Performance Assistance [Specific]

[JosephOrtiz]

I'm new to these forums (as you can tell) and only started using Dolphin fairly recently since I now have the capabilities to run GC/Wii games on PC. However I've done a lot of experimenting, I've utilized the performance guide here on the site and I've viewed several member's posts (on this site and others) without finding a solution to my particular problem.

I will provide my specs in a second, but I first want to state my issue (and give gratitude). I'm quite pleased with Dolphin so far; the games look absolutely stunning, better than on the Wii and I want to thank all the devs for developing Dolphin. However the issue that I'm having is that my games suffer performance wise, but my CPU & RAM never exceed 50%. As far as graphics I have absolutely no issues, but I want to know what I can do (if anything) to further improve performance.

MY PC:
Toshiba P750-04S Notebook
Windows 7 Home Premium x64 SP1
2nd Gen Intel Core i7-2630QM CPU @ 2.00GHz, 2001 Mhz
*Dolphin registers 8 cores and 2 logicals upon game startup*
6GB DDR3 RAM / 11.8GB Total Virtual Memory
NVIDIA GeForce 540M 1GB / Intel HD Graphics Family
Realtek High Definition Audio


DOLPHIN CONFIGURATION:
Enable Dual Core
Enable Idle Skipping
Framelimit: Off
JIT Recompiler
DSP HLE emulation
Enable DTK Music
Enable Audio Throttle
DSound: 32000 Hz
Volume: 100%
Use EuRGB60 Mode
Aspect Ratio: 16:9

GRAPHICS:
OpenGL
Fullscreen resolution: 1366x768
Aspect Ratio: Auto
V-Sync
Use Fullscreen
Render to Main Window
3x Native (1920x1584)
Anti-Aliasing: 16xQ CSAA
Anisotropic Filtering: 16x
Scaled EFB Copy
Force Texture Filtering
EFB Copies: Texture
Texture Cache: Fastest
External Frame Buffer: Disable
Fast Mipmaps
Disable Per-Pixel Depth
Disable Fog
OpenMP Texture Decoder
Enable Progressive Scan


Poor Performance Examples:
No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle {very sluggish, sound falls behind, *now currently crashes the emulator*}
Super Mario Galaxy 2 {very sluggish}
Donkey Kong Country Returns {has its moments where it lags}
Madworld {quite sluggish/slow}
Red Steel 2 {sluggish}
Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition {very sluggish}
*The intro videos to several games have hiccups where minor to moderate lag occurs*


Flipside (Good Performance):
New Super Mario Bros. (No Issues)
Dragon Ball Z Budokai Tenkaichi 3 (GC Controller must be disabled to use the Wiimote, sound glitches and falls behind, however no performance issues)
Metroid Other M {can be sluggish at times, minor sound glitches, but overall enjoyable)
Mario Kart Wii (plays almost perfectly minus the odd start of race and end of race hiccup)
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II {the ocassional lag, but overall no issues}

I have several other examples, but I think these should suffice.....

I greatly appreciate any and all help in this matter and I thank you for your time in advance.


DISCLAIMER: These are all legally purchased games, ripped using CFGUSBLoader on a softmodded Nintendo Wii.

[admin89]

(11-24-2011, 05:17 PM)JosephOrtiz Wrote: 1) OpenGL
2) 3x Native (1920x1584)
3) Anti-Aliasing: 16xQ CSAA
4) Force Texture Filtering

1) Speed : Direct3D9 > Direct3D11 > OpenGL
2) Lower to 2x or 2.5x may gain more FPS
3) No idea . Set AA to none or 2x
4) Disable that option

Speed Hack : Right-click the game inside dolphin - properties - activate Vbeam

[JosephOrtiz]

It appears that Vbeam was already activated on all my games. As far as the other fixes go they did make a small difference, thank you. The lag is still minimal to moderate and I'm still disappointed that I can't use my laptop to its full potential or emulate my games to their max either. I can run BF3 on this PC with no issues, so the Wii should not be giving me problems (logically).

As far as the emulator goes, are there any plans for quad core support to capitalize on the capabilities of a laptop such as mine; or is there something else that I can do to improve my game performance?


P.S. I forgot to mention in my initial post that I am currently running Dolphin 3.0-201-dirty.


Thank You

[Garteal]

Hi Joseph,

As said before, you should definitely try out DirectX9 as it gives the best performance.
Next, you should definitely lower your AA, it's excessive and it is really taxing on your GPU. If you want better graphical output, increase your internal size.
I would say x3 is already more than sufficient. Should you experience lag however, you can turn this down a notch, and see if it helped.
You should also lower your AF, sometimes this breaks games, and it also decreases performance. Try at 1x first, then turn it up gradually if you want to and keep monitoring your FPS.
Disabling vSync might also help.

Disable Force Texture Filtering, no need to have that turned on.

I can already tell you that you will not be able to run SMG2 without it being slowmotion. Your CPU is really good yes, but it lacks the raw clock speed.

As for the VBEAM option, try turning it on and off, see if it helps you or not. For me it actually made performance worse, so check that out.

And last but not least, I encourage you to try the official Dolphin build 3.0 x64 (which you can find on the homepage).