SMG2 starbit pickup lag

[iondune]

I am playing SMG2 on Dolphin 4.0.2 (Nov 29 2013) with an i7 3770 (not overclocked) and an NVidia 660 Ti.

I am using all of the settings specified in the wiki and the game runs at a pretty smooth 60fps but I am experiencing lag whenever I pick up starbits. If I do not pick up any starbits then the game runs fine. When I pick up starbits, I'll experience a drop in performance (and everything seems to go slow-mo) for a second or two before speeding back up.

The wiki suggests that using `Alternate Wiimote Timing` can fix an issue with Wiimote lag when picking up starbits. I have `Enabled Speaker Data` unchecked, but this also seems to be describing a different problem - my Wiimote isn't lagging, it's the entire game.

I found some threads that may be about the issue but they all seem to suggest turning on `Alternate Wiimote Timing`. When I search for why this option is no longer present in my version of Dolphin, the posts say to disable 'Enable Speaker Data' in Wiimote settings, but I have already done this and the problem persists.

My settings in an imgur album for convenience: http://imgur.com/a/TzKOY
Let me know if I should attach here instead.

[KHg8m3r]

Turn off DSP LLE on separate thread, switch to OpenGL, enable the Vertex Streaming Hack (OpenGL only), set full screen resolution to auto, and your card can handle some more AA/AF.

OpenGL is the fastest backend. If you want more speed, use one of the latest dev builds. They have some new OpenGL extensions that replace Vertex Streaming Hack for a good speed boost on Nvidia cards.

You are probably hitting a CPU bottleneck, though. SMG is a very CPU intensive game. Turning off LLE on thread might fix that problem (LLE on thread doesn't give a speed improvement since the audio backend rewrite).

[Anti-Ultimate]

Same thing happens on my i5 4670k, LLE has had this for a while. If there is lots of things going on it will lag (I think it didn't happen with LLE on Thread but it's broken now)

[iondune]

Turn off DSP LLE on separate thread, switch to OpenGL, enable the Vertex Streaming Hack (OpenGL only), set full screen resolution to auto, and your card can handle some more AA/AF.

OpenGL is the fastest backend. If you want more speed, use one of the latest dev builds. They have some new OpenGL extensions that replace Vertex Streaming Hack for a good speed boost on Nvidia cards.

You are probably hitting a CPU bottleneck, though. SMG is a very CPU intensive game. Turning off LLE on thread might fix that problem (LLE on thread doesn't give a speed improvement since the audio backend rewrite).

Thanks - using those settings now and the graphics look great but I still have the slowdown. Runs at an even 60 FPS, then drops to 40 whenever I pick up starbits. Definitely playable, but...

Same thing happens on my i5 4670k, LLE has had this for a while. If there is lots of things going on it will lag (I think it didn't happen with LLE on Thread but it's broken now)

Would you recommend fishing through old versions (I assume 3.5 would be the best bet?) or would I be better off living with the slowdowns?