Apollo Lake

ManicsMan · 06-10-2018, 11:51 PM #1

I use a J4205 based system and CPU usage is low while running Dolphin. My gripe is that the sound tend to stutter but I with CPU usage so low, I can't work out what the issue is. While reading several other accounts of sound issues, there are others who experience this with fairly new i7 systems.

Without pinpointing the issue with the sound I can't say if the J4205 SoC is the cause but I welcome feedback from other users' experiences of running Dolphin in Apollo Lake based systems. Please don't just state that it won't run, willy-nilly. It is other users' experiences that I am asking for.

TKSilver · 06-11-2018, 07:19 AM #2

Are you monitoring overall CPU use or each core separately? As a 4 core system even if one core is maxed completely it will only show as 25 or so % of the CPU being used since that is what is being used.

I have used a n4200 based system and tested Dolphin, honestly very light games worked, but even with no enhancements they were not full speed so the sound was not right and anything demanding was really not great. It does work very nicely as TV box \ media streaming device though. While I have not tested a J4205 system the reaserch I have done indicates it should have similar performance to the n4200.

**mstreurman** · 06-11-2018, 05:40 PM #3

(06-11-2018, 07:19 AM)TKSilver Wrote: Are you monitoring overall CPU use or each core separately? As a 4 core system even if one core is maxed completely it will only show as 25 or so % of the CPU being used since that is what is being used.

I have used a n4200 based system and tested Dolphin, honestly very light games worked, but even with no enhancements they were not full speed so the sound was not right and anything demanding was really not great. It does work very nicely as TV box \ media streaming device though. While I have not tested a J4205 system the reaserch I have done indicates it should have similar performance to the n4200.

I have used a n3350 Celeron, which is a 2 core version of the Apollo lake series, (1.1GHz base, 2.4GHz boost) but it really is too slow to really run anything in Dolphin, even games that are known to be easy to emulate like NSMB never run close to full speed.

ManicsMan · 07-01-2018, 12:01 AM #4

Thanks for the information. Regarding CPU usage, none of the 4 cores had maxed out. Gameplay within Wii Sports was acceptable. What I cannot understand is the stuttering sound. Even on the Wii Sports title screen, the sound stutters.

**KHg8m3r** · 07-01-2018, 12:36 AM #5

Windows will move the load around on the 4 core to prevent thermal throttling, which is why you won't "see" any of the cores get maxed out. Just look at the percentage of the CPU load that Dolphin takes up. Is it around 25%?

The sound stutters because the sound is linked to the speed of the game (unlike PC games). So if the game is stuttering or not going fullspeed, then the sound will do the same thing. You can try and offset this by using the latest dev builds and under Config > Audio, enable Audio stretching. It may help

ManicsMan · 07-01-2018, 01:02 AM #6

(07-01-2018, 12:36 AM)KHg8m3r Wrote: Windows will move the load around on the 4 core to prevent thermal throttling, which is why you won't "see" any of the cores get maxed out. Just look at the percentage of the CPU load that Dolphin takes up. Is it around 25%?

The sound stutters because the sound is linked to the speed of the game (unlike PC games). So if the game is stuttering or not going fullspeed, then the sound will do the same thing. You can try and offset this by using the latest dev builds and under Config > Audio, enable Audio stretching. It may help

The sound issue even manifests itself on the title screen of Wii Sports. I will try the Audio Stretching option although I don't remember this setting, having tried various sound settings.

25% overall CPU usage is correct. I wasn't aware of Windows 10 load balancing, but as a software developer myself, that is very useful to know, thanks.

**Helios** · 07-01-2018, 02:51 AM #7

Windows thread scheduling is fine. You would see this in Linux and macos as well. What you're seeing here is your weak CPU choking the JIT thread so the GPU thread has to wait on it. Or vice versa

ManicsMan · 07-01-2018, 03:09 AM #8

(07-01-2018, 02:51 AM)Helios Wrote: Windows thread scheduling is fine. You would see this in Linux and macos as well. What you're seeing here is your weak CPU choking the JIT thread so the GPU thread has to wait on it. Or vice versa

Great answer and makes perfect sense. I have recently been reading about how the Wii instructions are translated to x86 code. So, despite being on the title screen of Wii Sports, Dolphin is still processing Wii instructions into x86 instructions during runtime using JIT.

This issue had me completely baffled for a while as I couldn't think why audio could be so troublesome so thanks for your reply in mentioning the JIT thread and also thanks to everyone else for their input.

ManicsMan · 09-08-2018, 11:36 PM #9

Hmmm, it seems the Apollo Lake wasn't the problem. Just bought a new board with AMD R2400G APU and exactly the same problem.

**DJBarry004** · 09-09-2018, 05:19 AM **#10**

You moved from a 4C-4T CPU to a 4C-8T.

Not sure why you would still have slowdowns with that Ryzen APU though.

You never said what games are you trying to play BTW.