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Katamari Damacy
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Developer(s): Now Production
Publisher(s): Namco (JP, US), Namco Bandai Games (JP), SCEA (US)
Genre: Action, Adventure
Wikipedia: Wikipedia
Game review links: IGN Review: 9.0/10, Metacritic: 86/100
Game description: When the King of All Cosmos accidentally destroys all the stars in the sky, he orders you, his pint-sized princely son, to put the twinkle back in the heavens above. The only way you can do that is by rolling everything on Earth into clumps so that he can replace what's missing in space. 'Everything' includes cookies, lawn mowers, lampposts, sumo wrestlers, bulldozers, brontosauruses, cruise ships, and more. Katamari Damacy also includes a two-player battle mode where you and a friend can see who can grow the biggest ball of stuff.
Katamari Damacy (Japanese: 塊魂 Katamari Damashī, 'clump soul') is a third-person puzzle-action video game that is developed and published by Namco for the PlayStation 2 video game console. The game resulted from a school project from the Namco Digital Hollywood Game Laboratory, and was developed for less than $1 million. In designing Katamari Damacy, the development team aimed to maintain four key points: novelty, ease of understanding, enjoyment, and humor. A sequel has been released with the name We Love Katamari on the Playstation 2.
The game's plot concerns a diminutive prince on a mission to rebuild the stars, constellations, and Moon, which were accidentally destroyed by his father, the King of All Cosmos. This is achieved by rolling a magical, highly adhesive ball called a katamari around various locations, collecting increasingly larger objects, ranging from thumbtacks to people to mountains, until the ball has grown great enough to become a star.
The player controls the Prince as he rolls the katamari around houses, gardens, and towns in order to meet certain parameters set by the King of All Cosmos. The player uses the two analog sticks on the DualShock controller in a manner similar to the classic arcade game Battlezone to control the direction the katamari rolls. Other controls can be triggered by the player to gain a quick burst of speed, flip the Prince to the other side of the katamari, and more.
Test configurations on Windows:
However, I copied the patch I am using to a notepad document, and then renamed that document to 1cc39dbd.pnach, so it should be found there, if it is looking under the PCSX2 folder. If it helps, I am trying to get a Suikoden tactics patch to work to skip a scene at the beginning of the game that freezes it.
| Environment | Configurations | Comments | Tester | ||||
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| Region | OS | CPU/GPU | Revision | Graphics | Sound/Pad | ||
| NTSC-U | ? |
| r1736 | GSdx 10 r1650 | SPU2-X 1.2.0 | Requires MicroVU for VU0 and VU1 to remove onscreen garbage. Status flag hack must be DISABLED. EE 1.5x, INTC Sync, idle loop fast-forward and one level of VU cycle stealing all work with no problems. | 78.16.146.83 |
| NTSC-U | ? |
| r3113 | GSdx r3623 |
| CKL | |
| NTSC-U | ? |
| r5423 | GSdx r5412 |
| Not very resource demanding game. Runs smooth, probably on a smaller hardware too. The issue described below is far from serious. | Yuri |
| NTSC-J | Windows |
| 1.1.0 r5628 | GSdx 5632 SSE41 |
| Still playable.. doesn't need patch anymore., Hardware mode doesn't display some words in the speech bubbles and objects attached on the ball aren't rendered.. | |
| NTSC-U | Windows |
| 1.1.0 r5754 | GSdx 5752 SSE41 |
| Runs at 200% speed. | General-Plot |
| NTSC-U | Windows |
| 1.2.1 [2-02-14] | GSdx 5875 |
| EE/VU Rounding: Chop/Zero, Game runs correctly, some graphical errors I caught but an improvement from 1.1., I.E, Graphical errors during 'Make a Star 7', if moving fast into water, water textures glitch. This is possibly just with water in general. | |
| NTSC-U | Windows 7 64-bit |
| 1.4.0 | GSdx MSVC 19.00 AVX |
| Runs well. D3D11 HW mode, 2x internal resolution. Very minor occasional visual glitches, otherwise is very good. | thejjmax |
| NTSC-U | Windows 10 Pro |
| v1.5.0-dev-2645 | GSdx MSVC 19.00 AVX2/AVX2, OpenGL (Software) |
| Runs fullspeed with no noticeable slowdowns. On occasion graphical glitches appear in front of the camera limiting your view. it only happens for less than a second. when you break with the katamari to switch direction, the game may repeat the screeching tires sound effect used until the level ends, this also is present with the splash sound effect when entering the water. | anchorsaway |
Test configurations on Linux:
| Environment | Configurations | Comments | Tester | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Region | OS | CPU/GPU | Revision | Graphics | Sound/Pad | ||
| NTSC-U | ? |
| 1.3.0.r0 | GSdx 0.1.16 |
| Breed808 | |
Trivia
- Original names: 塊魂 (SLPS-25360) & (SLPS-73210), 괴혼 ~굴려라! 왕자님!~ (SCKA-20025)
- Widescreen support with .pnatch file from the PCSX2 forums or from PS2Wide.net. Search for game CRC.
