Wind Waker heavy lag in combat

01-29-2014, 08:02 AM #1

My apologies if I post this in the wrong place I just created an account. Wind Waker was probably my favorite Zelda ever. Last night I was very excited to play. I soon learned however that whenever I use my sword to strike down anything (be it a tree or bush or whatever) that the FPS drops to about 24-25. The same thing happens when I get near a potential combat situation like approaching and enemy who mans the lights at the forsaken fortress for example. Now, I have a pc where I can play battlefield 4 with max graphics with no problems whatsoever (aside from it being a glitchy game in general) so I imagine if there WAS a way to run my Wind Waker game on dolphin with no lag my computer should be able to do it. I realize that emulators use more CPU or whatever (bear with me I'm really bad at this vocabulary I'm not much of a programmer). When I'm not in combat situations my computer runs at like 30-32 fps but when I get near enemies or strike something down it drops to 25 fps and the audio gets... bumpy (cuts in and out all strobe like). I wasn't entirely sure of my specs because I'm at school on my laptop so I threw things out there I believe are on my desktop so if I need to post it let me know... I'm not sure how to send the pictures of what settings I'm using on Dolphin yet either but if you need that too I'll post it when I get home. I would REALLY REALLY appreciate help from you smart people out there. I love this game it would be a dream to be able to play it again without these problems. Has anybody been able to set it up without any lag problems that you could post? Thank you!!

**DJBarry004** · (This post was last modified: 01-29-2014, 08:15 AM by DJBarry004.)

1- Use CPU-Z to get full CPU info.

2- Post configs (preferably graphics and general tab settings).

DolphinFan505 · (This post was last modified: 01-29-2014, 09:08 AM by DolphinFan505.)

Try switching to OpenAL for the sound backend. (But then the music will slow down when the fps slows down.) Anyway, I thought Wind Waker was one of the lighter games... also
check your settings as well like DJBarry said.

**DJBarry004** · 01-29-2014, 09:09 AM #4

(01-29-2014, 09:08 AM)DolphinFan505 Wrote: Try switching to OpenAL for the sound backend. (But then the music will slow down when the fps slows down.) Anyway, I thought Wind Waker was one of the lighter games... also
check your settings as well like DJBarry said.

It is, when played with HLE audio (buggy) instead of LLE (demanding but recommended).

01-29-2014, 09:10 AM #5

(01-29-2014, 08:13 AM)DJBarry004 Wrote: 1- Use CPU-Z to get full CPU info.

2- Post configs (preferably graphics and general tab settings).

okay I will when I get back in about 2 hours. Do I type cpu-z on my search tab or how do I access that information?

Quick tip on how to send the picture of those settings to this thread?

**DJBarry004** · 01-29-2014, 09:11 AM #6

Use the attachment section before writing the reply.

01-29-2014, 10:46 AM #7

Here are my GPU settings and also some of my dolphin settings

**KHg8m3r** · 01-29-2014, 11:48 AM #8

Dolphin doesn't always play nice with Internal resolutions that aren't multiples of the 640x528 that is native resolution.
Set fullscreen resolution to auto and then set the Internal Resolution to 3x

cyrax33 · (This post was last modified: 01-29-2014, 12:12 PM by cyrax33.)

@Blade Y2J

1) You've given your GPU specs, what about your CPU? Please specify what type of CPU you have (ex. i3xxxx, i5xxxx, etc)
2) Also specify which Dolphin build you are using? Use one of the latest dev. builds at top of page if you haven't as is faster.
3) Check off Limit by FPS
4) Use OpenGL backend as is the fastest one.
5) You don't need that much Anti Aliasing unless you CPU/GPU can support it, I'd suggest starting from 0 and increasing it until game lags, if it does lower it.
6) Antistrophic Filtering as well, increase until game lags. These are just enhancements which sacrifices performance so you may use it until game runs smooth. And as KHg8m3r stated, increasing the IR as well will sacrifice performance as well so use it with caution.
7) Check Skip EFB Access from CPU and set EFB Copies to Texture instead of RAM for better performance.

01-29-2014, 12:25 PM **#10**

(01-29-2014, 12:09 PM)cyrax33 Wrote: @Blade Y2J

1) You've given your GPU specs, what about your CPU? Please specify what type of CPU you have (ex. i3xxxx, i5xxxx, etc)
2) Also specify which Dolphin build you are using? Use one of the latest dev. builds at top of page if you haven't as is faster.
3) Check off Limit by FPS
4) Use OpenGL backend as is the fastest one.
5) You don't need that much Anti Aliasing unless you CPU/GPU can support it, I'd suggest starting from 0 and increasing it until game lags, if it does lower it.
6) Antistrophic Filtering as well, increase until game lags. These are just enhancements which sacrifices performance so you may use it until game runs smooth. And as KHg8m3r stated, increasing the IR as well will sacrifice performance as well so use it with caution.
7) Check Skip EFB Access from CPU and set EFB Copies to Texture instead of RAM for better performance.

I have an i5-3570 quad core processor @3.40 GHz. I have 16 gigs of ram as well. Also my Dolphin version is 4.0.2