Dolphin LLE performance

[mashakos]

Just came back to find my original thread was derailed and went down in flames

So I'll try again, this time with video captures of two games running on Dolphin 3.0. I used a second PC equipped with an HDMI capture card to record the videos, so while there's a bit of ghosting, the recording has no impact on the framerates.
(Specs and dolphin config in video descriptions)

Super Mario Galaxy
MGS Twin Snakes

All I am asking for is a confirmation from you guys on whether you get slowdowns in the same areas in the vids. Please check out the captures and let me know. Want to confirm where the bottleneck is occurring for me.

Thanks!

[Axxer]

I don't have MGS Twin Snakes, so I only watched SMG.

Tbh I couldn't tell what you were talking about. I couldn't watch with sound or the whole video, though, I was just trying to watch gamespeed.

My computer (which isn't as fast as yours, but is good enough for this game) gets slowdowns in this game every once in a while, so my guess is that that is just about as good as it is gonna get. Check out your CPU loads and if they hit 100 in those spots than yeah, the problem is your CPU and you can't really change much about it. If your GPU is the problem you can change some enhancements though.

With this game and that GPU, the problem is almost definitely the CPU I would think, which means it probably can't be fixed much.

I'll go test this out later when I have the time.

[mashakos]

(09-20-2012, 12:54 PM)Axxer Wrote: Tbh I couldn't tell what you were talking about. I couldn't watch with sound or the whole video, though, I was just trying to watch gamespeed.

I think I should give a small summary for anyone viewing so they don't need to see the whole clip:
Super Mario Galaxy drops down to 49fps in the main world hub for a short period then goes back up again. In the Gusty Garden level (about 7 minutes into the vid), framerates drop down to 49fps a lot more frequently. Lowest framerate is 47fps I think, but with LLE anything below 55fps makes audio distort.
In MGS Twin Snakes, cut scenes go down to 25fps while the actual gameplay runs fine at 50fps (PAL version). Sound is consistently choppy in codec conversations and cut scenes.
FPS counter is visible in the top left corner for both vids.

A bit off topic:
With my settings, codecs are glitchy (using virtual EFB). Used virtual EFB because "real" EFB generates framebuffer effects at gamecube resolutions - pixellated! Anyway to get HD effects with "real" EFB?

[Axxer]

(09-20-2012, 01:07 PM)mashakos Wrote:

(09-20-2012, 12:54 PM)Axxer Wrote: Tbh I couldn't tell what you were talking about. I couldn't watch with sound or the whole video, though, I was just trying to watch gamespeed.

I think I should give a small summary for anyone viewing so they don't need to see the whole clip:
Super Mario Galaxy drops down to 49fps in the main world hub for a short period then goes back up again. In the Gusty Garden level (about 7 minutes into the vid), framerates drop down to 49fps a lot more frequently. Lowest framerate is 47fps I think, but with LLE anything below 55fps makes audio distort.
In MGS Twin Snakes, cut scenes go down to 25fps while the actual gameplay runs fine at 50fps (PAL version). Sound is consistently choppy in codec conversations and cut scenes.

A bit off topic:
With my settings, codecs are glitchy (using virtual EFB). Used virtual EFB because "real" EFB generates framebuffer effects at gamecube resolutions - pixellated! Anyway to get HD effects with "real" EFB?

Hmm, that is odd. I don't think MGS should be going down to 25 FPS (unless the game is programmed to have 25 FPS cutscenes, which is always possible).

There is a sort of hack which helps make LLE audio stutter-free:
1) Enable V-Beam (in the game config)
2) disable Idle Skipping

I believe that will help temporarily solve the issue of LLE stuttering.

As for your speed issues, if you lower the graphics setting does it help with speed at all? Like if you went down to 2x IR? I don't think it should make much of a difference with the 580 but maybe it could.

"Real" EFB? Do you mean Real XFB (eXternal Frame Buffer) or EFB (External Frame Buffer) -> RAM?

