AMD Build, Vulkan never ever performs well.

[podcastdog]

I'd like some help finding a solution to this. First here's my build:

Windows 10 64Bit with latest update.

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 1600

GPU: AMD Radeon Sapphire Nitro+ RX580 8GB

RAM: TUF Gaming Alliance 16GB DDR4 @ 3333Mhz

Dolphin Build: Beta 5.0-13986 (last checked 07/04/2021)

GPU Driver: 21.3.2 (26/03/2021)

Backend API Drivers: Direct3D® Version 9.14.10.01486
OpenGL® Version 26.20.11000.148202
Vulkan™ Driver Version 2.0.179
Vulkan™ API Version 1.2.170

So I need a little help and I hope others with a similar setup and AMD experience can help me. DirectX11 is the only backend that performs well, I use default Dolphin settings unless a certain game needs a change suggested from the wiki, I only run the games at Native resolution with no extra features like AF or AA enabled, 100% default settings. OpenGL has never worked well on my GPU and its because of AMD abandoning future OpenGL support for Vulkan instead (I've heard the later RX 5000 series has better OpenGL performance though.) Directx12 runs better than Vulkan but hitches a lot and overall isn't as smooth as DirectX11. In video games outside of Dolphin my experience with Vulkan has been excellent DOOM Eternal runs smooth as butter with 120FPS+, Dota 2 runs very well with Vulkan as well. DirectX12 is rarely used but games like CoD MW seem to work well with it and DirectX11 has always been solid. Now with Dolphin Vulkan vs DirectX11 will go from 60fps to 19-24fps on Vulkan and I don't understand why. This backened has a really nice feature to allow more threads to be used from my CPU which I thought would be a match made in heaven with my Ryzen 5 6 core CPU but every single game I've tried with Vulkan it just tanks the framerate and on Windows Task Manager my stats show that with both DirectX11 and Vulkan the GPU/CPU Usage is 8 - 10%.

In the past I chalked this up to Vulkan being experimental for Dolphin and will need to wait a while for real support to be added by the developers for it to shine but that was 2 years ago. I've seen comments from reddit and other forums talking about how good Vulkan is on Dolphin and videos on YouTube showing comparisons of all the backends and Vulkan looks really good so what gives with my PC? Throughout using my PC updating to new drivers and fixing things I've used DDU a few times but whenever I go back to Dolphin and try Vulkan it just never improves. Is my PC cursed or is it a software/settings issue?

[Layell]

I want to echo this because my Radeon R9 280X on the latest driver of 21.3.2 is having this issue as well with Vulkan. I know a previous GPU driver had it working fine.

It seems to only be a Dolphin issue too. I'd revert, but the latest driver also has some important fixes for another software I use.

[podcastdog]

(04-09-2021, 10:47 AM)Layell Wrote: I want to echo this because my Radeon R9  280X on the latest driver of 21.3.2 is having this issue as well with Vulkan. I know a previous GPU driver had it working fine.

It seems to only be a Dolphin issue too. I'd revert, but the latest driver also has some important fixes for another software I use.

I've been tinkering with this problem since my post and I found a solution that seems to be okay for now (still not as decent as DX11 but very close) checking the Start In Fullscreen option makes Vulkan run at 60fps for some reason starting it in Windowed mode breaks it. Could be a driver fault or a recent Dolphin build that doesn't claim full control of the driver until its in exclusive fullscreen mode first. I actually swapped out to my old Nvidia 1050Ti GPU to test a few things with Vulkan and OpenGL and even with a less powerful card like that I am getting a lot better performance so maybe it is an AMD driver issue? I'll swap back to my RX580 soon and retest after a full DDU scrub of all the drivers to see how a fresh install reacts to Dolphin.

So try using Start In Fullscreen and see if that works for you! Anyone else who stumbles on this post please give more feedback thanks

[h3llb3nt]

(04-11-2021, 12:08 AM)podcastdog Wrote: I've been tinkering with this problem since my post and I found a solution that seems to be okay for now (still not as decent as DX11 but very close) checking the Start In Fullscreen option makes Vulkan run at 60fps for some reason starting it in Windowed mode breaks it. Could be a driver fault or a recent Dolphin build that doesn't claim full control of the driver until its in exclusive fullscreen mode first. I actually swapped out to my old Nvidia 1050Ti GPU to test a few things with Vulkan and OpenGL and even with a less powerful card like that I am getting a lot better performance so maybe it is an AMD driver issue? I'll swap back to my RX580 soon and retest after a full DDU scrub of all the drivers to see how a fresh install reacts to Dolphin.

So try using Start In Fullscreen and see if that works for you! Anyone else who stumbles on this post please give more feedback thanks

the trick about starting in fullscreen works for me on my Ryzen 7 3700X with a Radeon 5700 XT. using prime hack with DX11 or 12 i get consistent 60fps at 1440p. but when using Vulkan i would get half that and what felt like every other frame stuttering. 

starting up in full screen (and leaving it that way) makes vulkan actually work. if you alt-enter to go to windowed mode it goes back to crappy but switch back to full screen and it works. very odd.