Known Issues
Logo loading music continues playing on cutscene
- Status:Active
- Type: Minor
- Description: After you load your savefile the humming continues on the right side of the stereo mix after you load the cutscene.
- Workaround: Disable Switch to 4:3 aspect ratio when an FMV plays.
Incorrect space render
- Status:Active
- Type: Minor
- Description: During dialogue and cutscenes in space, background areas that should be black instead have a bad layer.
- Workaround: None
Real PS2 hardware
PCSX2 1.5.0 (r2155) in OpenGL Software mode
Real PS2 hardware
PCSX2 1.5.0 (r2155) in OpenGL Software mode
GFX garbage in 'View constellations'
- Status:Active
- Type: Minor
- Description: Onscreen garbage appearing in some viewing angles during the 'View constellations' menu and sometimes during normal gameplay.
- Workaround: VU0 / VU1 Advanced Recompiler Round Mode to Positive.
Lines at the border of 2D objects
- Status:Active
- Type: Minor
- Description: The outline of the 2D objects are visible if you use the resolution upscaling in GSdx. As if they are poorly joined with a small gap.
- Workaround: Go to Config -> Video (GS) -> Plugin Settings and choose 'Bilinear(Forced excluding sprite) in the 'texture filtering' or Use native resolution to remove most of the lines (some lines still visible in both workarournd). Software mode to remove all.
Music skips or is slow
- Status:Active
- Type: Minor
- Description: In-game music is extremely slow, or skips during playback.
- Workaround: Change audio synchronization mode to 'Async Mix'
mVU Flag Hack
- Status:Fixed
- Type: Serious
- Description: Katamari Damacy have weird speed bug when this speed hack is enabled.
- Workaround: Go to system and enable automatic gamefixes or Don't enable mVU Flag hack in the 'Speedhacks'.
The gallery
Katamari Damacy (SLUS 21008)
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Developer(s): Polyphony Digital
Publisher(s): SCEI (JP, AS, KO), SCEA (US), SCEE (EU)
Genre: Racing
Wikipedia: Link
Game review links: Metacritic: 89/100
Game description: With authentic cars, courses, and car physics, Gran Turismo 4 adds an even more realistic racing simulation to the series. The characteristics of each car take into account weight, speed, friction, and more to deliver realistic handling. Test-drive new vehicles in courses located in various sites, such as Nurburgring Nordschleife, New York City, the Grand Canyon, and Tsukuba Circuit. Along with Career mode, Gran Turismo 4 highlights the new GT Photo mode and GT Online mode, which lets players around the world compete over the Internet.
Gran Turismo 4 is the fourth game in the Gran Turismo series. It features over 700 vehicles, 51 tracks, B-Spec mode, Photo mode, and 1080i support. This game was released on February 22, 2005 to critical acclaim.
