Random performance differences

[serko]

I've been running dolphin various versions for a while now but mostly now the 3.5 and the latest betas .

i'm having weird issues with game perfomances changing without any obvious reasons for it.
what i mean is, i might start mario kart wii right now and it'll work perfect, but if i close dolphin, open it again, start the game again, it'll be slow as heck and stuttering all over.
This happens with a number of games and appears to be quite random. i don't even temper with the settings. i noticed sometimes when i change audio to hle it goes faster, but even that can change with the same game and otherwise same settings, the next time i load it. I dont seem to have any issues with my other regular windows games like far cry 3 or etc...


my setup is a i5 2500k base speed 3.3 , turboboost has been overclocked to 4.4ghz.
an msi 6950 2gb
8gb ddr3 ram
windows 7 x64 sp1

I have quite some seperate dolphin versions and folders seperately, but they dont interfere with eachother i assume as long as they have seperate folders?

[Garteal]

Have you monitored your CPU clock speed?
Does it (always) boost up to 4.4GHz when you're getting terrible performance?

Does your performance return to normal when you open the graphics settings and press OK or cancel to close it?

[serko]

(07-13-2013, 01:14 AM)Garteal Wrote: Have you monitored your CPU clock speed?
Does it (always) boost up to 4.4GHz when you're getting terrible performance?

Does your performance return to normal when you open the graphics settings and press OK or cancel to close it?

1: i checked if my cpu clock speed goes to turbo on different applications, not so much on dolphin. it does seem to turbo when it has to perform tasks, but what would be good to monitor it during playing dolphin? including the different cores.

2: no, it doesn't actually, even if i drop the settings all the way down like 1x native res or graphical improvement settings all off it doesnt matter, when it starts getting slow it doesn't change a thing. sometimes it did work to change lle back to hle but not even that works all the time.

i thought 3.3ghz base speed of the 2500k was enough to at least run most things decently, even if turboboost didnt work... but i'd like to monitor it anyways.
is it really a smart idea to put the default clockspeed higher than it is right now? if the turboboost function does work right that is.

is

[Garteal]

(07-13-2013, 01:22 AM)serko Wrote: 1: i checked if my cpu clock speed goes to turbo on different applications, not so much on dolphin. it does seem to turbo when it has to perform tasks, but what would be good to monitor it during playing dolphin? including the different cores.

I recommend to overclock using the multipliers on the base clock for this reason. It's much more reliable.
Use HWInfo to monitor your clocks. And yes, do this while Dolphin is running.
Keep in mind that Dolphin uses 2 cores unless you force the DSP HLE/LLE to run on a seperate thread.

(07-13-2013, 01:22 AM)serko Wrote: 2: no, it doesn't actually, even if i drop the settings all the way down like 1x native res or graphical improvement settings all off it doesnt matter, when it starts getting slow it doesn't change a thing. sometimes it did work to change lle back to hle but not even that works all the time.

Graphical settings have nothing to do with the CPU unless you're getting bottlenecked.

(07-13-2013, 01:22 AM)serko Wrote: i thought 3.3ghz base speed of the 2500k was enough to at least run most things decently, even if turboboost didnt work... but i'd like to monitor it anyways.
is it really a smart idea to put the default clockspeed higher than it is right now? if the turboboost function does work right that is.

3.3GHz is alright for most games yes. What mode are you playing in Mario Kart Wii? Are you playing alone or multiplayer?

[hyperspeed]

@serko, your performance issue must be the same issue reported on Issue 5946 and Issue 5666.

[serko]

(07-13-2013, 01:30 AM)Garteal Wrote: is it recommended to put the dsp on a seperate thread?

(07-13-2013, 01:22 AM)serko Wrote: 1: i checked if my cpu clock speed goes to turbo on different applications, not so much on dolphin. it does seem to turbo when it has to perform tasks, but what would be good to monitor it during playing dolphin? including the different cores.

I recommend to overclock using the multipliers on the base clock for this reason. It's much more reliable.
Use HWInfo to monitor your clocks. And yes, do this while Dolphin is running.
Keep in mind that Dolphin uses 2 cores unless you force the DSP HLE/LLE to run on a seperate thread.

