Problem concerning Guitar Hero games.

[hamgelu]

Hello guys.

I started using OPL in version 0.7, I used almost all beta rev. ( 0.7 <-> 0.8 ) and in all of them, and I mean ALL, the games from Guitar Hero World Tour to Guitar Hero 5 freeze when loading some songs.

I've used the original ISO's (DVD-9), the converted to DVD-5 ones, PAL and NTSC versions, they all have this issue. The game simply stucks in an eternal loading.

In Guitar Hero Smash Hits, for example, this happens in the song "Lay Down" (the last of the first tier), in Guitar Hero Metallica happens when you load any music from the third tier, and in Guitar Hero 5 it is worse, the game crashes during the song "All Along the Watchtower."

I have also tried all the available compatibility modes without success.

So I wonder: Is this a problem of OPL, or the game itself, or my console (which has less than 6 months of use)?

Now appreciate any help!

[crazyc]

Hello guys.

I started using OPL in version 0.7, I used almost all beta rev. ( 0.7 <-> 0.8 ) and in all of them, and I mean ALL, the games from Guitar Hero World Tour to Guitar Hero 5 freeze when loading some songs.

Which media do you use? The Guitar Hero games are probably latency and bandwidth sensitive so SMB and USB could have issues.

[LocalH]

I have had very few problems with GH3 and later (I'm using the DVD5 ripkits for DVD9 games though as I was concerned about total throughput, since the GH games use prerendered video for the background and only render the band characters in realtime, similar to how the Rock Band games use prerendered video for everything but the track and HUD). I have had a little skipping (of the note chart, strangely not the audio) with GH:Van Halen, but other than that I have had absolutely no problems at all during gameplay on GH:WT, GH:SH, and GH5 (don't have GH:Metallica). Admittedly, I've played GH:VH the most out of all of those, so if you like I could do a little bit of further testing later today, as I haven't played either "Lay Down" from SH or "All Along The Watchtower" on GH5. Had no problems with the later songs in the setlist on GH5 though, like "Scatterbrain (Live)" or "21st Century Schizoid Man". The intro videos on GH2/80s do stutter though, strangely the GH1 intro video must be lower bitrate as it plays fine, as do all songs (both retail songs as well as the numerous custom discs I have installed). I exclusively use SMB loading as I have a slim with no IDE header and I refuse to load PS2 games from USB when SMB is so much faster in relation.

The only pre-GH3 song I've had trouble with freezing on was Trippolette on a custom GH1-in-GH2 disc image that I built myself way back in the day, and that worked fine at the time from disc (using Swap Magic). I'm considering rebuilding this disc for that very reason.

[hamgelu]

Oops, sorry, I forgot to mention that I'm using SMB mode.

Anyway, I can't seem to understand what's happening.

I've burned Guitar Hero 5 and Smash Hits to some verbatim media and I still got the same freezings ( All Along the Watchtower / Lay Down ), so it's not a OPL issue after all.

It's strange, only these games have this issue on my console. All other Guitar Hero's ( 3, 2, 1, Encore and Aerosmith ) works like a charm. Even Rock Band games are working flawlesly.

[LocalH]

Ok, I just did some tests for your specific issues:

Lay Down / Smash Hits - loads and plays fine
All Along The Watchtower / GH5 - loads and plays fine

Do you have any songs with issues in GH:WT that I could check?

As I mentioned, this is using the DVD5 ripkit version of all relevant games. You mentioned using both DVD5 and DVD9 copies, so I'm not sure what's different between you and I. Do any other games give you issues? Also, depending on the age of your computer, either network speed or hard drive access time could potentially affect things. Is your PC drive defragmented? This could cause an edge case where your hardware can just barely push the required bits and the extra drive seeking is throwing it off. Admittedly, that's a bit of a stretch, but it's hard to diagnose problems like this over the Internet =P

[hamgelu]

Hmm... That's realy strange. =/

In Guitar Hero WT the very first song freezes in loading, so I could not test any other songs besides tier 1.

My PC is less then 3 years old, the games are in a separated 2TB HDD conected via SATA to the mobo. To make the PC/PS2 connection i'm using a Crossover Cable with less then 4 meters.

But, as I said, even with physical media the games keeps freezing.

And no other game is getting this type of error, that is exclusive to the Guitar Hero games that were released after World Tour.

Is there any chance that this problem is related to my modchip ( Original Matrix Infinity v 1.93 )?

[LocalH]

That could be the case, but I wouldn't know for sure as my PS2 is unmodded. If you have another way to boot OPL, it would be prudent to try to boot the games that way. Possibly look into temporarily installing FMCB and disabling the modchip? I don't know if the DL GH games have any known issues with any chips.

[hamgelu]

My console is uncompatible with FMCB.

SCPH 900006.

I'll try to deactivate the DVD-DL option on the modchip and make a test later.

[Gnom]

The same problem occurs with Guitar Hero World Tour PAL (SLES_553.55) using internal HDD on OPL 0.8. I tried extracting all the files with isobuster and rebuilding with Sony CDVD Generator, all I got was lack of background music in the menus.

LocalH> Which ripkits do you use, and how do they affect the game (lesser quality in background videos ?)

[LocalH]

Gnom: To be honest, I'm not sure "which" ripkits they are, as I took the "lazy" way out instead of ripping and applying the kit to my retail discs (which I really hope I'm not already violating board rules by even mentioning, as I do own the legit discs, but didn't want to take the time to extract the files from them all and rebuild). I'm assuming that the WT kit is the one by psychospacefish, and the others that I remember seeing for the later games were all based on that one. You can barely even notice the background video difference since they're almost static scenes (since the game renders the band on top of it before rendering the track/HUD), and in GH5 it's moot anyway for me as I always use Focus Mode.