Visual effects missing (Space Station Silicon Valley)

[Jaffacakelover]

A number of visual effects are missing from Space Station Silicon Valley. Some could be issues with the z-buffer, others look related to shaders.

The 2D logo and 3D spaceship are missing from the title screen!

Transition effects between shots are also missing: Several screens split into a grid. ParaLLEl just cuts to black.

Sprites appear in front of everything else, regardless of where they should be in depth..
Collectibles and flowers appear in front of trees and land that should obscure them.

This purple pickup is in front of the dog's head instead of behind it.

The pause menu is supposed to have stars moving to the left, leaving trails. The stars do not render at all.
The stars on the pause screen are supposed to be occasionally interrupted by a tv static effect. This instead flashes plain gray.
Also, the small screenshot top-right is missing.
Intended:
https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/c03030fa-b5a9-49c2-8aee-ddb3c9214e47

Actual:

TV sets in the levels are supposed to show a TV static effect. Instead they are plain white.
Intended:

Actual:

Tested with:

• Devices:
  ** Windows 11 x64, nVidia GTX 1650 Ti, Vulkan
  ** Samsung A52s 5G, Android 14/OneUI 6.1
• Apps (fresh install):
  ** 2025-08-24-RetroArch_x86_64
  ** 2025-08-24-RetroArch_aarch64
  ** 2025-08-24-RetroArch_ra32
• Cores:
  ** ParaLLEl N64
• Games:
  ** Space Station Silicon Valley (Europe) (En,Fr,De,Es,It,Nl,Pt)
  ** Space Station Silicon Valley (USA)

[hizzlekizzle]

Which RDP and RSP plugins are you getting this behavior with?

[Jaffacakelover]

RDP and RSP are both set to auto as I'd done a fresh install. Which plugins are the default I don't know,

[hizzlekizzle]

default RDP plugin is Glide, which probably accounts for the missing stuff. This core has an older version of the ParaLLEl-RDP, but it's not enabled by default. Likewise, the default RSP is "HLE," though it has the ParaLLEl-RSP and cxd4 plugins available. Choosing accurate plugins will probably resolve your issues, for the most part.

[Jaffacakelover]

The combination 'parallel' and 'parallel' works as intended, thank you. Angrylion and Rice didn't work for me at all, neither did cxd4.

Is there a reason that Glide is set as the default? Speed over accuracy I'm guessing?
And there's no per-game autoconfig or compatability wiki?

[hizzlekizzle]

yeah, ParaLLEl-N64 started as the test-bed for ParaLLEl-RDP (hence the name), but it kept the potato-tier RDP plugins. Once mupen64plus-next was made, with GLideN64 and ParaLLEl-RDP/-RSP paired with a better/updated mupen codebase, the usefulness of this core for general audiences was greatly reduced.

Nevertheless, it still has some usefulness among very low-powered devices that need the ancient, inaccurate plugins. I also make builds of the ParaLLEl-Launcher fork, which has some changes to make it play nicer with rOMhacks.

[Jaffacakelover]

Yet the sprites are doing a different funny thing on Mupen64Next... I've made a separate issue for that (#589). I'll have to check if there are different core settings there too.