(07-13-2013, 01:22 AM)serko Wrote: 2: no, it doesn't actually, even if i drop the settings all the way down like 1x native res or graphical improvement settings all off it doesnt matter, when it starts getting slow it doesn't change a thing. sometimes it did work to change lle back to hle but not even that works all the time.

Graphical settings have nothing to do with the CPU unless you're getting bottlenecked.

(07-13-2013, 01:22 AM)serko Wrote: i thought 3.3ghz base speed of the 2500k was enough to at least run most things decently, even if turboboost didnt work... but i'd like to monitor it anyways.
is it really a smart idea to put the default clockspeed higher than it is right now? if the turboboost function does work right that is.

3.3GHz is alright for most games yes. What mode are you playing in Mario Kart Wii? Are you playing alone or multiplayer?

[Garteal]

(07-13-2013, 01:59 AM)serko Wrote: is it recommended to put the dsp on a seperate thread?

It might improve your performance by a bit, but it might also introduce audio pops. It's up to you.

[serko]

(07-13-2013, 01:34 AM)hyperspeed Wrote: @serko, your performance issue must be the same issue reported on Issue 5946 and Issue 5666.

i don't use savestates though. i could try to roll back to the version they so far think didnt happen yet and see what happens

[pauldacheez]

FYI, if you're using a current build, 98% of games (they all use the AX or AXWii µcode) have absolutely no audio issues under HLE. There's no need to use LLE unless it's a Zelda µcode game (the HLE is crappy for those) or you're having audio issues that LLE fixes. Here's a semi-comprehensive list of Zelda µcode games:
-GameCube BIOS
-Luigi's Mansion
-Animal Crossing (the original one; City Folk likely uses AXWii)
-Pikmin/Pikmin 2 (both GC and Wii "New Play Control!" versions)
-Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat (also both GC and Wii versions)
-Zelda: Wind Waker/Twilight Princess (oddly, Skyward Sword uses AXWii)
-Super Mario Sunshine/Galaxy/Galaxy 2
-Mario Kart: Double Dash (MKWii likely uses AXWii)
-Possibly a Mario Party game or two (they're probably all AX/AXWii, but I dunno for sure)
(General rule of thumb: if Nintendo's internal development teams built the whole game (e.g. didn't have Retro Studios, HAL or Hudson or whoever do the main developin'), it uses the Zelda µcode.)

Also, for DSP on Thread, I recommend not using it under HLE (the performance boost is miniscule/nonexistent), and not on Wind Waker under LLE (else the game occasionally hangs at a black/white/grey screen). For all other games you're using LLE on, go right ahead unless it breaks something.

[serko]

(07-13-2013, 12:02 PM)pauldacheez Wrote: FYI, if you're using a current build, 98% of games (they all use the AX or AXWii µcode) have absolutely no audio issues under HLE. There's no need to use LLE unless it's a Zelda µcode game (the HLE is crappy for those) or you're having audio issues that LLE fixes. Here's a semi-comprehensive list of Zelda µcode games:
-GameCube BIOS
-Luigi's Mansion
-Animal Crossing (the original one; City Folk likely uses AXWii)
-Pikmin/Pikmin 2 (both GC and Wii "New Play Control!" versions)
-Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat (also both GC and Wii versions)
-Zelda: Wind Waker/Twilight Princess (oddly, Skyward Sword uses AXWii)
-Super Mario Sunshine/Galaxy/Galaxy 2
-Mario Kart: Double Dash (MKWii likely uses AXWii)
-Possibly a Mario Party game or two (they're probably all AX/AXWii, but I dunno for sure)
(General rule of thumb: if Nintendo's internal development teams built the whole game (e.g. didn't have Retro Studios, HAL or Hudson or whoever do the main developin'), it uses the Zelda µcode.)

Also, for DSP on Thread, I recommend not using it under HLE (the performance boost is miniscule/nonexistent), and not on Wind Waker under LLE (else the game occasionally hangs at a black/white/grey screen). For all other games you're using LLE on, go right ahead unless it breaks something.

Thank you. That will make many games work faster. but the issue was even with lle in those games, the performances were random. the drops were random one play session perfect, the next horrible with the exact same settings and circumstances.