Nvidia 337.50 driver performance increase for dolphin thread

[akimikage]

Nvidia said that this driver will give you moar fps with DX 11 games and I did see small to big fps increase in some of the games I've tested. I want to see if dolphin will get big performance improvements too. I would try it myself but I accidentally deleted my 64bit windows. So please post your results here including your specs. Thanks

[kinkinkijkin]

Dolphin is CPU-bound. No GPU speed enhancements on a GPU with enough power to get 100% at it's given settings will be worth anything in Dolphin. Considering that I don't think that many people have a GTX 610* around here, I see no point to this.

* = My GPU of choice to pick on

[akimikage]

Uhh... actually, Nvidia says this driver gives lower CPU overhead so dolphin is a perfect candidate thus I made this thread.

[kinkinkijkin]

I see; ignore my post, then.

It'll mostly affect dual-core users, though, no? If I had an NVidia card, I'd probably test it (slow enough CPU to count the frames of difference, only two cores, all that stuff). Bummer, there.

[Kodiack]

Dolphin is CPU-bound. No GPU speed enhancements on a GPU with enough power to get 100% at it's given settings will be worth anything in Dolphin. Considering that I don't think that many people have a GTX 610* around here, I see no point to this.

* = My GPU of choice to pick on

The driver is able to tout its performance improvements because it reduces CPU overhead. Some games or programs will see a notable gain, while others may not see any major improvement at all. Your mileage will vary, but at the end of the day every review of 337.50 has shown it to be a net gain.

I'm not sure what sort of improvements Dolphin would see (if any). I doubt the synthetic benchmark would realize any performance boost, although some games may. I would be interested in seeing some testing, but it's not likely to be something that's worth spending more than an hour or so on.

[akimikage]

No, it benefits all kinds of CPU's. I have a quad and it still gives me nice performance improvements on some of the games I play.

@Kodiack
I think it will only take a few minutes rather than an hour.

A. Get the older driver FPS
B. Install 337.50 (no need to restart)
C. Get the new FPS and compare

[Kodiack]

I see; ignore my post, then.

It'll mostly affect dual-core users, though, no? If I had an NVidia card, I'd probably test it (slow enough CPU to count the frames of difference, only two cores, all that stuff). Bummer, there.

By "mostly affecting dual-core users", are you comparing them against single-core configurations, or beefier multi-core setups? The worse someone's processor is, the larger the gain they could potentially see. Of course, this isn't going to perform any miracles if someone's already struggling with Dolphin.

[kinkinkijkin]

Well, more cores means that Dolphin has more space from the OS and driver overheads, making it slightly less effective on 4+ cores.

[tuanming]

@akimikage

How about some screenshots?

[NaturalViolence]

Well, more cores means that Dolphin has more space from the OS and driver overheads, making it slightly less effective on 4+ cores.

That has nothing to do with driver/API overhead. If these things are indeed reduced than dolphins threads will be able to execute the same amount of work in fewer cycles. Regardless of how many "spare cores" there are.