Opengl micro stutter

[Forgottenkey]

No matter what version of dolphin i use i get micro stuttering about every 10-15 seconds. The game is always at 60fps 100% speed. I've tried turning vsync on and off in both dolphin and nvidia control panel. Framelimit in dolphin is also set to auto and I've also tried 60 but nothing works. This happens in any game. An example is super mario galaxy 2, if i just stand there and go into first person view and pan the camera around horizontally after about 10-15 seconds it will stutter for about 3 seconds stop then repeat. Audio doesn't stutter or anything because the game is always at a 100% speed and fps. Yes the progressive scan option is off in dolphin and no its not me playing the game for the first time so its not textures being cached. This does not happen in d3d, but i want opengl to work properly for me because mario kart wii and a few other games slow down to a snails pace when caching new textures in d3d. Please if u guys have any ideas for me to fix this it would be much appreciated because im going crazy triying! I have pretty good specs so i don't understand why this is happening?  

Specs:
[color=#000000]Operating System:
Windows 8.1 64-bit
Processor/CPU:
4th Gen Intel Core i7 4810MQ 2.8GHz-3.7GHz(Turbo)
Video Card/GPU:
Nvidia GTX 880m 8gb GDDR5
Memory/RAM:
32gb GDDR3[/color]

[Link_to_the_past]

(12-23-2014, 06:11 PM)Forgottenkey Wrote: No matter what version of dolphin i use i get micro stuttering about every 10-15 seconds. The game is always at 60fps 100% speed. I've tried turning vsync on and off in both dolphin and nvidia control panel. Framelimit in dolphin is also set to auto and I've also tried 60 but nothing works. This happens in any game. An example is super mario galaxy 2, if i just stand there and go into first person view and pan the camera around horizontally after about 10-15 seconds it will stutter for about 3 seconds stop then repeat. Audio doesn't stutter or anything because the game is always at a 100% speed and fps. Yes the progressive scan option is off in dolphin and no its not me playing the game for the first time so its not textures being cached. This does not happen in d3d, but i want opengl to work properly for me because mario kart wii and a few other games slow down to a snails pace when caching new textures in d3d. Please if u guys have any ideas for me to fix this it would be much appreciated because im going crazy triying! I have pretty good specs so i don't understand why this is happening?  

Specs:
[color=#000000]Operating System:
Windows 8.1 64-bit
Processor/CPU:
4th Gen Intel Core i7 4810MQ 2.8GHz-3.7GHz(Turbo)
Video Card/GPU:
Nvidia GTX 880m 8gb GDDR5
Memory/RAM:
32gb GDDR3[/color]

Is vsync enabled? Try enabling/disabling it to see if it changes anything.

[Forgottenkey]

(12-23-2014, 07:05 PM)Link_to_the_past Wrote:

(12-23-2014, 06:11 PM)Forgottenkey Wrote: No matter what version of dolphin i use i get micro stuttering about every 10-15 seconds. The game is always at 60fps 100% speed. I've tried turning vsync on and off in both dolphin and nvidia control panel. Framelimit in dolphin is also set to auto and I've also tried 60 but nothing works. This happens in any game. An example is super mario galaxy 2, if i just stand there and go into first person view and pan the camera around horizontally after about 10-15 seconds it will stutter for about 3 seconds stop then repeat. Audio doesn't stutter or anything because the game is always at a 100% speed and fps. Yes the progressive scan option is off in dolphin and no its not me playing the game for the first time so its not textures being cached. This does not happen in d3d, but i want opengl to work properly for me because mario kart wii and a few other games slow down to a snails pace when caching new textures in d3d. Please if u guys have any ideas for me to fix this it would be much appreciated because im going crazy triying! I have pretty good specs so i don't understand why this is happening?  

Specs:
[color=#000000]Operating System:
Windows 8.1 64-bit
Processor/CPU:
4th Gen Intel Core i7 4810MQ 2.8GHz-3.7GHz(Turbo)
Video Card/GPU:
Nvidia GTX 880m 8gb GDDR5
Memory/RAM:
32gb GDDR3[/color]

Is vsync enabled? Try enabling/disabling it to see if it changes anything.

Yes i stated that I've tried vsync on and off both in dolphin and my nvidia control panel.

[JMC47]

You are using optimus, a nvidia feature that prevents exclusive fullscreen from working in Dolphin. That is why you get the microstutter.

[shreduhsoreus]

(12-23-2014, 09:24 PM)JMC47 Wrote: You are using optimus, a nvidia feature that prevents exclusive fullscreen from working in Dolphin.  That is why you get the microstutter.

False. If you have your hardware configured correctly, Optimus works perfectly. I would know. I use OpenGL. I get zero "microstutter" and fullscreen works perfectly fine AND my laptop has worse specs than OP. Stop resorting to blaming another company's hardware/software just because you don't have a real answer.



OP, I'm not sure exactly what's causing the problem, but I have worse hardware than you and I don't get that issue. It's not Optimus. Sorry I can't be of more help. If you have Skype, you can note me your ID if you want and we can compare our Nvidia Control Center settings and see if I'm doing anything different than you that's making it run fine for me. About the best I can do for you =/

[Forgottenkey]

(12-23-2014, 09:24 PM)JMC47 Wrote: You are using optimus, a nvidia feature that prevents exclusive fullscreen from working in Dolphin.  That is why you get the microstutter.