Test configurations on Windows:
| Environment | Configurations | Comments | Tester | ||||
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| Region | OS | CPU/GPU | Revision | Graphics | Sound/Pad | ||
| NTSC-U | Windows 7 |
| 0.9.9 (r4878) | GSdx (r4873) |
| • The MTVU hack may increase speed in quad core CPUs. This varies in dual-core CPUs as it may increase depending on the race but may cause slowdown in others. • Other hacks can cause crashes or the game won't boot. This game requires a ton of personal tinkering to get it to run decent.This game also has very, VERY high system requirements (expect to use at least an i5 or an FX 6300 above). Don't expect a smooth or stable game. Slowdowns are heavy and very prevalent. It mostly depends on track, the lighting and the amount of cars on screen.• EE Cyclerate can give speedup during the races, but may also cause slowdown to the track-selection screens where videos are shown at the background.• The 'Allow 8-bit textures' in GSdx may help with speed a bit more and maybe reduce the VRAM slowdowns.• If you are using software mode and have 4 cores or more (this includes hyperthreaded cores, as PCSX2 takes advantage of this), set the 'extra software threads' to the amount of total threads in your CPU minus one (4 cores, threads to '3', 8 cores, threads to '7', etc.). This can provide a noticeable speedup in any game running in software mode, but beware that only native resolution can be used. | Machina |
| NTSC-U | Windows |
| 1.1.0 (r5480) | GSdx SSE4 (r5442) |
| Runs near full speed. | General-Plot |
| NTSC-J | Windows |
| 1.1.0 (svn r5832) | GSdx |
| USA v02.20(10/02/2006), Can be hard for CPU and GPU. Can have some glitches in Hardware mode in the races, but Software mode is fine. | |
| NTSC-U | Windows 7 x64 |
| 1.2.1 r5875 | GSdx 0.1.16 (r5875) |
| BIOS v2.00, Game runs fine at 5x Native resolution. Some slight hiccups/slowdown in the menus. One weird glitch I saw was on dirt tracks, the plumes of dirt seem to be transparent and can be seen through hills and can be seen coming out of the middle of the back of the car. Still use recommended hacks for maximum performance. | Zrooney |
| NTSC-U | Windows 7 |
| 1.2.1 (2014-02-02) | GSdx 0.1.16 |
| Great FPS at the menus, bad FPS at races or showing cars. Slowmotion FPS at the races, almost unplayable. | Berto |
| PAL | Windows 7 |
| 1.2.1.(r5873) | GSdx SSE4 (r5875) |
| 60+ FPS in menus but drops below 45~50 in races or licence tests. With speedhacks the frame rates are pretty stable, 55~60 FPS in races with multiple cars. | KX64 |
| NTSC-U | Windows 8.1 |
| 1.3.0 | GSdx |
| Ran with 60 FPS | Apihl1000 |
| PAL | Windows |
| 1.3.1 (svn 2015-06-18) | GSdx32 SSE4 |
| Runs above full speed. Needed to set EE clamping mode manually to full so the text that says the time between you and the first car to display correctly. Looks like this needs to be added to game fixes GameIndex.dbf so it can auto change the EE clamping mode to full. Some rare random slowdowns that happened randomly in the races, no specific reason but in last less than a second. Other than that the game works perfect. | truemaster |
| NTSC-U | Windows 7 |
| 1.4.0 | GSdx32 SSE4 |
| All other graphic options are default. Game runs smoother than on the real PS2. Besides problem with licence test crashing everything works perfect. I did notice licence test uses way more RAM than actual races, and I crashed when I ran out of RAM in certain tests. Other than that it's perfect. (at 4x native with MSAA and AF enabled, I'm peaking at 10+ GB of RAM usage) | Infini |
| PAL | Windows XP (SP3) |
| v1.5.0 (dev-2016-01-26) | GSdx SSE4 (2016-01-26) |
