Benchmarking Dolphin

[Xtreme2damax]

I noticed that idle skipping nets a nice performance boost for some games, between a 5 FPS - 15 FPS boost. Haunty halls in SMG2 went from 38 FPS/45 FPS - 55 FPS/60 FPS when I enabled idle skipping. I wonder if developers can optimize the emulator enough someday that we'll see that kind of speedup or better without enabling idle skipping.

[NaturalViolence]

It will happen, but let them focus on accuracy first. We can work on speedups for dolphin AFTER most games are working with little to no problems.

[Xtreme2damax]

Current (important) issues need more attention though or they might never get fixed, too much time is going into other new "features" that are somewhat useless/pointless such as OpenCL among other things that virtually have no known benefit so far, OpenCL builds run all the same for me as the normal builds with no improvement in speed whatsoever.

I wish there was better project management, the Linux and Mac builds should technically be moved to a separate branch to keep the codebase for the Windows builds clean of code for other platforms. a small or medium sized group of developers familiar with alternative platforms such as Linux and Mac should be assigned to these branches/platforms, developers familiar with developing for Windows should stick to the Windows build. The Hyrule Field slowdown issue and a lot of audio issues have existed for a year or more now, there doesn't seem to be much interest or incentive from the developers to fix issues that are deemed more important than adding yet more new (pointless) features where the benefit isn't known or thoroughly tested, if there is any benefit at all. There has been things that have been broken in past commits and have remained unfixed for months now despite reporting these regressions a while back.

I'm not trying to insult the project and the developers, just offer suggestions for things to improve.

[NaturalViolence]

I am starting to become fairly convinced that the problem is somehow related to the cpu. Yet another person has reported almost no slowdown with an i7 cpu. I know that this doesn't make any sense but for some reason it is starting to seem true (at least until I get evidence/results that contradict this).

[Xtreme2damax]

Well if the problem has anything to do with the cpu, it probably isn't related to how powerful the cpu is. Some have confirmed little to no slowdowns on Core2duo's and Phenoms, so it seems to be something unique that triggers the issue in certain systems. I just wish there was more involvement from the actual developers to properly debug and fix this issue.

I just saw on the Pcsx2 repository that there was a weird slowdown bug that caused a certain game to run at 1 FPS, with five hours time the issue was completely fixed. Any developers mind providing some feedback, theories, and results regarding this issue? What has been done so far (if anything) to determine the source of this issue and debug besides what has already been mentioned in the Hyrule Field Slowdown thread?

[storm20200]

(06-25-2010, 01:53 PM)NaturalViolence Wrote: I am starting to become fairly convinced that the problem is somehow related to the cpu. Yet another person has reported almost no slowdown with an i7 cpu. I know that this doesn't make any sense but for some reason it is starting to seem true (at least until I get evidence/results that contradict this).

Where abouts in the game do you need to be? Is it right after you complete the dungeon with the gorons that you experience slowdown? I do have a saving of that time I believe but I've not yet tested it. If my saving works it's when I have the first twilight I think, I could load it up and see what FPS I get if you want?

EDIT: *sigh* nvm, I imported my save but unfortunately the emulator doesn't even realise there is any savings there. I tested my other wii saves such as fire emblem and they worked so instead I guess I'll have a look around online for savings. Unless of course anyone has a spare PAL saving before and after the bug on hand?

EDIT AGAIN: I got a saving right at the end of the game, on the intro screen I was getting 80FPS~, when the intro finished with wolf link looking at a twilight (I think, been a while so can't remember names) I was getting 35FPS. Then when I was in hyrule with about 10 people on the screen it was 35FPS. As SOON as I entered hyrule field from the second the black started fading I was getting 18FPS regardless of what I done, I tried moving around, using the magic sword attack and it stayed at 17-18, never lowered. Reached 22FPS for a second then went back down. This is with the settings in my sig, guess I'm not one of the lucky people to not get the bug. I used the settings listed in the first post.

[Xtreme2damax]

We need more involvement, participation and interest from the actual developers since they are the ones that can fix this issue and many other performance issues.

[NaturalViolence]

Quote:Where abouts in the game do you need to be? Is it right after you complete the dungeon with the gorons that you experience slowdown? I do have a saving of that time I believe but I've not yet tested it. If my saving works it's when I have the first twilight I think, I could load it up and see what FPS I get if you want?

Once the twilight is completely gone (all of the light spirits have been restored) the slowdown starts to get serious. I need you to have finished restored all of the light spirits.

Quote:Well if the problem has anything to do with the cpu, it probably isn't related to how powerful the cpu is. Some have confirmed little to no slowdowns on Core2duo's and Phenoms, so it seems to be something unique that triggers the issue in certain systems. I just wish there was more involvement from the actual developers to properly debug and fix this issue.

The problem is I cannot confirm that any of those people have reached the stage of the game where significant slowdowns occur. Many of them simple don't realize that the problem only occurs late in the game. I have done some fiddling with clock rates with JADS and several others and I can confirm that having a very powerful cpu seems to significantly reduce the slowdown while having a more powerful video card does absolutely nothing.

[storm20200]

(06-26-2010, 12:55 PM)NaturalViolence Wrote:

Quote:Where abouts in the game do you need to be? Is it right after you complete the dungeon with the gorons that you experience slowdown? I do have a saving of that time I believe but I've not yet tested it. If my saving works it's when I have the first twilight I think, I could load it up and see what FPS I get if you want?

Once the twilight is completely gone (all of the light spirits have been restored) the slowdown starts to get serious. I need you to have finished restored all of the light spirits.

Like I said I found a PAL saving that's right at the end of the game, it has every item and all hearts, all key items too so I can only imagine the guy who uploaded it is being truthful about it being 100% complete.

[NaturalViolence]

Quote:Like I said I found a PAL saving that's right at the end of the game, it has every item and all hearts, all key items too so I can only imagine the guy who uploaded it is being truthful about it being 100% complete.

Well who is this person? What framerates did he say he was getting in hyrule field? What cpu did he say he was using? I don't see how him being truthful about completing the game is important if he didn't give any info about the problem.