Do I need to overclock to run Xenoblade perfectly?

[vrtrhex]

I've spent the last few days refining my settings but I'm running out of options. I've eliminated most sound errors and crashing, but I hear a little static from the back ground which might turn into crackles depending on the error after an hour so. My specs are as follows;

GIGABYTE GV-N66TWF2-2GD GeForce GTX 660 Ti 2GB
Intel Core i7-3770 Ivy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.9GHz Turbo)
GIGABYTE GA-Z77X-UD5H LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
Windows 7 16 GB RAM
Dolphin 3.5.1531

So my question is, should I activate my Turbo hopping that it's enough to eliminate the errors or should I overclock it? I know a 3770 isn't made for overclocking, so if I need to push it to 4.5 GHz+, I probably won't. It's my first time using Dolphin, so most of what I've gone on for setting is reading tips and options that might solve the problem. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I drop to 26 frames once every 20 or 30 minutes, the rest of the time I am at 30-31. I'm playing the US version if that helps at all.

I guess my main question is, is the sound messing up every once in awhile because of my computer hardware or because my settings are not optimal? For further reference, I'm using the HD texture pack, have sound skipping enabled, running Vbeam, and everything else is stock.

[admin89]

Your current CPU should have enough power to emulate Xenoblade full speed without overclocking
Try Set Framelimit = 30 and tick "Limit by FPS" , right-click the game - properties - Tick "Vbeam Speed Hack" (and untick "Idle Skipping" to avoid audio stuttering )

Quote:is the sound messing up every once in awhile because of my computer hardware or because my settings are not optimal?

No , You must run game full speed all the time if you want to avoid audio stuttering . There is another way to avoid it : Use Vbeam trick like I mention above

[vrtrhex]

(06-27-2013, 10:48 AM)admin89 Wrote: Your current CPU should have enough power to emulate Xenoblade full speed without overclocking
Try Set Framelimit = 30 and tick "Limit by FPS" , right-click the game - properties - Tick "Vbeam Speed Hack" (and untick "Idle Skipping" to avoid audio stuttering )

Thank you for the help! It's running better but I still get slight issues. It's more than playable, but I am still fiddling with it. Specifically it skips more when the battle music comes on, but all the static that came whenever I quick saved is gone.

EDIT: After about 2 battles, the battle music is back to normal.

[mbc07]

If you can live with small delays in the audio, give OpenAL audio backend a try...

[ExtremeDude2]

(06-28-2013, 08:28 AM)Jhonn Wrote: If you can live with small delays in the audio, give OpenAL audio backend a try...

And I think that may have been fixed

[vrtrhex]

(06-28-2013, 11:06 AM)ExtremeDude2 Wrote:

(06-28-2013, 08:28 AM)Jhonn Wrote: If you can live with small delays in the audio, give OpenAL audio backend a try...

And I think that may have been fixed

Thank you, I tried this as well, but I still have the same minor problems. They really are not that big of deal, but I've recently hit the snow region of the game and now whenever I battle my frames go down to 26-27 in caves of that area. I have all the settings suggested by Admin89, but still no idea what the problem is and why I can't get a constant 30 frames. Is it likely my Dolphin settings causing the problem or my computer?

[admin89]

You can overclock i7 3770 to 4.2GHz without aftermarket cooling (keep you Vcore as low as possible , I recommend 1.2->1.25Vcore)
See if you can squeeze more FPS with that (you will gain 2-3FPS if your CPU bottleneck the game)

[vrtrhex]

(07-01-2013, 02:42 AM)admin89 Wrote: You can overclock i7 3770 to 4.2GHz without aftermarket cooling (keep you Vcore as low as possible , I recommend 1.2->1.25Vcore)
See if you can squeeze more FPS with that (you will gain 2-3FPS if your CPU bottleneck the game)

I think to do this I would just need to adjust the multiplier. However, whenever I start Dolphin it says 3.4 GHZ in the top left corner. So I think I might not be using my Turbo after all.

[vrtrhex]

UPDATE: So I tried running Xenoblade with the stable release of Dolphin 3.5 and it worked great. No more sound errors, the slow downs stopped, everything was fine. Until it crashed. After playing about 20 minutes Dolphin crashed. So I'm wondering if there is a version of Dolphin in between the newest release and the 3.5 release that has both problems fixed. Or does anyone know if they are directly linked?

[LordVador]

Just use very latest builds