Tweaking Brawl on high end system

[grogel]

Maybe someone can help me fine tune my settings for Melee\Brawl\ProjectM V2.1.

I am going to a friend's house on Friday and I'd like to have us all play on my computer via his TV. I nabbed 4 Gamecube controllers and adapters to make this as legitimate as possible.

These guys have never seen the possibilities of an emulator so I want to give them a spectacular showcase.


First my rig:

• i5 3570k @ 4.8Ghz WC (supports AVX instruction set), 6 hour prime stable, 4 cpu 99 stock battle stable
• 2 gtx 680s sli
• 1600MHz 11-11-11-28 Samsung Wonder RAM @ 16GB
• Vertex 4 OCZ SSD (The emulator is being played from the SSD in hopes of gaining some performance)
• windows 7 x64
• Primary Monitor 2560x1440 Shimian
• Secondary Monitor 1366x768 Samsung

Note: The TV we will be playing on has a native resolution of 1366x768. I need the emulator to run locked at 60fps, no slowdowns whatsoever. My pals are a competitive lot and will lambast me if it is not butter smooth. Plus I'm trying to make this setup look good.


-Settings for first round of tests-

--Dolphin build 804x64 Vlad ICC (Process set to High in Windows Task Manager). I also tested Extreme Dude's 803x64, but saw little difference.

• Project M V2.1 using SSBB NTSC. Also tested without Project M and noticed a slight performance hit using the mod.
• OpenGL (DX9/11 yielded less than desirable results, OGL far superior from initial tests)
• Window resolution = 1366x768
• IR = 3x Native
• AA = 16xQ CSAA
• AF = 16x
• Post-Processing Effect: Blur Aliasing 2x (preference, less effect on color than x4)
  

...Checked...

Graphics

• Scaled EFB Copy
• Per-Pixel Lighting
• EFB Copies -> Texture
• Disable External Framebuffer
• Disable Per-Pixel Depth
• OpenMP Texture Decoder

Config

• Enable Dual Core
• Enable Idle Skipping
• JIT Recompiler
• DSP LLE (otherwise audio crackling)
  

Results of tests at these settings

4-player CPU FFA (level 9)

Close to perfection, but stutters frequently.

Dropping IR to 2x gives the desired performance but not visuals. Vying for the 3xIR to work.

This is the extent of my testing so far. My processor cannot be pushed any further, I have hit the temperature wall.

Now for some questions.

1. More like an affirmation for this first one: Because I'm using 4 computer players to test, I am guessing that a good amount of processing power is being wasted there instead of being used for powering the engine. If I have 4 humans in game then I should see much better performance. Is this true?
2. Can I defer any of the graphical load to the GPUs to increase engine speed?
3. What am I missing out on by not using DX11? Should I make using DX my goal?
4. Does anyone have a similar rig to provide comparisons? Is it possible that anything is being bottle-necked(lol)?
5. Any suggestions for tweaking settings?
   

Thank you very much in advance!

Love,
Grogel

[ExtremeDude2]

See my post in the GPU thread, also don't make 2 of the same posts :p

[MayImilae]

CSAA is probably too high. Try 8x or 4x. You really wouldn't be able to tell the difference from TV distances anyway.

[Echoes]

If changing the IR from 3x to 2x gave the desired performance, then you found your problem, the CPU isn't the issue. Lower that AA man, it's not like Wii games need so much anyways. Per Pixel lighting doesn't really give much of a visual enhancement to Brawl, so you could disable that too if you want, save your GPU the trouble.

To test your GPU limit, try having four controllers (hands) on the CSS, choose a character for all players, and open the Random Stage Switch from the top menu (In my experience, the most GPU heavy parts of Project M are the menus, especially the Character Selection Screen). Now increase the IR and AA until the frames start dropping. I don't know how high you'll be able to go, but don't be surprised if AA causes major slowdowns here, that's just how it is with this menu.

To test if your CPU can handle any kind of situation, activate all items at max, get four players to Skyloft or/and Delfino and see if it lags or if the frames drop. If your GPU didn't have a problem with the crazy CSS, you'll likely be fine here too. If not, lower the graphics settings.


Also, I really recommend you try this with Direct3D9. I think the reason you didn't get good results before was because you cranked up the AA too much.

[admin89]

_Dolphin don't work with SLI & Crossfire . Therefore , only 1 GPU is used
_Multi-player need more CPU power , the more player you add , the more slowdown you get
_Nvidia 600 series is known for having Idle issue with Dolphin (Idle clock speed when running Dolphin but some GPU don't have this issue ) . Set "Texture Cache" between "fast" and "safe" or set it to safe, you will fix that problem
Speed : Directx9 backend > Directx 11 > OpenGL (Depending on the game , some games run faster with Directx11)
SSAA of Directx9 backend is even more demanding than MSAA of Directx11

[grogel]

(11-14-2012, 09:18 AM)ExtremeDude2 Wrote: See my post in the GPU thread, also don't make 2 of the same posts :p

Edited the post in the sticky right before posting here.

I will run some new tests with these recommendations in mind.

Thank you all for the quick responses!

[pauldacheez]

FYI, there are graphical glitches on the results screens on EFB to Texture. EFB to RAM will fix that, but it'll use quite a bit more CPU, too.

[DefenderX]

With THAT overclocked CPU, he won't have performance problems

btw: You can easily set the IR to 4x, the GeForce GTX 680 is able to handle this well.

[ExtremeDude2]

That is the point, he can't because he is using too much AA :p

[DefenderX]

Well, then he should use lower AA