title : fps and vps dropping significantly on battle scene [Xenoblade Chronicles]

[mutermuter]

first of all, thank you to the makers of Dolphin for creating this awesome emulator!

okay. so, i have some major problem when playing Xenoblade Chronicles on dolphin.

here my pc specs,
os : win7 x86
proc : i5 750 2.67 ghz
gpu : nvidia geforce gts250
ram : kingston 4gb

my problem is, fps/vps always dropping to 25~26 fps / 51~86 vps (and stutter too) when im on the battle scene. however, it works pretty normal (with steady 29~30 fps, 60~100 vps) on others (main menu, event/cut scene and world map).

i put the settings in (i think) the minimal settings.
http://imgur.com/trtQdKD

i already tried other games, like The Last Story and it runs pretty well. is there anything i can do?

additionally, if anyone with experience using similar hardware could give me any advice as to which options, tweaks, hacks, etc. to fiddle with, i'd be very appreciative!

[Shonumi]

The slowdowns are normal for hardware like yours. You're most likely getting a CPU bottleneck (as in your CPU is too slow to emulate the Wii at fullspeed. You should really, really upgrade to the latest development revision of Dolphin. 4.0.2 is old and very slow in comparison to the newest builds. You say you have Windows 7, but I hope you have the 64-bit version, since 32-bit support in Dolphin was recently dropped. You can legally get a Windows 7 install ISO from one of Microsoft's partners, as long as you have a valid license and key (64-bit versions of Dolphin have been proven to run faster too) so google around about that.

Upgrading your OS and your Dolphin revision should actually be enough to run Xenoblade Chronicles comfortably. If not, consider a slight overclock. There's no helping you with the Last Story though (some parts will appear to run fine, but this is one of the most demanding games in Dolphin, and your hardware is very underpowered for it). You can still play it, just be prepared for slow-motion (even on a real Wii, it lags on certain scenes, so we just can't have nice things, you know?).

[admin89]

Quote:i already tried other games, like The Last Story and it runs pretty well. is there anything i can do?

The Last Story is the most demanding game . Your CPU won't run game at half speed when your character reach Lazulis city (Sorry for spoiler)
Xenoblade is also a demanding game . However , it's not on the same level as TLS . TLS demands twice as much (CPU raw power)
Overclock your CPU . At 3.6GHz , Xenoblade will run full speed all the time

[mutermuter]

thanks for the answers shonumi!

i already tried the latest 32bit (4.0-1609) version, and it works like a charm!. well, i still experienced fps-dropping on the first opening battle, but it really improves the others in general (as far as i played). and yeah, my hardware support 64bit windows and i'll consider to change it later.

thanks!

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@admin89 : ah i see, i still at the beginning of the game. thanks for your answer.

[Shonumi]

What is with people still thinking Xenoblade Chronicles is still demanding? We have reports of Nehalem CPUs getting fullspeed with 3.0~3.2GHz in recent revisions. The OP is very close to running it fullspeed already (even using 4.0.2, and now even better using a recent build). This game was infamous for being demanding back when LLE audio was a requirement for decent audio, but XBC really only stresses the CPU in a few areas. It's middle-of-the-road compared to other CPU intensive games for the most part.

[admin89]

Quote:OP is very close to running it fullspeed already

That's because he's using 1x Internal Resolution . Raise up IR then see what will happen
Not to mention the game does require EFB copies to Ram for accurate graphic
I would rather just pick up a Wii then play game on it instead
XBC deserves to play in 2.5X , 3X or even 4X IR

[Shonumi]

XBC is not very demanding on the GPU though (which is what you're implying). Only certain scenes at high IRs + AA really become GPU intensive. Additionally EFB2RAM is pretty much useless for this game unless you like to look at the snapshots of your game saves. It's just that the OP has a really weak GPU in this case. But XBC does not need a lot of CPU or GPU power.

[LordVador]

@mutermuter: If you overclock your 750 as suggested by admin89 Xenoblade should work pretty fine