Super Mario Galaxy 1 & 2 unable to run FPS = 50

[McDrive]

Hi all,

I'm running Dolphin 5.0-1595 x64. I have a Samsung plasma TV that can do 1920x1080 @ 50 or 60 Hz, but much prefer the picture quality of the 50 Hz mode. So when running PAL games (@ 50 Hz) all is fine. I've disabled PAL60 mode.

I also have the PAL version of Super Mario Galaxy 1 & 2. They can run at either 480i (60 Hz) or 576i (50 Hz) and default to the latter. However, in-game FPS is always at 60, while VPS is at 50, % = 100. When I enable VSync, FPS drops to 50, but VPS drops proportionally to 42, so effectively the game slows down to 83 %. It appears Dolphin is assuming the game is in 60Hz mode, even though I went with the default of 576i (there is an intro screen that notifies about the available modes).

This doesn't seem correct to me. I can disable VSync and the game will be at 100 %, but obviously with screen tearing as a result. Alternatively I can use VSync and set the desktop to 60Hz, but as I said this is not the preferred mode on my plasma.

Can anyone confirm that this is an issue and/or whether it can be fixed? Any help is much appreciated.

[Craftyawesome]

I think this is relevant https://forums.dolphin-emu.org/Thread-question-about-pal50-vs-60?page=2
I don't tear without vsync on d3d backends. I would fiddle with driver vsync if you don't want to use d3d.

[JosJuice]

Heh, I had completely forgotten that I had posted in a topic like that.

Since many people apparently have been reporting 60 FPS / 50 VPS in Super Mario Galaxy, maybe the game actually does render 60 frames per second but only displays 50 of them (on console). I wonder if Dolphin's output will drop to 50 if you enable virtual XFB...

[degasus]

I've tried it right now, and indeed, it is just skipping every 6th frame. So you have to use virtual XFB to get 50 fps, but it will stutter a bit. So next question, do they use tripple buffering with increased latency, or tearing on scanout? In both cases, 60 fps should be prefered.

[Kurausukun]

You said you're using 50Hz mode because you prefer the quality, but that doesn't make much sense--Dolphin can raise the resolution arbitrarily high, so there's no need at all to use a lower framerate. I'm also pretty sure that for reasons I don't fully understand, it's not easier on the system to render at 50fps either.

[JosJuice]

(01-10-2017, 09:49 AM)Kurausukun Wrote: You said you're using 50Hz mode because you prefer the quality, but that doesn't make much sense--Dolphin can raise the resolution arbitrarily high, so there's no need at all to use a lower framerate.

I thought so too at first, but at the end of the post ("this is not the preferred mode on my plasma"), it sounds more like the TV has bad quality when running at 60 Hz rather than Dolphin having bad quality when running at 60 Hz.

[McDrive]

Hi all,

Sorry for the late reply, I can't access this website from the office. :S Besides, it was the first day after my vacation, so busy as hell...

Anyway, thanks a tonne for all the useful information! I will experiment with the settings and get back to you.

Regards, M

P.S. It's indeed the TV that IMO has a dodgy 60Hz mode. The picture is less crisp and I can sense the refresh cycle, somewhat comparable to hooking up a good old CRT to your pc and running it at 60Hz.

[McDrive]

Hi all, I'm very happy to say that your answers helped me solve the issue! Following degasus's advice, I enabled Virtual XFB. I tried a number of combinations and found that OpenGL with V-Sync enabled works beautifully, the game looks really smooth to me and the picture is razor sharp (scaled up to 1080p). What I did find is that the 'regular' 50Hz titles suffer from Virtual XFB, so I've put this into the .ini files for Super Mario Galaxy 1 & 2:

[Video_Settings]
UseXFB = True
UseRealXFB = False

On a side note, I also dove into the USB passthrough stuff and installed the Wii Bluetooth module into a neat little USB enclosure. This really lifts the whole experience even further, since Wiimote control is essentially as accurate as on an original Wii! I will post some pictures of the enclosure on the respective thread. Thanks a tonne for your help!