What (if any) of my hardware would be causing slowdown in Super Mario Galaxy?

KaptainKornhole · (This post was last modified: 02-21-2015, 04:03 PM by KaptainKornhole.)

The SMG thread in the Wii forum hasn't spawned any answers. I'm seeing extreme slowdown when there's a lot of action on the screen. I dropped to 30 fps on the spider boss in the fountain galaxy. I'm running a g3258 OC'd to 4.3. I have 8GB 1600Mhz DDR3 RAM. I have a EVGA GTX 660 card. I'm using all the defaults in dolphin with the latest build except for I have 2x IR, 4x AA, and 16x AF. Everything I've read has people with less systems playing at full speed with higher resolution. I'm assuming it would be the GPU but I've already dumbed down IR to the lowest with the exception of default resolution. Kind of defeats the purpose of using Dolphin instead of my Wii. It's so slow that I won't be able to get past that spider boss. The delay is too great. Anyone have anything else I could check? Is it the ISO I'm using? I should also ad that my TV is only 720p so I don't need the max settings. However, someone said that if I cranked it up it would look really good when it's down sampled. That's why I want to put the enhancements as high as I can go.

**JMC47** · 02-21-2015, 05:47 PM #2

It's a super intensive game for GPU/CPU communication; try turning down the internal resolution or turning off AA.

ZL580 · (This post was last modified: 02-26-2015, 11:36 AM by ZL580.)

Remove AA and try again, I use the exact same setup and have zero problems under with 3x ir and 16 af with no aa

Also make sure all background tasks are closed

**degasus** · 02-27-2015, 06:43 PM #4

Is your GPU in high performance mode? iirc you can force this within the nvidia control panel. They often get this wrong for dolphin :/

KaptainKornhole · 02-28-2015, 02:22 PM #5

(02-26-2015, 10:15 AM)ZL580 Wrote: Remove AA and try again, I use the exact same setup and have zero problems under with 3x ir and 16 af with no aa

Also make sure all background tasks are closed

I tried again with 3x IR , no AA, and 16 AF. It isn't as bad but there is still slowdown. So I set it back to what has worked best. 2xIR, 2x AA, and 16 AF. However, there is still 50% slowdown (it drops to exactly 30 fps) if I fall into the ice water or when the mother shuts the storybook and says (that's enough for today). I tired setting to high performance in my NVidia control panel but the closet thing I could find causes graphical glitches in SMG. I don't know what the issue could be.

KaptainKornhole · (This post was last modified: 02-28-2015, 02:39 PM by KaptainKornhole.)

(02-27-2015, 06:43 PM)degasus Wrote: Is your GPU in high performance mode? iirc you can force this within the nvidia control panel. They often get this wrong for dolphin :/

I don't see anything called high performance mode, All there is is something called "adjust image settings" where I can choose performance or quality. It's set to "Let the 3D application decide". If I override3 that and choose quality, it causes massive graphic glitches in SMG. If I set it to "Performance" then I can actually set it to 3x IR, 4x AA, and 16x AF but it has a lot of screen tearing. Also, should I be using OpenGL or Direct3D? I thought I read that you should be suing OpenGL so that's what I have it set at. I can set specific 3D settings just for Dolphin in the Nvidia control panel. Anyone have any idea what they would be or if it even helps?

KaptainKornhole · 02-28-2015, 03:37 PM #7

Okay, so I think I figured it out (sort of). I added Dolphin to the Nvidia Control Panel > Change 3D Settings. I changed Power management mode to "Prefer Maximum Performance". Now I can get 3x IR, no AA, and 16 AF with no slowdown including jumping into ice water. However, I really think having AA on makes the game look better. So with the change to Nvidia control panel I can set it to 2x IR, 4x AA, and 16x AF but I still get slowdown in the ice water. However I don't get slow down when the mother closes the storybook in the library. AA is twice as high as it was before. When I set it to 4x AA previously I got slowdown all over the place. So, I need to decide which I want. It seems having AA on in any capacity causes slowdown in ice water. Is this normal no matter what GPU you're using?

ZL580 · 02-28-2015, 03:42 PM #8

I never use AA and i game on a 120" 1080p projector, i think 4x looks nice and sharp without it, what game has a mother and a story book? And yes it looks like you found the power management that degasus was trying to refer to

KaptainKornhole · 02-28-2015, 04:46 PM #9

(02-28-2015, 03:42 PM)ZL580 Wrote: I never use AA and i game on a 120" 1080p projector, i think 4x looks nice and sharp without it, what game has a mother and a story book? And yes it looks like you found the power management that degasus was trying to refer to

I tried turning on FXAA in the Nvidia control panel as well and that was better than AA in Dolphin but it still had some slow down. I switched back to 3x IR, no AA, and 16 AF just to see it one more time. I really notice some jaggies that I don't see when setting to 2x IR, 4x AA, and 16x AF. So I'll live with the slowdown in certain areas of SMG. Ice water is one and when I race a ghost through some caverns is another. At least I can get AA without slowdown now that I set the performance setting in Nvidia. Thanks for the people that pointed me in the right direction.