Tips for increasing frames in Twilight Princess and Wind Waker

[JohnnyScene]

These are my Computer specs which should be more than good enough but I still seem to lag.

Operating System: Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit
Processor/CPU: AMD FX-8350 8Core CPU 4.0GHZ OverClocked 4.6GHZ
Video Card/GPU: EVGA Geforce GTX 660 Superclocked
Memory/RAM: 8GB Crucial Ballistix Elite

SSD/HDD: 120GB Samsung SSD/500GB Seagate Barracuda
MOBO: Gigabyte GA-970A-D3 ATX AM3+
PSU: Corsair Builder 600W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified

My Dolphin Settings

[Zee530]

Under Hacks, try setting EFB copies to texture.

[pauldacheez]

Zee530, both these games require EFB to RAM, so that doesn't help much.

OP, try turning down the texture cache accuracy and/or enabling OpenMP Texture Decoder. There's not much reason to turn up the texcache accuracy here since games that require higher accuracy (which these two Zeldas are not) will usually have that in their game config, thus they'll get the higher texcache accuracy regardless of your settings. (Unless, of course, you open the Graphics settings while in-game, which'll override any game-config-specified settings.)

[Shonumi]

Isn't messing with the texture cache useless when using EFB2RAM without the cache enabled? IIRC, The texture cache accuracy applies to EFB2TEX always, but by default EFB2RAM doesn't use the texture cache (which makes it more accurate and slower). That's also why enabling the cache can provide a speed up.

@OP - If you wanted a bit more speed for Wind Waker, you could switch to the official 3.5 build. I don't recall any specific problems that have been fixed recently in WW, so you'll do fine on the stable build. Note you're probably downloading from the old, unofficial site. Get all your Dolphin builds here from now on: https://dolphin-emu.org/download

[pauldacheez]

The texcache deals with traditional textures, too. I wasn't even thinkin' about the EFB cache.

[Shonumi]

(08-02-2013, 04:31 AM)pauldacheez Wrote: The texcache deals with traditional textures, too. I wasn't even thinkin' about the EFB cache.

I thought the texcache referred to caching generated game textures. Enabling the cache in EFB2RAM just tells Dolphin to use the texcache. I mean, I don't think it caches EFB copies (that doesn't make sense from what I understand). That's also why enabling the cache can actually lower the accuracy of EFB2RAM.

[pauldacheez]

From what I understand, the texcache mainly deals with traditional textures, caching them on the GPU while hashing the copies in system RAM to see if they've changed, while the EFB caching thing actually does cache EFB copies on the GPU before copying them to system RAM for the CPU to mess around with; if the CPU doesn't do anything and the hashes match, it gets to skip uploading the EFB copy back to the GPU.

This is explained pretty clearly by my favorite comment I've found so far in the source code: https://code.google.com/p/dolphin-emu/source/browse/Source/Core/VideoCommon/Src/TextureCacheBase.cpp#569

[Shonumi]

(08-02-2013, 05:22 AM)pauldacheez Wrote: From what I understand, the texcache mainly deals with traditional textures, caching them on the GPU while hashing the copies in system RAM to see if they've changed, while the EFB caching thing actually does cache EFB copies on the GPU before copying them to system RAM for the CPU to mess around with; if the CPU doesn't do anything and the hashes match, it gets to skip uploading the EFB copy back to the GPU.

This is explained pretty clearly by my favorite comment I've found so far in the source code: https://code.google.com/p/dolphin-emu/source/browse/Source/Core/VideoCommon/Src/TextureCacheBase.cpp#569

Well then thanks for clearing that up. I've asked (several times no less) for a clear explanation from one of the devs (*cough*neobrain*cough*) and received none. Knowing things like this helps when you are were trying to write a comprehensive manual for Dolphin. A simple descriptive tooltip would have prevented this misunderstanding :\ The current tooltip implies that there's some sort of direct relationship with the texcache, thus I thought that was the cache it was using. Now I have to edit the WIP manual.

[neobrain]

(08-02-2013, 05:35 AM)Shonumi Wrote: Well then thanks for clearing that up. I've asked (several times no less) for a clear explanation from one of the devs (*cough*neobrain*cough*) and received none. Knowing things like this helps when you are were trying to write a comprehensive manual for Dolphin. A simple descriptive tooltip would have prevented this misunderstanding :\ The current tooltip implies that there's some sort of direct relationship with the texcache, thus I thought that was the cache it was using. Now I have to edit the WIP manual.

there is "some sort of direct relationship with the texcache", but I'm too busy to explain it right now. Poke me tomorrow if I forget explaining it later.

[pauldacheez]

Shonumi, for more reference:

<pauldachz> neobrain: Can you confirm that I'm not woefully incorrect about the texcache here? :\ https://forums.dolphin-emu.org/Thread-tips-for-increasing-frames-in-twilight-princess-and-wind-waker?pid=286234#pid286234
<neobrain> pauldachz: your terminology is terrible and I don't understand any of what you're trying to say... :D
<pauldachz> >"Well then thanks for clearing that up."
<pauldachz> :P
<neobrain> xD
<neobrain> well, he concluded from whatever it is that you wrote that efb copy caching doesn't have anything to do with texcache, which (as you would say) is woefully incorrect
<neobrain> .. mostly because all the logic affecting that option happen in texcache
<pauldachz> tl;dr, the EFB copy cache thing just applies the normal texture caching logic to EFB copies, right?
<neobrain> pauldachz: no
<pauldachz> Something close to it? :\
<neobrain> no, more like the opposite... you could say that if efb copy caching is disabled, the normal texture caching logic is applied to efb copies
<neobrain> but that's not quite true either since the mess rodolfo made out of it
<pauldachz> So it's cached either way, and the non-default method is just a more specialized method that happens to be faster and less accurate? v_v;
<neobrain> what is the default method? cache disabled?
<neobrain> cache disabled is the more accurate behavior, anyway
<pauldachz> Cache is unchecked by default, IIRC.