System-wide Lag after Second Dolphin Launch

[VoceDeiMorti]

The first time I launch the program after a fresh boot, Everything runs beautifully. I can even play multiple games in a single session without any issues. However, if I close Dolphin, the second time I launch it my entire system lags. All dialogue boxes appear see-through for about 10 seconds, and windows seems incredibly slow and bogged down even after closing dolphin again. Resource monitor shows nothing strange. Please help. I am forced to restart my system every time I run dolphin to prevent this, which is annoying.

[JMC47]

It could be some kind of libUSB issue on your system. Maybe that thread is getting messed up? Try disabling Native GameCube Controller support or using a build prior to it being added.

[VoceDeiMorti]

I've tried using 4.0.2, but then I get occasional crashes on the first launch. Should I try going back even further? Is there a version you'd suggest? Also, I use a dolphinbar. Would eliminating libusb prevent that?

[VoceDeiMorti]

For every problem, there is a solution!!!

I may re-post this with a more appropriate title later on, but for those who stumbled upon this thread, the lag I experienced was a soft-crash of "Explorer.exe" on the second launch of Dolphin. After verifying that the lag was not system-wide and that restarting the process resolved the issue, I created a text Document containing:

TASKKILL /IM EXPLORER.EXE /F
start Dolphin.exe
start explorer.exe


save this as "DolphinLauncher.bat" and use it to open dolphin instead of "Dolphin.exe". This restarts "Explorer.exe" automatically on each launch, completely resolving the issue.



Credit to shideravan who posted a very similar script resolving a different issue way back in 2010.

[Helios]

ugly hack to work around the issue.

I like it.

[VoceDeiMorti]

It gets Uglier...

So this is all on my HTPC which boots into Steam Big Picture. The aforementioned script had to be amended because steam was responding to the cmd terminal instead of Dolphin, and therefore reclaiming focus. Since there was no explorer process to quickly navigate back to Dolphin, I had to add a "/wait" command to keep the terminal open. In addition, Steam was not allowing the taskbar to return without the full location of explorer.exe. After all of that, the taskbar would reappear, but was stuck in the foreground of all my fullscreen applications. I COULD hide the taskbar, but at this point... F*** Steam.

The script now reads:

TASKKILL /IM EXPLORER.EXE /F
TASKKILL /IM STEAM.EXE /F
start /max /wait Dolphin.exe
start C:\Windows\Explorer.exe
start steam://open/bigpicture


I'd love to see a more elegant solution if anyone has one, but for the time-being I am content.

Interestingly, I got about a 10% FPS bump in Dolphin. Not a bad day.