Sudden Unchangeable FPS Drops

[Zach]

I don't remember when this started, or on what build, seeing as I haven't messed with Dolphin in a while, and my waiting until now to make a thread on it doesn't really help my case.

Specs in sig(I think, I did update it).

Okay, so I started Dolphin up a while ago, and I had these...FPS drops. I used to be able to run almost max AA, 3-4x NR and 1440p IR, and all the bells and whistles enabled on most games at playable to perfect speed.

I don't know what happened, but every game I play now is choppy, barely 30-FPS if that. Paper Mario is near unplayable at this framerate, and I used to be able to play it just fine. I am aware that recent updates have made the emu more accurate and thus slower on my rig, but even with recent updates it was running fine, and then it just...Slugged. I went from 60 FPS to not even touching 30.

I've downloaded earlier builds, even going as back as 3.0, but nothing helps. I don't know if it's something on my computer or what, seeing as it's not even close to fatal heat temps. I'm not even pushing my computer, and yet games are super slow and choppy. I've even changed to OpenGL but that solved nothing.

I will download some earlier builds again, and test them out to see if they work, but could someone direct me to some 4.0 builds that function well? I was doing good even in 4.1(I think), and 4.2 I believe is where my troubles started. And now no matter what I can't fix this.

EDIT: If this is in the wrong area, feel free to move it. I do think I put it in the right place, but I may be wrong, in which case mods move it or what not. Sorry for the troubles.

[rokclimb15]

If you went back to 3.0 and it didn't perform any better, it's something with your hardware or drivers. I bet you updated your Nvidia drivers and now your card isn't running at full clock speed. Use GPU-Z and take a screenshot of that program during the slow performance. That will tell us if your GPU clock is idling.

[Zach]

I took a screenshot which saved as a gif(Dunno how to upload it here).

It appears my gpu is running at full clock speeds. Core and memory speeds are at their highest. I have my control panel settings set to high performance, so I dunno what's going on here.

But as soon as I close Dolphin, it drops to like 300 or so on core and like under 200 on memory. When running Dolphin, my core speed is near 900 and my memory speed is near 1700.

[rokclimb15]

That's not it then. Can you post your settings and exact version?

[Zach]

Build? I believe I'm currently running the stable 4.0 build listed on the downloads page. I say believe because I've been switching through versions all day in the hopes that something changes, but that's the last one I downloaded.

Settings are 1080p, 2x native, 32 smaples AA with scaled EFB and Forced filtering. EFB to texture, skip EFB access to CPU, fast accuracy, cache display lists, openmp and fast depth calc. Audio is auto and the fast option(I believe HLE it is?)

[NaturalViolence]

-Check dolphin and driver settings for changes
-If you recently installed a new graphics card driver try rolling back to a previous version
-Check your cpu and gpu for clockrate throttling

[Zach]

Exactly what kind of changes should I be looking for? I'm running the stable 4.0, which at one point I was able to run without any issues.

Exactly how far should I roll back? My driver is Geforce 337.50, so I'm unsure of how far I should rollback. Anyone with Nvidia GPU's that can throw in some suggestions I would be thankful.

I don't believe I'm being throttled, considering my GPU runs full-speed when Dolphin's on and drops drastically when Dolphin isn't on.

[rokclimb15]

In Dolphin go to help->about and confirm your version.

Check your CPU temps/clocks during gaming as well. Does performance get any better if you lower the IR setting?

---

337.50 is still beta. You might try rolling that back to 335.23.

[Zach]

I'm running Master Branch 4.0, the stable build.

Yep, lowering IR did nothing to boost FPS, and my clock's are still going max speed. So this must be a driver issue then?

[NaturalViolence]

Exactly what kind of changes should I be looking for?

Anything.

Exactly how far should I roll back?

To whatever your previous driver was.

I don't believe I'm being throttled, considering my GPU runs full-speed when Dolphin's on and drops drastically when Dolphin isn't on.

That's a completely useless way to test for throttling. You need to actually measure your clock rates for both processors while the emulator is running by using a monitoring application.