PS2 Investigating Champions Of Norrath PAL freeze using OPL

WATW

WATW

Forum Noob
Hi,

I've been recently playing to Champions Of Norrath EU version (SLES-52325) with OPL 1.1.0 (tried an old OPL version as well) and I noticed the game is broken using this setup.

As stated on that thread https://www.ps2-home.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=821 , the game is freezing when trying to access the "lower lava field" and "Vanarhost's castle".

I transfered my savegame to my computer and I could go through the lower lava field level running the same ISO with PCSX2. Then, I got back on OPL and I could go up to Vanarhost's casle until it froze again. I've defeated Vanarhost and started Act III on PCSX2. Tried to continue using OPL but the game is freezing as soon as the savegame is loaded.

Since my original DVD has nasty big scratch, I'll buy an used game to continue the game and debug OPL (hopefully).
What I did so far:
  • I've checked that the MD5 complies with redump database
  • Tried to install the game using hdlgi-cli from Linux
  • Tried to install the game using HDLGManClient
  • Tried to launch the game using different modes (including the one that enable the DVD9 emulation)
  • Followed a tutorial from a spanish forum which consists of extracting both layers from the ISO using Sonix Apache3, patching some files with DVDScan and creating 2 swappable disk's ISO with CD/DVD Generator and iml2iso. This ended up by giving the same result than with the full ISO
  • Wanted to rebuild the ISO but Apache3 is extracting every single files of L0+L1 of the DVD even if I've selected only one layer making it difficult to find out which file should be placed on wich layer
I'm feeling stuck in a dead end so if you guys have any pointers to give me, I would be very glad to continue to debug and find out what is wrong with that game on OPL.
 
If you even tried mode 6 (Disable IGR) and nothing helps, hmm...
You can try OPL v1.0.0 and\or the latest beta (ATM OPL 2223).

Additionally can you try a different launcher?
I mean: NHDDL + neutrino.

Or just download:
neutrino_1.7.0_NHDDL_1.2.1.zip
Unpack it. Copy to the root of your USB device.
Launch nhddl.elf (mass:/neutrino/nhddl.elf) through wLaunchELF.
 

Attachments

Tried OPL v1.0.0 and the latest beta. Also tried with the ones that came with my Free McBoot install (1319 and 1515).
Also tried with Neutrino+NHDDL. Every time I tried without and with modes enabled (individually and a bunch of them enabled).

This always gave me the same result after load my savegame: either black screen, or freezing loading screen.

With OPL, I've noticed that it is not possible to do IGR when there is the black screen or the freezing loading screen.

Is there a way to get some debug info? I naively thought about loading the game through OPL from PCSX2. Don't know if that's possible but maybe I could get some debug informations doing so?

Anyway, thanks a lot for your hints. I didn't know about the neutrino project!
 
jolek said:
Can you upload a save?
Click to expand...

In the following zip there are 3 savegames:

  • Bordeleau (sorry, that's the french name): that one doesn't load at all with OPL/Neutrino+NHDDL
  • Vanarhost_castle: go to the door at the end of the not explored path on the map (see image below). Game freeze at this point.
  • lava_field: go to that manhole (arrow going down on the map, see image below). Game freeze at this point.
 

Attachments

  • Champions_Of_Norrath.zip
    Champions_Of_Norrath.zip
    211.9 KB · Views: 18
  • Vanarhost_castle.png
    Vanarhost_castle.png
    841.4 KB · Views: 16
  • Lower_lava_field.png
    Lower_lava_field.png
    1.2 MB · Views: 17
I previously completed the EU version of this game using HDL, and later I completed the US version using OPL without encountering any problems.
 
psdavx said:
I previously completed the EU version of this game using HDL, and later I completed the US version using OPL without encountering any problems.
Click to expand...

Thank you very much for your reply! There are two PAL versions of that game:
- SLES-52325 (Eng, De, Fr)
- SLES-52373 (Eng, Sp)

I am referring to the first one. Is that also your case?

The US version is marked as "compatible" with OPL. But we don't have any informations about the two others.

Can you give us a little more informations ? Like which HDL version did you use?
 
WATW said:
Thank you very much for your reply! There are two PAL versions of that game:
- SLES-52325 (Eng, De, Fr)
- SLES-52373 (Eng, Sp)

I am referring to the first one. Is that also your case?

The US version is marked as "compatible" with OPL. But we don't have any informations about the two others.

Can you give us a little more informations ? Like which HDL version did you use?
Click to expand...
That happened a long time ago, I'm sorry I don't remember which version it was, I only remember it was released by Ubi.
The last version of HDL is 0.8c. For OPL, I suggest you try a version earlier than 0.9.3.
 
It has been a while!
Finally I had some time to test this game (SLES-523.25).
I have added my results here:
https://github.com/rickgaiser/neutrino/issues/178.

In short as OP mentioned the game freezes after entering to lower lava field.
I have tried it through USB & MMCE with neutrino v1.8.0-29 with different compatibility modes (e.g. including Mode 5: IOP: Emulate DVD-DL).
The same scenario is with OPL v1.2.0-Beta-2235.
 
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