| On some menus, a minor slowdown occurs (ca. 2–4 FPS). On normal racetracks, FPS stays around 50 (PAL), but on more graphically-intensive tracks like street circuits, slowdowns can be slight (ca. 5–18 FPS) on Single Race / 2-players mode. On Time-trials, minor slowdown may occur on tracks like that (ca. 2–5 FPS). On Software-mode: Usually about 10 FPS slower than hardware-rendering (with 4 threads). Other bugs: a red flash occur at every race start, but shade boost tones it down. Lower edges on menus may have white lines. | Titus03 |
| NTSC-U | Windows 10 x64 |
| v1.5.0 (dev-2017-09-17) | GSdx SSE4.1 (2017-09-17) |
| Game starts fine. Menus run well save for some choppiness, especially during transitions and when loading car models. License tests require more cycles & RAM usage than regular races, seeming to cause upwards of 10 FPS slowdown in some cases. Would probably get better/more stable performance with further tweaks. Interestingly having 12 cores seems to make little difference to performance from a threading standpoint. | starkeysuper64 |
| NTSC-U | Windows 10 64-bit (build 16299) |
| 1.5.0 (dev 2017-12-08) | GSdx AVX2 (2017-12-28) |
| Runs perfectly well, albeit with a lag spike of 10-15 FPS at about the end of some tracks. Menu-wise, every time a menu changes, the screen fades and goes down with an angle. The car models are blurry, though that might be because of random tweaking. Tested on the most intensive track I could find, Las Vegas Drag Strip, in a BMW M3 GTR Race Car and it stayed at 60 FPS. Photo mode works but its a blur when taking pictures and the photo looks lifeless due to color degradation. | ZestoOnyx |
| NTSC-U | Windows 8.1 |
| 1.5.0 | GSdx 1.1.0 AVX |
| Runs at full speed. Using above 3X native gives weird stuttering issues. Using 480p mode with Shadeboost enabled to compensate. At these settings the game is absolutely stable: Renderer: Direct3D11 (Hardware), Interlacing (F5): Bob tff, Texture Filtering: Bilinear (PS2), Internal Resolution: 3x Native, Anisotropic Filtering: 16x, Mipmapping: Basic (Fast), CRC Hack Level: Automatic (Default), (✓) Allow 8-Bit Textures. EE/IOP: Clamping Mode 'Full', VU: Clamping mode 'Extra'. License tests require these two to be at their stock settings. | lolled132 |
Test configurations on Linux:
| Environment | Configurations | Comments | Tester | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Region | OS | CPU/GPU | Revision | Graphics | Sound/Pad | ||
| ? | Kubuntu 12.04 x64 |
| 1.0.0 | GSdx 0.1.16 |
| Only problem is that in a race it is too slow (20-30 FPS) and the game doesn't work with frame skipping. With hardware video acceleration enabled in GSdx, it is twice as slow. The problem seems to be the CPU. | T-dome |
| NTSC-U | Fedora 22 x64 |
| 1.4.0 | GSdx 1.0.0 |
| 50% speed with hardware accel. 25% with software. playable otherwise. | kerpal |
| NTSC-U | Debian 9.3 x64 |
| 1.4.0 | GSdx 1.0.0 |
| mostly 100% speed with hardware acceleration at native resolution. some occasional slowdowns but not often. very playable but the audio buzzes a bit. | kerpal |
| PAL | Ubuntu 17.04 x64 |
| 1.5.0~git201708311541 | GSdx (GCC 6.3.0, SSE2) 1.0.0 | SPU2-X 2.0.0 | Full speed at native resolution. Black screen at higher resolution. | Marc |
| NTSC-U | Debian 9.3 x64 |
| 1.5.0-git20171209-2234 | GSdx 1.1.0 |
| 100% speed with hardware acceleration at native resolution. significantly less slowdowns than pcsx2 1.4.0. audio also renders much more cleanly with SDL/alsa. extremely playable. | kerpal |
Trivia
- Original names: グランツーリスモ4 (SCPS-17001) & (SCPS-19252), 跑車浪漫旅4 (SCAJ-30007), 跑车浪漫旅 4 (SCCS-60002), 그란 투리스모 4 (SCKA-30001)
- Information and reports of demo versions of this game can be found here.
