Annoying lag in Wind Waker

[Myuzak]

Hey guys, this isn't a major issue, but it is worse than other games I've played with Dolphin. I'm used to experiencing minor hangups on emulators, they aren't perfect after all, but with Wind Waker many scenes seem to pause for half a second every 10 seconds or so (during cutscenes) and depending on what I'm facing (outside of cutscenes). Normally gameplay is fine around 30-40fps, but these hangups show it dropping dramatically very briefly before returning to their stable value. The audio is the most annoying part of this, it's constantly breaking up. I suppose I can live with this but it would be nice if there was something I could do to fix it! EDIT: I should also mention the problem is much worse in full screen! EDIT 2: It gets worse the longer I've been playing! It takes less than a minute before it becomes noticeable.

Specs for convenience:
CPU: Intel Core i7 3630QM @ ~2.4GHz
GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 675M
RAM: 16GB
Dolphin: 4.0-7084

Not sure what graphics and config settings matter so lmk which you might be curious about. I'm using the AR code for widescreen instead of the widescreen hack. OpenGL backend, internal res set to Auto (multiple of original), AA=8x, Filtering=16x, Per Pixel Lighting on,  Force Texture Filtering on. HLE audio, XAudio2.


I'm using custom textures, but I'm not prefetching them to RAM. I tried doing that and the problem didn't seem to change much, if anything it may have worsened. Is it possible my RAM is just slowing down from wear and tear? Had this laptop for a few years now.

[Red Buzzy Beetle]

I get very similar problems when I use Dolphin to play New Super Mario Bros. Wii. Specifically I tend to experience the sort of periodic lag or slowdown issues and accompanying audio crackling that you described. In my case, it seems to happen more frequently in some cases than it others, meaning that when certain graphical effects are present the slowdown will occur and the audio will crackle. I think it might have to do with your emulation speed dropping below 100% or something like that, but I am not completely sure to be honest. Unfortunately, I also am not aware of any definite fix for the issues.

[Myuzak]

I get very similar problems when I use Dolphin to play New Super Mario Bros. Wii.  Specifically I tend to experience the sort of periodic lag or slowdown issues and accompanying audio crackling that you described.  In my case, it seems to happen more frequently in some cases than it others, meaning that when certain graphical effects are present the slowdown will occur and the audio will crackle.  I think it might have to do with your emulation speed dropping below 100% or something like that, but I am not completely sure to be honest.  Unfortunately, I also am not aware of any definite fix for the issues.

Well, my issue has improved somewhat. Turns out the starting island in Wind Waker is just one of the laggier locations in the game. Anywhere with mixed land/water formations seem to cause it a bit worse. Every dungeon, though, has been almost entirely lag free save for Dragon Roost cuz of the fire effects. Basically I believe I jumped the gun on what actually turned out to be regular emulation lag.

[Red Buzzy Beetle]

It seems to me that certain games are just more demanding to run at a decent speed than others, most likely because of CPU-intensive graphical effects being present more or less frequently. Perhaps Wind Waker is just one of the more demanding games.

[Myuzak]

It seems to me that certain games are just more demanding to run at a decent speed than others, most likely because of CPU-intensive graphical effects being present more or less frequently.  Perhaps Wind Waker is just one of the more demanding games.

Yeah I mean it actually runs really well more often than not now. Another factor playing into my issues was that I was attempting to overclock my CPU through Dolphin to improve frame rate a little bit, but doing so was actually making things lag more. It basically just took me a lot of trial and error to find the most playable settings that still look fantastic.

[NKF98]

if overclocking reduced your speed then you are probably overheating, which is not a dolphin issue

[JosJuice]

if overclocking reduced your speed then you are probably overheating, which is not a dolphin issue

"overclock my CPU through Dolphin" sounds to me like they were using Dolphin's setting for CPU speed, not overclocking the real CPU.

[NKF98]

thanks, I read that wrong.

[Myuzak]

Yeah, what JosJuice said. Sorry, I'm fluent in computers but not fluent enough to always nail the terminology haha. Anyways it's been running pretty much fine now. I read in the blog that lots of updates happened in August that helkp WindWaker, so I'm gonna try out the latest release 5.0 candidate and see how WW runs on that version!

[JosJuice]

You will need to use the development builds if you want the improvements from August. 5.0 doesn't include most changes from the last three months.