Mario Galaxy CPU Underutilization

[AzaIndustries]

Hey Everyone, just seeking advice on an issue I'm having.
I've tested all setting combinations and driver configurations I can think of and it hasn't helped.

For some reason I can't get Mario Galaxy to use my spare CPU resources, and it runs fairly slow half of the time with horrible audio.
Other games fully utilise my CPU and run at 60fps most of the time.

For example Mario Kart Wii, NSMB and Donkey Kong Country Returns all run at full speed.

Anyway it's easier to just show you my problem so I've atached two screenshots illustrating the problem.
(just ignore the statistic overlay, was testing to see if it would show anything helpful).

As you can see, Mario Galaxy is only using around 50-60% of my CPU and it hovers around the indefinitly.

Dolphin 4.0 - 4465
OS - Lubuntu 14.04
GPU - AMD R7 250 1G DDR5
CPU - G3258 @ 3.8ghz (have tested at 4.2ghz)
I've tested FGLRX drivers 14.9, 14.6 and the Repository provided packages, As well as the standard open Xorg driver.

Just a note, I've tested MOST settings that effect performance in dolphin, I'd like to think I'm practiced in getting software/emulators to run, so I assure you I havn't missed silly things like the Duel Core speed up, or forgot to check individual game INIs.

Any help and advice would be greatly apreciated.
Thank you for your time.

[Link_to_the_past]

Does it happen with hle audio too?

[AzaIndustries]

Yeah, and it also makes some sound effects deafening. =P
I've also the various compilers.

I even tried disabling audio to see if that would help.

The main logo at the start actually goes up and down, it will run at 60fps for a bit then 45, then back up, constantly.
Gameplay is fairly good, though the main hub thing is 45fps no matter what.

But CPU usage still stays below 60%, and GPU usages maxes out at around 75% but stays at around 60% most of the time.
Temps are fine too, CPU is only 40C and GPU is 52C.

I just can't thinkg of anything else that would be bottlenecking the performance like this.

I attached another image witha cpu usage timeline. Now if I were playing any other game in dolphin both of those cores would be at 90-100% most of the time.
Also ram usage is really low.

[Kurausukun]

Yeah, I wouldn't use HLE for this game even if it does run a little better. All sequenced music is amped way up while streams play at normal/lower levels--it's just not pleasant to listen to. Is the CPU only running at 50-60% for Galaxy specifically, or does it also run like that for other games? Also, how do you have your LLE audio set up? I remember I had an issue because I improperly set the audio through the gameini and it used the interpreter instead of the recompiler. Can you maybe post some images of your Galaxy properties page and your other config pages? I'm no guru myself, but I feel like at least it would help people more knowledgeable than myself.

[AzaIndustries]

Yeah, I wouldn't use HLE for this game even if it does run a little better. All sequenced music is amped way up while streams play at normal/lower levels--it's just not pleasant to listen to. Is the CPU only running at 50-60% for Galaxy specifically, or does it also run like that for other games? Also, how do you have your LLE audio set up? I remember I had an issue because I improperly set the audio through the gameini and it used the interpreter instead of the recompiler. Can you maybe post some images of your Galaxy properties page and your other config pages? I'm no guru myself, but I feel like at least it would help people more knowledgeable than myself.

Actually it's both Mario Galaxy and Super Mario Galaxy 2 that don't use much CPU, Other games I play go beyond the 50-60%.
I'll see if I can get screenies of my settings, though nothing is really solidified atm, I've been testing all kinds of setting combinations.

EDIT: I feel like it might be GPU related even though it's says it's only maxing out at 70% usage. I will do some more testing.

at the moment I'm using
[Core]
DSPHLE = False
[DSP]
EnableJIT = True

It pretty much performs the same as just 'DSPHLE = True' But sound's much better

EDIT 2: It's actually pretty late here, so I'm going off to bed now.
I'll keep working at this problem and if I find anything out I'll post it.
I was mostly curious if someone had come across a similar CPU usage pattern.

Thank's for you input so far.

[mbc07]

Well, Super Mario Galaxy is a GPU heavy game and you're on Linux. As far as I remember, AMD drivers in Linux are pretty shitty, so, it's probably your problem here. About CPU usage, it never reaches 100% with me, at least on Windows, but all my games still run fullspeed, so, this doesn't mean that Dolphin is underutilizing your CPU...

