Getting Pikmin 2 to work

[sky303]

Okay so first off ill apologize if this is the wrong forum subsection, ( new here). Im trying to get the audio in pikmin 2 to stop stuttering. the game loads and runs fine but the audio is completely ruined.

Computer Specs: ( according to the FAQ i SHOULD be able to run this game on Dolphin)


CPU: Intel i7-2675QM CPU @ 2.20ghz
Graphics card: Intel HD Graphics 3000 (i have switchable graphics card, samsung chronos 7 laptop might be the issue (?), i have dolphin set to high performance on my catalyst control center)
Ram: 8GB

Dolphin version: Both the 4.0 and the version with a different branch beta(https://forums.dolphin-emu.org/Thread-green-notice-development-thread-testing-of-audio-latency-fix-branch) Neither work with pikmin 2 currently.
Dolphin settings:
same as in the wiki link for suggested windows 7 64 bit settings

Things i've tried so far:

https://forums.dolphin-emu.org/Thread-green-notice-development-thread-testing-of-audio-latency-fix-branch

https://forums.dolphin-emu.org/Thread-howto-getting-dsp-lle-dumps

https://wiki.dolphin-emu.org/index.php?title=Pikmin_2_(GC)

https://dolphin-emu.org/docs/faq/

I've also tried HLE with different latency settings on audio OpenAL.

Nothing is working. The audio still stutters horribly but the rest of the game is seemingly fine, with LLE on though i get the occasional black out screen where the entire frame goes black.

I have read that some people suggest going back to Dolphin version 3.5, any advice is greatly appreciated. thanks in advance

EDIT: after watching this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYBki5QUj5k its possible my frames are lagging/ loading slow. as the opening scene in mine goes much slower.

Just tested it with dolphin 3.5, no frame stutter, only audio now!

[Shonumi]

What speed are you running Pikmin 2? If you're not running it at fullspeed, you'll run into audio issues. You should really try the latest Dolphin revisions (4.0-4222 as of this writing). They're very fast (even in comparison to 3.5 and older builds) and it may give you the speed boost you need to get past crackling/stuttering audio.

[sky303]

Sorry im not sure how to check that. could you link me to something or explain it ?

I've gotten the audio to work decently on 3.5 of dolphin.
the latest version of dolphin is a nightmare (4.0). nothing worked on it.

[Shonumi]

To see the speed of Dolphin, just make sure to run Dolphin in Windowed mode (aka, don't use fullscreen). You should see a % at the top of your screen. If it's not 100%, you're not running the game at fullspeed.

Also, 4.0 is not the latest revision of Dolphin. It's 4.0-4222 (over 4000 changes have happened since 4.0! We've been busy). Go here -> https://dolphin-emu.org/download/ Then grab the very first one you see (don't scroll down, it only gets older). 4.0 is an old stable build that was notorious for being slow. The latest development builds have changed that.

[sky303]

Okay. Downloaded 4.0-4222. Same issues only worse, frames visually lag now ( as well as audio) and every other frame blacks out... same settings as on 3.5 as on the wiki page.

speed:

[Shonumi]

But what speed are you running it at? This is kind of important to know :p

If you could, download CPU-Z and GPU-Z (google them online), run these programs and then run Dolphin at the same time. Take a screenshot after a minute or two of the result (all 3 programs running, e.g. your entire screen). It sounds like your CPU is throttling (staying at 2.2GHz or some other low speed. Pikmin 2 isn't known to be an especially demanding game. Be sure to set you Internal Resolution to 1x as well, as the Intel HD 3000 is not particularly strong for Dolphin.

If it turns out that your CPU is throttling and running at low speeds, we can go from there and figure out how to improve that.

[sky303]

speed is in thumbnail i think. last number in the blue bar?
and ok ill try that and post screenshots

Also, I assume you want the sensors tab open when i scrnshot?

[Shonumi]

Yeah, that's the speed Dolphin is running at. However, the "how to Wiimote" intro screen doesn't always reflect what speed you'll get in game. What's the speed like when you play?

Additionally, try using HLE audio. LLE audio is very demanding on your CPU, and in the latest development builds, it may be the cause of your slowdown. Your system really can't handle LLE audio given its specs. I know HLE has some issues on games like this, but you'll have to sacrifice a bit of quality for a whole bunch of speed-ups. I know you said you already tried HLE audio before, but it doesn't seem like you've tried it on 4.0-4222. Give it a shot.

[sky303]

HLE in latest version didn't do anything. Speed in latest 4.0-4222 stays around 10% LOL.
heres the gpu, cpu and speed with HLE on. the black frame is what it keeps doing, flickering black.

[Shonumi]

You're probably getting an error that's specific to Intel HD 3000s. It's known to have several incompatibilities with Dolphin.

It looks like your speeds are staying around 2.2GHz, which means your CPU is throttling. You can try this laptop performance guide (https://forums.dolphin-emu.org/Thread-unofficial-laptop-performance-guide), but if that doesn't help, your hardware is just too slow to run this game enjoyably.