[mashakos]

Just had a thought:
InPCSX2, MGS3 has that same sound skipping issue when framerates go down. This is especially the case in certain areas which use framebuffer effects such as cut scenes or codec conversations (thanks Konami!!). A workaround in PCSX2 is to set the audio plugin to "Async mix". Even when framerates drop, audio runs at normal speed - as long as they don't drop to 20fps or less.
Could it be possible to implement functionality similiar to "async mix" for Dolphin's LLE recompiler maybe? This is just a shot in the dark, if one of the devs can chime in with some insight, would be great!

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(09-20-2012, 01:15 PM)Axxer Wrote: As for your speed issues, if you lower the graphics setting does it help with speed at all? Like if you went down to 2x IR? I don't think it should make much of a difference with the 580 but maybe it could.

nah, graphics settings have no impact at all - except for anti-aliasing. i can set everything else as high or as low as I like and framerates don't change.

(09-20-2012, 01:15 PM)Axxer Wrote: There is a sort of hack which helps make LLE audio stutter-free:
1) Enable V-Beam (in the game config)
2) disable Idle Skipping

I believe that will help temporarily solve the issue of LLE stuttering.

That breaks mgs. Haven't tried vbeam with smg though.

(09-20-2012, 01:15 PM)Axxer Wrote: "Real" EFB? Do you mean Real XFB (eXternal Frame Buffer) or EFB (External Frame Buffer) -> RAM?

yeah, XFB. not EFB Copies.

[Axxer]

I don't even use XFB for any of my games. SMG for sure doesn't require it for anything, and you will get a pretty nice speed boost from disabling it.

It says in the wiki that Accurate VBeam Emulation actually speeds up MGS, but maybe it is wrong. If it is, it would be great if you could take that out of the wiki.

[neobrain]

(09-20-2012, 01:15 PM)Axxer Wrote: "Real" EFB? Do you mean Real XFB (eXternal Frame Buffer) or EFB (External Frame Buffer) -> RAM?

EFB stands for Embedded Frame Buffer. There's a reason why external frame buffers are abbreviaded with XFB instead.

[mashakos]

EDIT: This is for Super Mario Galaxy: Just tried your suggestion: enable vbeam and disable idle skipping. It worked! Well, sort of. Now audio is running smoothly but the framerate has dropped to a consistent 30fps, so everything is running at half speed.

(09-20-2012, 01:29 PM)Axxer Wrote: I don't even use XFB for any of my games. SMG for sure doesn't require it for anything, and you will get a pretty nice speed boost from disabling it.

I'm only using XFB for MGS. I will do a quick test now with mgs, to confirm that vbeam leads to sound dropping out.

[Axxer]

(09-20-2012, 01:33 PM)neobrain Wrote:

(09-20-2012, 01:15 PM)Axxer Wrote: "Real" EFB? Do you mean Real XFB (eXternal Frame Buffer) or EFB (External Frame Buffer) -> RAM?

EFB stands for Embedded Frame Buffer. There's a reason why external frame buffers are abbreviaded with XFB instead.

Whoops, I typed the same thing twice Embedded is what I meant, and the OP understood at least.

[mashakos]

Just tried mgs. Sound still skipping with vbeam enabled. In addition to that, enabling vbeam adds this annoying flicker - guessing MGS is an interlaced video title.

It could lead to a speedup but I'm sure don't need it; when I turn frame limits off my framerate shoots up to 70fps - and the audio goes crazy of course

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(09-20-2012, 01:33 PM)neobrain Wrote:

(09-20-2012, 01:15 PM)Axxer Wrote: "Real" EFB? Do you mean Real XFB (eXternal Frame Buffer) or EFB (External Frame Buffer) -> RAM?

EFB stands for Embedded Frame Buffer. There's a reason why external frame buffers are abbreviaded with XFB instead.

uh, lol at your title(?) Not an encouraging statement for a developer to make!