[AzaIndustries]

Well, Super Mario Galaxy is a GPU heavy game and you're on Linux. As far as I remember, AMD drivers in Linux are pretty shitty, so, it's probably your problem here. About CPU usage, it never reaches 100% with me, at least on Windows, but all my games still run fullspeed, so, this doesn't mean that Dolphin is underutilizing your CPU...

Yeah I figured GPU would be the weakest link in this new system I built, I could only fit a single slot, low profile GPU though.

I was just thinking that because GPU usage was low it wouldn't be that, but drivers explain that.
Though I can run fairly new games natively and through wine at decent settings.
Dishonoured through wine runs at high settings, which I know is a lot different than running an emulator but still impressed me on a R7 250, G3258.

I think I'll just have to wait till someone offers a case as small as the antec ISK 300 with duel slow cooling space and upgrade to that. I really didn't want to build one of those cube shaped mini-itx PCs, preferring the more book style cases.
Or if someone releases a more powerful LP, single slot GPU that would be great.

Ah well, I can still play most games, this system is actually an upgrade from my last system dubbed "EmulationStation" this new one being "EmulationStationMKII".
I was running my first in a 2nd hand veriton I got for 50$, it could run SNES, NES, Mame, PS1, N64 perfectly.
This upgraded PC can run all of that with the addition of PCSX2, Dolphin and a whole slew of PC games now, so I can't really complain.

It's quite a stark comparison that SMG1/SMG2 performs so badly compared to how well EVERYTHING else runs.

Thanks for your input.

[Shonumi]

To confirm if the GPU is an issue, just run the game at 1x IR (native Wii resolution) with no AA. If you can play it fine at 1x IR and raising the IR causes a speed drop, that's a pretty easy test to tell if the GPU is becoming the bottleneck.

One thing I noticed from your screenshots is that you seem to be using the JITIL recompiler in Super Mario Galaxy, which is generally not recommended over the JIT recompiler (which is shown in use for Mario Kart Wii). That could easily be a problem, so investigate that before looking at a new GPU.

At any rate, it shouldn't be the CPU that's at issue, since we've have users (like this guy) with your same CPU and run SMG1 or 2 relatively easily.

[AzaIndustries]

To confirm if the GPU is an issue, just run the game at 1x IR (native Wii resolution) with no AA. If you can play it fine at 1x IR and raising the IR causes a speed drop, that's a pretty easy test to tell if the GPU is becoming the bottleneck.

One thing I noticed from your screenshots is that you seem to be using the JITIL recompiler in Super Mario Galaxy, which is generally not recommended over the JIT recompiler (which is shown in use for Mario Kart Wii). That could easily be a problem, so investigate that before looking at a new GPU.

At any rate, it shouldn't be the CPU that's at issue, since we've have users (like this guy) with your same CPU and run SMG1 or 2 relatively easily.

Oh yeah that's wierd, it must have been that one of time and I was testing it.
I normally run it like every other games with the JIT recompiler, the performance between them is similar.

So anyway.. running at native internal resolution improves performance a bit, still not perfect.
Pretty sad, I feel like the GPU has the grunt it's just not being used thanks to shoddy drivers.

Shouldn't GPU performance be similar across emulators vs native games? Because its the CPU doing all the hardware emulation work anyway. What I mean is I can run plenty of more spectacular looking games at way higher resolutions.

I've mostly done research into CPUs as I assumed they did most the work and the GPUs only had to dump the interpreted graphics on your screen.

Ah well. =(

EDIT: How anoying.. the open source drivers run smoother but at a lower FPS and the Propietary drivers run at a higher FPS with massive dips.

[Shonumi]

Shouldn't GPU performance be similar across emulators vs native games? Because its the CPU doing all the hardware emulation work anyway. What I mean is I can run plenty of more spectacular looking games at way higher resolutions.

Not really, because what an emulator needs from a GPU may be totally different from what a modern PC game needs from a GPU. Depending on what Dolphin needs when running SMG 1 or 2, it may cause a bottleneck on the GPU because it runs into circumstances that developers of PC games never encounter. Not saying this is precisely the case here, but it's not surprising if it were. Modern PC games and heavy-duty emulators like Dolphin are two different domains of computer programs.

Anyway, if you can't get decent performance at 1x IR with zero AA, you've confirmed a GPU bottleneck. Since it's only SMG that's doing it, that makes sense, since SMG is really taxing on any GPU.