Problem with Tales of the Abyss

[CTConqueror]

I decided to use OPL to play my games so I can save the laser on my PS2, so I started playing through Tales of the Abyss, everything went fine until I got near the end of the game (for those that have played it, in Eldrant before you fight Asch), and when it went to load the next section, it just freezes.

I have tried re-making the USB Utility files, and getting a fresh rip of the disc, and it still gives me that problem.

Is anyone else having this problem? And, if so, how did you fix it?

[topho]

What revision/version are you using? SMB/USB/HDD?
Sounds very similar to a problem I had recently. Played Jak 2 on OPL .6 until 96% game complete when the game started to freeze at a very specific door, and wouldn't go past it.
So I updated to the latest revision of OPL (through compiling it myself) and it worked. Granted, I had to find a different set of game compatibility modes to do this.
You also might try play around w/ some comptab modes.
Or you may just be out of luck at the time being, switch over to your disc, finish the game. However please leave an entry in the game compatibility thread in the correct format so that the devs and other users can learn from your experience. Also, move on to your next game of choice and leave some feedback on it.

Hope this helps.

[CTConqueror]

I am using OPL 0.7, and loading the game through SMB.

I've tried messing around with the compatibility modes, I guess the next step would be to try what you said and use a newer version (if there is a newer one).

[topho]

There is a newer one, oh yes, but you'll need to read the stickies and compile yourself. All the information needed is in the stickies, particularly, the Setup Compile Environment sticky, all there for step by step.
Who knows, maybe its fixed in a later revision.
Like I said, a later revision, fixed an SMB level freeze just like yours in late game, except it was for Jak 2.

[ffgriever]

When I was playing Tales of the Abyss using OPL and internal HDD, I also had some problems. When playing in dungeons and cities, everything was fine. But on the world map, the bg music sometimes stopped playing (also no sounds in menu, and no battle transition sound). It happened quite often after finished battle (only on the world map). I could also replicate it when entering dungeon or city from the world map and then quickly entering the world map again (it seems it needs about 20 seconds in the city to not cause the bug). No sound in menu even after entering the city/dungeon again (there was bg music and everything else, though). It also happened once after movie sequence (the one when Asch got stabbed with all the swords). Changing the mode to mdma0 entirely fixed the battle in/out issues on the world map, though it still didn't help with quick transitions between world map and cities/dungeons.

But that's not what I wanted to say. Once the bug ocurred, I was experiencing something similar to your case (quite rare, though). On area transitions (world map<->battle, city/dungeon<->battle,, city/dungeon<->world map, city/dungeon location<->city/dungeon location). The screen would just go black/white/orange with some music playing in the background (not always, though). It seemed like it has frozen... But after 30-50 seconds (sometimes even after 2 minutes) it was unfreezing and I could continue the game. Anyway, in my case the only thing I could do to get everything working porperly once again was to save, reset the console, launch opl again, then load the save and avoid the situations that could cause the bug.

The game is buggy itself and I experienced this error even when playing from DVD, but with DVD it happened once or twice during entire gameplay.

Anyway, try to wait a little bit and see if it is similar problem.

[psxscenefan1]

There is a newer one, oh yes, but you'll need to read the stickies and compile yourself. All the information needed is in the stickies, particularly, the Setup Compile Environment sticky, all there for step by step.
Who knows, maybe its fixed in a later revision.
Like I said, a later revision, fixed an SMB level freeze just like yours in late game, except it was for Jak 2.

Just wanted to resurrect this thread to say that the problem still seems to be in the latest svn(2011-10-25), I also tried out the code snippet/patch for openloader that fixes "Atelier Iris; Eternal Mana" and "Shadow Hearts 2" (Does Shadow hearts 2 covenant work with any OPL + HDD?) because I figured it couldn't hurt, but I didn't see any improvement. Running it from the hard drive by the way and tried different modes and fixes without any reliable change, as it seems the problem is hit and miss upon booting the game and not sure what is triggering it.

[Bat Rastard]

Here's my findings with ToTA with OPL 8/9 Betas and an internal HDD ...

The "missing sound on world map" can be re-produced every single time by going to Daath (or landing your plane near Daath) on the world map and instead of entering the city, enter through the small sectional area that has a monument and shows Daath from a hillside perspective. When you emerge back on the world map, sound will be gone. This only happens 3% of the time if you're playing from the DVD. It's pretty rare -- a buddy of mine played and beat it 3 times back-to-back from DVD before burning himself out on it and only had missing sound once. But 95% of time from an ISO image, it's a given.

If you keep playing the game like this, your next random battle will take 30-40 seconds to load -- provided it loads at all. Most of the time, it will. But it's irritating. During that 30 to 40 second pause, the HDD light on the PS2 is blinking so fast that it appears solid that some would interpret as a hard-lock/freeze. That indicates to me a timing/access issue similar in some ways to AT and SH2 that is very rare to non-existent when playing from DVD. Sadly, using UDMA2 on OPL doesn't help here anymore than it helped with AT and SH2. It sucks because I lost interest 1/3rd of the way through my second playthru due to having to save and IGR every time I lost sound, and there's about another 40+ hours of optional stuff that opens up only after the first play-thru.

[RandQalan]

@ Bat

I know this may be strange but if you have component and GSM and set it to 480p that problem almost never occurs with modified OPL for SH2

I have run in out of monument of Daath a lot to test what you said and it occurs in interlace mode but when I use GSM almost never happens
for the life of me I think it might be related to GS load problem that interlace loads to fast

[mgh]

I don't know about Daath but there is 99% chance that problem to appear if you enter and then exit Baticul two or three times(or maybe even once)

And about my findings
I clear the game 2 or 3 times with only mode 2 and 6(no change on the dma)but the problem still appeared
There is no negative part in using only those mode(the problem didn't occur more/less often than using dma modes)only positive,loading speed

Try with Baticul and GSM because I can't use GSM

[RandQalan]

Well tried Batical about 30 times running in and out of bridge area and still not sound shutdown
with no modes on UDMA 5 SH2 modified OPL with GSM 480p

Funny thing when it loads world are doubles music sound but returns to normal immediately

For people that can compile OPL elf and add SH2 and use GSM 480p this may fix sound drop lock problems but I do know that not many have this option

I may start a new game and run extensive test to see if this fix causes other problems maybe if and when jimmi comes back this will give him a clue how to finally fix this
we tried for a week to fix it before with failure

Side note why not mode 6 test my HD runs 7200rpm and white screens on me if I try