Struggling Performance with Dolphin 4.0.x

Individ · (This post was last modified: 02-06-2014, 01:56 AM by Individ.)

There are many threads on this subject and I have read through them all without finding a solution, so here I am starting a new one.

I've been using Dolphin 3.5 flawlessly for a long time, yet have had issues since Dolphin 4.0 (and all versions since).

Issue: Gameplay suffers from severe audio stuttering, lag and frame rates hovering around 30-35.

Games: This is not limited to any one game, and is occurring with Mario Kart Wii, Smash Bros. Brawl, Zelda: Twilight Princess, etc... (all of which work flawlessly with 3.5)

Operating System: Windows 7 SP1 x64
Processor/CPU: Intel i7 3630QM @ 2.40Ghz
Video Card/GPU: Nvidia GTX 670MX
Memory/RAM: 16GB DDR3 Samsung
Dolphin Revision Currently Using: 4.0.2 x64

What I've done: I have followed the Laptop Performance Guide, and have tested every possible configuration I could think of and then retested MK after restarting Dolphin between every change, yet the issue persists. My current configuration is attached below, and has been tested with both Direct 3D11 and OpenGL.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

**KHg8m3r** · 02-06-2014, 02:50 AM #2

Under Enhancements, change the IR to like 2x, 2.5x, or 3x. Dolphin doesn't like auto window size sometimes.
Turn off Limit by FPS.
Disable DSPLLE on separate thread. It seems to give some performance drops when a game uses LLE (which some games will turn on if they use zelda ucode audio engine)

Individ · 02-06-2014, 04:50 AM #3

(02-06-2014, 02:50 AM)KHg8m3r Wrote: Under Enhancements, change the IR to like 2x, 2.5x, or 3x. Dolphin doesn't like auto window size sometimes.
Turn off Limit by FPS.
Disable DSPLLE on separate thread. It seems to give some performance drops when a game uses LLE (which some games will turn on if they use zelda ucode audio engine)

Thanks for the recommendation. I gave it a go, but no dice. Tried it with both OpenGL and Direct3D11. For MK, the game starts fine on the welcome screen at 60fps, then remains strong when choosing a player profile, but after that once I get to the screen to choose 1 player, 2 player, etc.. it drops to 35-39fps, the graphics look glitchy and the audio stutters. This behaviour seems pretty consistent regardless of what I try... which leads me to believe that something else may be the problem, I just don't know what.

**KHg8m3r** · 02-06-2014, 05:29 AM #4

Try these:
1) Update drivers, Windows updates, DirectX Web installer (may be missing some parts), and latest version of Visual C++
2) Make sure under Power Management in Windows you're running in High Performance. Also set a high performance profile under Nvidia Control Center
3) Use the OpenGL backend on one of the latest dev builds, as it is faster than D3D. In the dev builds, there are some OpenGL 4.4 enhancements that speed it up like the Vertex Streaming Hack did. The current dev build is 4.0-804

Make sure you have the latest Nvidia Drivers, 332.21 or 334.67 beta

Downloads for #1

Spoiler: (Show Spoiler)

Individ · 02-06-2014, 09:10 AM #5

(02-06-2014, 05:29 AM)KHg8m3r Wrote: Try these:
1) Update drivers, Windows updates, DirectX Web installer (may be missing some parts), and latest version of Visual C++
2) Make sure under Power Management in Windows you're running in High Performance. Also set a high performance profile under Nvidia Control Center
3) Use the OpenGL backend on one of the latest dev builds, as it is faster than D3D. In the dev builds, there are some OpenGL 4.4 enhancements that speed it up like the Vertex Streaming Hack did. The current dev build is 4.0-804

Make sure you have the latest Nvidia Drivers, 332.21 or 334.67 beta

Downloads for #1

Spoiler: (Show Spoiler)

Check CPU/Intel HD drivers: http://www.intel.com/p/en_US/support/detect

Nvidia drivers:
332.21: http://www.geforce.com/drivers/results/71706
334.67: http://www.geforce.com/drivers/results/72576

DirectX: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/...aspx?id=35

Visual C++: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/...x?id=40784

Cool. So I installed latest Visual c++ (the 2012 redistributable i believe), Direct X was already up to date, and I clean installed latest nvidia beta driver (I was running the latest WHQL before that). I also updated my Realtek HD Audio driver too. I rebooted between each and clean installed everything. All other drivers (Intel Chipset and such) are up to date already.

I'm not sure if this is related to the beta driver or not, but I'm getting a couple of error messages now when I try and load up any game (see attachments). I tried with the latest dev revision 4.0-804, and even the previous 4.0-800 which was loading successfully before the driver updates just to be sure, but both are giving the same errors on top of a black screen.

**DJBarry004** · 02-06-2014, 09:42 AM #6

1- The latest VC++ version is 2013, not 2012.

2- The first error ocurs qhen you force any enhacement via the GPU driver.

Individ · 02-06-2014, 10:10 AM #7

(02-06-2014, 09:42 AM)DJBarry004 Wrote: 1- The latest VC++ version is 2013, not 2012.

2- The first error occurs when you force any enhancement via the GPU driver.

Thank you sir, not sure why 2013 never came up when I first searched. Now I'm up to date.

As for the error, I'm not sure what that may mean. The only "enhancement" via the GPU Driver could have been the fact that I created a 3D profile for "High Performance" for dolphin.exe. I've removed it but the errors still occur. This appears to only come up when I choose Open GL. Direct 3D11 will get me into the game as per before, but with the same lagging issues.

**DJBarry004** · (This post was last modified: 02-06-2014, 10:13 AM by DJBarry004.)

I wasn´t talking about that. I was talking about MSAA (the Anti-aliasing, which was activated in the driver). That causes the first error.

Let me explain: Dolphin only works well with any setting (anti-aliasing in this case) selected on its own options. Forcing an option from the driver causes errors like the first one you have been experiencing.

Individ · (This post was last modified: 02-06-2014, 11:56 AM by Individ.)

(02-06-2014, 10:11 AM)DJBarry004 Wrote: I wasn´t talking about that. I was talking about MSAA (the Anti-aliasing, which was activated in the driver). That causes the first error.

Let me explain: Dolphin only works well with any setting (anti-aliasing in this case) selected on its own options. Forcing an option from the driver causes errors like the first one you have been experiencing.

Got it. Turns out there was a feature in the Nvidia Control Panel that was set differently than usual, which I modified to "let the application decide" the 3D Settings. Worked like a charm in clearing up the error messages, so thanks for that!

Unfortunately my original lag issue is no better than before Sad

**LordVador** · 02-06-2014, 11:34 PM **#10**

(02-06-2014, 01:55 AM)Individ Wrote: Gameplay suffers from severe audio stuttering, lag and frame rates hovering around 30-35.

Dolphin 4.0 is a bit more demanding than Dolphin 3.5 . This may explain your drop of performance.
Dolphin 4.0 has new AX-HLE. This is the source of your stutterings. New AX-HLE won't work properly is you can't run games full-speed. Most games won't run full-speed with your CPU