Known Issues
Heavy crashing
- Status:Active
- Type: Major
- Description: PCSX2 crashes during or at the start of a race, often with GSdx Out of memory warnings in the log.
- Workaround:
- In recent PCSX2 GIT revisions as of May 7th, 2016, VRAM spikes have been greatly reduced.
- Make sure you have 'Large Framebuffer' disabled on the recent GIT revisions as it can amplify the VRAM spikes when enabled.
- To avoid crashes at the start of an event, temporarily switch to the Sofware Renderer by pressing F9.
- To reduce VRAM spikes further, Nvidia users can Force Enable Sparse Texture in GSdx Advanced settings & hacks. OpenGL only.
Missing/flickering textures
- Status:Active
- Type: Minor
- Description: Missing ground textures and/or textures in the distance flicker.
- Workaround: Go to Config -> Video (GS) -> Plugin Settings, and set Renderer to any of the '(Software)' options. Then Make sure the Mipmapping option is checked at Software Mode Settings.
Demo races do not work
- Status:Active
- Type: Minor
- Description: Demonstrations return back to the menu as soon as they start.
- Workaround: Go to Config -> Emulation Settings -> EE/IOP and set Clamping Mode to 'Full'. However, this will make other events fail to load, requiring it to be set back to Normal after the Demonstration.
Garbage on bottom and right screen edges
- Status:Active
- Type: Minor
- Description: Red and green garbage from the depth buffer renders through to the screen.
- Workaround: Go to Config -> Emulation Settings -> GS Window and set Zoom to 100.20.
Fixed Issues
Effects visible through objects
- Status:Fixed
- Type: Minor
- Description: Car headlights, smoke and dust effects are seen through objects.
- Workaround: Go to Config -> Video (GS) -> Plugin Settings, and set renderer to 'OpenGL (Hardware)'. Then set Blending Unity Accuracy to at least 'High'.
Game doesn't load past copyright screen.
- Status:Fixed
- Type: Major
- Description: Due to dual layer issues the game might not load past the copyright screen.
- Workaround:
- As of March 2016 this issue has been fixed on the latest v1.5.0 development builds.
- For older versions use patch supplied at the compatibility list on the forums (see bottom of the page for links). Though this will disable all in game videos (including the background of the main menu).
Improper interlacing
- Type: Note (not an issue)
- Description: The interlacing in-game is improper and 'shakes'.
- Workaround: Change the interlacing mode in GSdx to 'Bob tff' to correct improper interlacing.
Garbage photos
- Status:Fixed
- Type: Serious
- Description: Garbage replaces the area in which the photo should be displayed.
- Workaround: As of May 2016 this issue has been fixed on the latest v1.5.0 development builds.
Whole screen garbage
- Status:Fixed
- Type: Serious
- Description: During events, the 3D area of the screen is obscured by garbage graphics.
- Workaround:
- This issue can been fixed in the latest v1.5.0 development builds as of May 2016 (see issue below).
- For older versions: In-game during an event press the start button, go to Screen and set Brightness to 0. Or from the main menu of the game, go to Options -> Picture Quality, and set Brightness to 0.
- For older NTSC versions: Change the display in game config to 'Normal', then you can set the brightness to 5 without the broken graphics and also have a correct image.
Broken in-game screen options
- Status:Fixed
- Type: Minor
- Description: In-game brightness or contrast values do not work properly in-game.
- Workaround: This has been resolved in recent v1.5.0 git builds. CRC hack level should be left on Automatic. For older versions set in game brightness/contrast to 0 or alternatively switch to software rendering.
Gameplay Screenshots
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