Super Mario Galaxy at ~30fps on i5 2500k @4.3GHz and GTX560Ti

[NeoZeroo]

Hello. After days trying to solve this, I decided to ask for help from you guys.

I was trying to play Super Mario Galaxy, but I can't get decent speed, it keeps around 30 fps at busy places.

I've followed the performance guide and tried many different settings. Here are my current settings:





I've
tried D3D and OpenGL. "Skip EFB Access from CPU" only gives a little
boost to around 40fps (but you can't actually play SMG with that
enabled).

I've updated my graphics card drivers. I've tried enabling/disabling overclock.

I've
tried downloading many versions, x86 and x64, from old 3.5-xxx
revisions to stable versions like 3.5, 4.0, 4.0.1, 4.0.2, and I'm
currently at 4.0-549.

Now, here's the very strange thing:

When
trying everything, this monday, it suddenly worked at 60fps every time.
I didn't change anything at all, in the previous try it was still slow,
but this time it was working.

Then I tried changing settings and versions, and it was still at 60fps.

I
got to play for 2 days with 60fps at 1920x1080, at window size
resolution, 2x AA, Direct3D and OpenGL, per pixel lighting, "Skip EFB
Access from CPU" disabled, LLE sound, "VBeam Speed Hack" on and off.

Even after messing with all those settings, different revisions, restarting the emulator many times, it still run at 60fps.
I was happy I could finally play it, but worried because I couldn't find what actually fixed it.


But then, yesterday I had to restart my machine, and it got back to be slow!

I've
tried restarting many times, changing all those settings again,
different revisions and whatnot, but couldn't get it to 60fps ever
again.

I thought that if restarting broke it again, maybe
it was something with the OS, so I actually made a clean install of
Windows 7 on a empty HDD, and to my surprise, it was STILL slow.


I've checked with nVidia Inspector that the GPU is indeed at high clocks when playing, and about 80% use load. The CPU is also under heavy load, when playing.

I
have no idea what to try now, but at least now I do know my hardware
can run it at full speed, as I was playing it for many hours these last
two days, with no performance issues.

Does anyone here have any suggestion? Any idea?

Thank you very much for reading all this.


Here's a screenshot showing how slow it is:

Spoiler:

Here's
two screenshots I made while having fun at full speed yesterday (I know
it may be two low demanding scenes, if I knew it were going to be slow
again, I'd taken screenshots at the same place as the above screen, at
60fps and 1920x1080, for comparison):

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

Hardware:
Operating System: Windows 7 SP1 x64
Processor/CPU: Intel i5 2500k (@4.3GHz)
Video Card/GPU: Nvidia GTX 650 Ti
Memory/RAM: Corsair 8GB
Dolphin Revision Currently Using: 4.0-549

[pauldacheez]

I'm not sure about your exact issue – could be a bug in the current GPU drivers, a hardware/temperature issue, vsync + a 4K monitor hooked up with the wrong cables so you're limited to a 30 Hz refresh rate... In lieu of more specific advice, try the common speedups:
–Use OpenGL and check "Vertex Streaming Hack" in Graphics > Hacks. It's a free speedup.
–Make Dolphin.exe a profile in the Nvidia drivers and change the "Power Management Mode" to "Prefer Maximum Performance".
–It's best to run this game with DSP LLE to fix the numerous audio issues (plus hangs when you get a Grand Star), but that increases the CPU requirements. Should be fine, though, since the bottleneck is often CPU-GPU communication/drivers and not just pure CPU power at this level of CPU performance.
–If all else fails, overclock more. Yes, despite my previous statement there's still benefit to adding extra CPU power.

[JMC47]

There seems to be an issue in the D3D plugin that a certain effect just can't be run at full speed, where as on OpenGL it acts just fine. There are games where the opposite is true.

[NeoZeroo]

I'm not sure about your exact issue – could be a bug in the current GPU drivers, a hardware/temperature issue, vsync + a 4K monitor hooked up with the wrong cables so you're limited to a 30 Hz refresh rate... In lieu of more specific advice, try the common speedups:
–Use OpenGL and check "Vertex Streaming Hack" in Graphics > Hacks. It's a free speedup.
–Make Dolphin.exe a profile in the Nvidia drivers and change the "Power Management Mode" to "Prefer Maximum Performance".
–It's best to run this game with DSP LLE to fix the numerous audio issues (plus hangs when you get a Grand Star), but that increases the CPU requirements. Should be fine, though, since the bottleneck is often CPU-GPU communication/drivers and not just pure CPU power at this level of CPU performance.
–If all else fails, overclock more. Yes, despite my previous statement there's still benefit to adding extra CPU power.

It's
not locked at 30fps, I can get just above that if I enable Skip EFB
Access, for example, I can get around 40fps, so it isn't a refresh rate
issue (vsync is disabled as well).
I'm using OpenGL with "Vertex Streaming Hack" too.
I've added Dolphin.exe ant set "Power Management Mode" to "Prefer Maximum Performance" too.
I've got to 4.7GHz, still doesn't help.
As I've said, two days ago I got to 60fps full time (OpenGL and D3D), with LLE, at 4.3GHz.

There seems to be an issue in the D3D plugin that a certain effect just can't be run at full speed, where as on OpenGL it acts just fine. There are games where the opposite is true.

I've tried D3D and OpenGL, they get about 30fps here. Also, two days ago, no idea why, they both got to 60fps easily.

[Link_to_the_past]

I had a similar problem with my overclocking, when i disabled cpu eist function in the bios it worked properly all the time. Or try resetting to defaults in bios, if you have always proper performance is due to your overclocking settings.

[NeoZeroo]

I had a similar problem with my overclocking, when i disabled cpu eist function in the bios it worked properly all the time. Or try resetting to defaults in bios, if you have always proper performance is due to your overclocking settings.

I've reset the bios to default already, to no avail.
I don't know if cpu EIST is enabled or disabled though, so I'll check this right away, thanks!

EDIT: Ok, I disabled cpu EIST(SpeedStep), didn't work too.
With that disabled, my cpu clock stays always at 4.5ghz, but the game's still slow.
I've also tried enabling/disabling all C states and "turbo boost".
Any other suggestion?

[Link_to_the_past]

Is your performance issue restricted to dolphin, whether you use old or new versions of the program? What about pcsx2 and pc games, is the performance what you would expect? What temps do you have while gaming? Sounds more like hardware issue to be frank.

[NeoZeroo]

Is your performance issue restricted to dolphin, whether you use old or new versions of the program? What about pcsx2 and pc games, is the performance what you would expect? What temps do you have while gaming? Sounds more like hardware issue to be frank.

Yes, I have performance issues with old and new versions of the emulator.
I just tested PCSX2 for you with DX11 at 3x native resolution, here are some screenshots with framerates way above 60fps:

Spoiler:

Here's dolphin running other games at >60fps (dunno if they're really that graphics intensive, any suggestions to test? I remember that my older hardware, Q6600 @3.2ghz, couldn't get WW or DKCR to 60fps though):

Spoiler:

Temps aren't a issue, as I'm using a Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO.
Here are the temps while running SMG and while running a CPU stress test:

Spoiler:

There aren't many CPU intensive games nowadays, as they're mostly GPU intensive (more so than CPU intensive, at least). I've finished GTA IV recently, though, and I remember it is regarded as really CPU intensive. There wasn't performance issues with it.

If yet this is really a hardware issue, how can I confirm that? Thanks again.