completely uncapping framerate. There would still be issues even after doing what you say.

Since you mention "60fps" you might be talking about the offset with that name here which I found within the first few months of release:

 
With what you're saying I'd say that's still too vague, exactly which limiter stuff are you talking about? Because there are multiple including completely uncapping framerate. There would still be issues even after doing what you say.
Why? I tried half vsync with the 60 offset and with the 200+fps one and I didn't note any difference: no issues with either one. Simply, with the 200+fps one Ryo can't interact with anything, can't move to another area and so on, so that's why I went with the 60. With half-vsync and the regular 30 fps cap there was still some jerkiness.

Since you mention "60fps" you might be talking about the offset with that name here which I found within the first few months of release:

Correct. Good find.
 
Why? I tried half vsync with the 60 offset and with the 200+fps one and I didn't note any difference: no issues with either one. Simply, with the 200+fps one Ryo can't interact with anything, can't move to another area and so on, so that's why I went with the 60. With half-vsync and the regular 30 fps cap there was still some jerkiness.


Correct. Good find.
This probably works for a good chunk of times where "framepacing" can be "bad", but tbh, this still doesn't fix the issue! xD

The issue can be fixed by rewriting how the game performs ticks/updates and setting a few offsets to 1. The 60fps offset is as you correctly deciphered, mainly for the arcade emulation stuff.. but the 200fps offset is pure uncapped. The 200fps offset is used by d3t during loading, which is why setting it to 1 can cause the loading screen to appear. There are a couple other fixes you can do aswell, like correctly setting the animation speed on all characters (because >30fps, they become slightly faster than they should be).
 
Well yeah, but what I meant is that from a visual point of view, the mini-stutter is gone. I know it's just a band-aid solution.
 
I have questions as well as video on how my system is handling it. By no means am I a recent fan nor a witless ass when it comes to this site, shenmue, and games in general. However I feel I must say the "user friendliness" of the steam port has removed most of my ability to fix my issues (being able to run skyrim on ultra graphical settings and things like saints row 4 on medium settings.) Its baffling to me that I somehow can not run shenmue unless its through emulation. It just drives me nuts. Any help would be appreciated I'm running a Screenshot_20210115-201908_Chrome.jpgScreenshot_20210115-201913_Chrome.jpgScreenshot_20210115-201921_Chrome.jpgScreenshot_20210115-201924_Chrome.jpg



 
I have questions as well as video on how my system is handling it. By no means am I a recent fan nor a witless ass when it comes to this site, shenmue, and games in general. However I feel I must say the "user friendliness" of the steam port has removed most of my ability to fix my issues (being able to run skyrim on ultra graphical settings and things like saints row 4 on medium settings.) Its baffling to me that I somehow can not run shenmue unless its through emulation. It just drives me nuts. Any help would be appreciated I'm running a View attachment 10156View attachment 10157View attachment 10158View attachment 10159



I mean, it's not an issue with the system, it's the specs of the system. Your laptop doesn't have a dedicated GPU, it has Intel integrated graphics. It simply falls below the minimum requirements to run Shenmue 1 & 2 HD. That's pretty much it.
1610819649221.png
The GTX 650 Ti, is a GPU from 2012 so the requirements are extremely low (basically having any dedicated GPU will do), but your laptop doesn't have one and thus is using the iGPU on the i5 4210U.
This is also the same reason that the game runs better for you when emulated, as emulation (for older consoles anyway), is more reliant on the CPU.
 
Back
Top