Bad performance albeit good hardware

[kratos680]

Hi everyone,

i startet to use Dolphin yesterday, but unfortunately i have quite bad performance issues.

My system:
- Intel Core i7 3630QM
- 8GB DDR3 RAM (timings aren´t important i guess?!)
- AMD Radeon HD 7970M
- Windows 7


I tried Mario Kart Wii and Xenoblade Chronicles in default settings.
While Mario Kart run above 50fps most of the time, it also drops below 25fps sometimes. And even when the fps are good, the sound often stutters.

Xenoblade Chronicles consistantly runs between 20 and 25fps, the sound also stutters, even when the video isn´t.

I think the problem is due to the fact, that my graphic card isn't recognized properly. In the catalyst control center i applied "high performance" to the Dolphin.exe and the energy settings of my laptop are also on "high performance".
Nevertheless in Dolphin i can only select my on board Intel HD Graphics 4000 (but other programs like CPU-Z also only show this one)

When i run CPU-Z while Dolphin is running, the clock speed is mostly at ~3.200,
but sometimes it drops to ~1.100 for a second or two.

I tried different graphic card drivers and different Dolphin settings, but i really think, that my graphic card isn´t recognized.

[DJBarry004]

The stutter occurs because your CPU is not strong enough to handle those games. Both Xenoblade and MK Wii are sort of demanding.

[kratos680]

(02-03-2014, 01:10 AM)DJBarry004 Wrote: The stutter occurs because your CPU is not strong enough to handle those games. Both Xenoblade and MK Wii are sort of demanding.

wow really?
Does Dolphin only use 1 core?

Is there something i can do? I know overclocking isn´t recommendend on laptops due to heat problems.

[Anti-Ultimate]

(02-03-2014, 01:07 AM)kratos680 Wrote: I think the problem is due to the fact, that my graphic card isn't recognized properly. In the catalyst control center i applied "high performance" to the Dolphin.exe and the energy settings of my laptop are also on "high performance".
Nevertheless in Dolphin i can only select my on board Intel HD Graphics 4000 (but other programs like CPU-Z also only show this one)

On most Notebooks with Dual Graphics solutions, the dedicated GPU's framebuffer gets send to the Integrated Graphics to display.
Thus, most (if not all) applications only see your Intel IGP as the only Graphics adapter.

There should be a switch to turn that off in the BIOS though if you aren't really sure.

[DJBarry004]

@OP: No, Dolphin is dual-core app (triple-core app when using DSP on thread).

[kratos680]

So is there anything i can do? I already tried the special settings for Xenoblade mentioned in the game thread.

- Would overclocking help significantly?
- Can i verify,what GPU Dolphin is using? Or does Dolphins performance almost only rely on the CPU?

[DJBarry004]

Yeah, Dolphin relies in CPU power most of the time. GPU is heavily used by Dolphin if you, for example, wish to run a game at 4X IR with 4X/9X Anti-aliasing. The better GPU you have, the more IR you will be able to get; the better CPU you have, the faster games will be. (Don´t even know if I put all this correctly, anyone help me correcting this ).

Most performance problems are solved by overclocking, but since you´re on a portable machine you´ll want to take a look at the laptop performance guide.

[kinkinkijkin]

Timings are important if, for some reason, your CPU's integrated graphics are doing the rendering.

There's a guide somewhere for making sure that it's going through your GPU (I think), but hell if I know where that is. If you do that, you MIGHT experience better speeds. (note: it's probably just for nvidia, that guide, might not work on AMD's supposedly crappy solution for it, also, I've never read it, if you can't tell yet, and don't plan to read it when I find it, because I don't have or plan to have a laptop)

DJBarry: Intel IGPUs can be slowed down immensely by slow system RAM. System RAM has much higher latency and much lower effective bandwidth than a GPU nowadays needs, and it won't be helped by single-channel DIMMs running at DDR3-800. When running on system RAM that isn't extremely fast for system RAM, your performance can suffer horribly, even in dolphin at 1x IR with all enhancements disabled.

[DJBarry004]

@kinkinkijkin: Hell dude, I wasn´t remembering that. Intel IGPs memory uses DVMT which needs shared RAM amount. Slow RAM, slow IGP. You are really learning fast.

But, CPU power does (in large proportions, most of the time) have influence in Dolphin´s performance.

[KHg8m3r]

https://forums.dolphin-emu.org/Thread-unofficial-laptop-performance-guide

The performance guide mentioned earlier by DJBarry004