Yes i read about optimus causing this problem but how come the exclusive full screen works with optimus and d3d but not opengl? Is there any way for you guys to get it working? is there any way i can get it working? This really sucks because all my emulators that require opengl for best accuracy and compatibility i get micro stutter, Snes9x, ePSXe, and PPSSPP. Although PPSSPP is the only emulator where the d3d backend also has the micro stutter. If i run d3d in any other emulator no micro stutter. Also if i run say Snes9x with my intel HD graphics in opengl no micro stutter. I feel like i got screwed over because i bought this laptop specifically for emulating and i'll tell you its more than powerful enough. I can run SMG2 max settings in the latest dev builds at full speed. But i cant get full compatibility unless i use opengl because d3d is so slow with texture caching in some games. I feel like this is partly dolphin and possibly nvidia's fault i'm so disappointed. Do all optimus machines you have tried have this issue. This is a MSI GT70 dominator pro. 

[Forgottenkey]

(12-23-2014, 10:15 PM)shreduhsoreus Wrote:

(12-23-2014, 09:24 PM)JMC47 Wrote: You are using optimus, a nvidia feature that prevents exclusive fullscreen from working in Dolphin.  That is why you get the microstutter.

False. If you have your hardware configured correctly, Optimus works perfectly. I would know. I use OpenGL. I get zero "microstutter" and fullscreen works perfectly fine AND my laptop has worse specs than OP. Stop resorting to blaming another company's hardware/software just because you don't have a real answer.



OP, I'm not sure exactly what's causing the problem, but I have worse hardware than you and I don't get that issue. It's not Optimus. Sorry I can't be of more help. If you have Skype, you can note me your ID if you want and we can compare our Nvidia Control Center settings and see if I'm doing anything different than you that's making it run fine for me. About the best I can do for you =/

I appreciate the reply but if its not the optimus causing it then i cant figure it out. I assure you i have tried endless combinations of settings in my control panel for dolphin none work. I've even tried turning all off, no combination makes any difference once so ever  im really frustrated. My next and probably last effort to resolve this is to try and uninstall all my nvidia drivers and software and reinstall. If im not mistaken all the opengl components are tied to the nvidia driver software (correct me if im wrong and explain please) because opengl is the only thing affected by this.

[JMC47]

You guys are both mistaken. Optimus prevents Dolphin from getting exclusive fullscreen, and on some configurations that will result in microstutter. I know because I've been studying the issue for quite some time.

So, because you're accusing me of blaming NVIDIA for no reason, let me go into what I actually know about this issue.

1: It happens whenever you have a multi-GPU setup with a NVIDIA card and any other card. I have it on my main box whenever I have an AMD card plugged in. The AMD has no problem obtaining exclusive fullscreen while the NVIDIA is in, though.

2: Not all monitors/configurations are affected by the borderless fullscreen stuttering. I'm not entirely sure why on that.

3: The other examples you gave were mostly really, really old emulators that don't require much power in the modern days.

So, please don't accuse me of just blaming another company's hardware; I do a lot of testing with Dolphin, and trouble shooting this was one of the things I did. I cannot guarantee no microstutter in borderless fullscreen, but in exclusive fullscreen I never have issues.

[Forgottenkey]

(12-23-2014, 11:17 PM)JMC47 Wrote: You guys are both mistaken.  Optimus prevents Dolphin from getting exclusive fullscreen, and on some configurations that will result in microstutter. I know because I've been studying the issue for quite some time.

So, because you're accusing me of blaming NVIDIA for no reason, let me go into what I actually know about this issue.  

1:  It happens whenever you have a multi-GPU setup with a NVIDIA card and any other card.  I have it on my main box whenever I have an AMD card plugged in.  The AMD has no problem obtaining exclusive fullscreen while the NVIDIA is in, though.

2:  Not all monitors/configurations are affected by the borderless fullscreen stuttering.  I'm not entirely sure why on that.

3:  The other examples you gave were mostly really, really old emulators that don't require much power in the modern days.

So, please don't accuse me of just blaming another company's hardware; I do a lot of testing with Dolphin, and trouble shooting this was one of the things I did.  I cannot guarantee no microstutter in borderless fullscreen, but in exclusive fullscreen I never have issues.

Hey i wasn't blaming you it was the other guy. What i don't get is why it works fine with no micro stutter in d3d. The micro stutter also occurs in window mode for opengl.

[JMC47]

I wasn't intending to slight you; you're just trying to find a solution. The uncalled for comments didn't come from you, therefore there's really no hard feelings. Back on topic:

Yeah. That's normal. D3D can obtain exclusive fullscreen even when a second graphics card is in. I really don't know what's going on with the NVIDIA driver to function like this, but I'm pretty sure the way we get Exclusive Fullscreen in D3D is much more foolproof, where as in OpenGL all we can do is set a driver flag.

As for windowed mode; I don't know why you'd get no stuttering in one backend and not the other. As I said, this microstutter is very, very weird, and some people don't see it at all. Other people, like myself, need exclusive fullscreen to avoid it.