Dolphin 4.0 - Choppy/Studdering Audio

[NJMike]

I have seen there have been several issues regarding problems with audio lag/choppiness/stuttering on this forum, but I am making a new topic because I am not very savvy with emulations' technologies and lingo, and I am especially new to Dolphin, so I'm not sure if I may differ.

I have been playing Sonic Adventure 2: Battle, and while the graphics and FPS are smooth, clean and flawless for me, the audio is very choppy/skippy, sometimes severe, sometimes a little subtle.

From what I have seen around these forums, I believe this may have only to do with the fact that my emulation is not hitting full speed? I have tried practically all (suggested/recommended) DSP settings and combinations possible, and nothing seems to really change, if not get worse. Xaudio2 and DSP HLE are my best bet as far as I have experimented.

Here is an image I took earlier in-game, stats of the emulation can be seen at the top of the window: http://gyazo.com/613128fc29df91bf0bc04d7b5b8983a8.png

If needed, here are screenshots of all my settings:

Configuration:
General: http://gyazo.com/a824cd396152cb76bc282260db5cccaf.png
Interface: http://gyazo.com/b143c0d7d3cdef66b948c208e1f357c0.png
DSP: http://gyazo.com/f3f165d7296958c4bbdfe0fc8d629d3e.png

Graphics:
General: http://gyazo.com/592c259f9b37a5a233941c8b8d641062.png
Enhancements: http://gyazo.com/8623fdfa39712ccee38c990f705bc858.png
Hacks: http://gyazo.com/08e672c0550a7dd6dd5597a37d5375b1.png
Advanced: http://gyazo.com/5633278c4e92ae7ab1c4587cb00563b7.png


My computer specs:
ASUS K737V 17" laptop
Windows 7 Premium x64
Intel Core i5-2430M, 2.4 GHz
NVIDIA GeForce GT 540M
4GB RAM

[KHg8m3r]

Don't set IR to auto. Set it to either 2x or 2.5x

[NJMike]

(02-04-2014, 11:15 AM)KHg8m3r Wrote: Don't set IR to auto. Set it to either 2x or 2.5x

Ah, okay. Thanks for the tip.

[KHg8m3r]

Yeah, Dolphin sometimes doesn't like non-native aspect ratios when upscaling, and your GPU may be struggling to keep up.

Did that help with the speed issues?

[NJMike]

(02-04-2014, 12:01 PM)KHg8m3r Wrote: Yeah, Dolphin sometimes doesn't like non-native aspect ratios when upscaling, and your GPU may be struggling to keep up.

Did that help with the speed issues?

Nope, nothing has changed since I changed the Internal Resolution to 2x. The audio is still choppy/laggy as usual.

[skid]

Try changing the Audio Backend from XAudio2 to OpenAL. The OpenAL backend timestretches the audio to cover the lag.

[Shonumi]

The issue is your CPU. As Sonic himself would say, "You're too slow." More seriously, Sonic Adventure 2 is not demanding on the GPU. In Dolphin, the GPU determines how high you can raise things like your resolution and anti-aliasing before those settings cause bottlenecks and slowdowns in emulation. The rest is largely up to your CPU. That is to say, if your GPU is sufficient for your current graphical settings (which it is in this case) the problem is your CPU then.

Make sure your CPU is turbo-boosting correctly. If you're running at 2.4GHz, that's going to cause slowdowns (even though SA2 is a fairly average game in terms of CPU requirements). Google for "dolphin emulator laptop performance guide" and look at the part specifically about CPU Performance.

[KHg8m3r]

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

[NJMike]

(02-04-2014, 01:23 PM)KHg8m3r Wrote: Save you time: https://forums.dolphin-emu.org/Thread-unofficial-laptop-performance-guide

I did everything that guide showed and said, still absolutely nothing has changed or improved.

[KHg8m3r]

Try enabling OpenMP and the Vertex Streaming hack on the version you have installed

Also:
1) Update drivers, Windows updates, DirectX Web installer (may be missing some parts), Visual C++

2) Use the OpenGL backend on one of the latest dev builds, as it is faster than D3D. The current dev build is 4.0-797