Worse performance with newer/better GPU?

[Zabi]

I recently upgraded my GPU from a Radeon HD 6950 to a GeForce GTX 670. The new GTX 670 is way more powerful than the old HD 6950 (like double the 3Dmark11 score and triple the Unigine Heaven score), yet I'm getting significantly lower performance in Dolphin.

With the 6950 I got constant 60fps on F-Zero GX at 1080p but with the GTX 670 I get an average of about 35fps. I always read that AMD or nVidia didn't matter for Dolphin and that both performed well, but either that isn't true or there's some kind of settings issue I'm not seeing.

Also in Xenoblade Chronicles I get no UI or text whatsoever with the GTX 670. I can't see any overlay at all whereas it was flawless with the 6950.

Now I did update to a more recent build of Dolphin when I installed the GTX 670 and I don't really remember what the old build was it might have been the plain 3.0 and now I have the 3.0-684. The menus were a little different. Also in F-Zero GX in the old build with the 6950 I had square shadows under the cars whereas the new build with the 670 I have the actual shadows of the vehicles.

Is my GPU at fault or is there some new default settings in the recent builds that are messing me up. Please, any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

CPU: Intel Core i7 2600K @ 4.6GHz
GPU: ASUS GTX 670 DirectCU II TOP @ 1267MHz Max Boost
OS: Windows 7 SP1 64-Bit
RAM: G.Skill 8GB DDR3-1600
Dolphin: 3.0-684

[admin89]

maybe driver issues
Try latest nvidia driver
At least post your dolphin settings

[Squall Leonhart]

use gpu-z to make sure the gpu is even running at the P0 clocks.

[kirbypuff]

I recently upgraded my GPU from a Radeon HD 6950 to a GeForce GTX 670. The new GTX 670 is way more powerful than the old HD 6950 (like double the 3Dmark11 score and triple the Unigine Heaven score), yet I'm getting significantly lower performance in Dolphin.

With the 6950 I got constant 60fps on F-Zero GX at 1080p but with the GTX 670 I get an average of about 35fps. I always read that AMD or nVidia didn't matter for Dolphin and that both performed well, but either that isn't true or there's some kind of settings issue I'm not seeing.

There's a similar issue with the latest generation of AMD Radeon cards (the HD7000 series). Performance in Dolphin with the D3D11 backend is a lot worse than the previous generation of cards (HD5000 and HD6000 series).

[Zabi]

use gpu-z to make sure the gpu is even running at the P0 clocks.

Wow I just ran GPU-Z while running F-Zero GX in 1080p and my core clocked never moved from 2D mode, it stayed @ 324Mhz the whole time. Well that probably explains a lot. I wonder why Dolphin doesn't make the card boost like it should, PCSX2 makes it boost fine. Maybe there's an option in the nVidia driver to force it to boost, I'll have to check it out.

[admin89]

You can use Nvidia Inspector - Overclocking option

[Zabi]

Even on the Sand Ocean track in Grand Prix mode?

Is that the one with the sandstorm tornados? Yeah that track did slow down quite a bit, but was the only one and I think there was a hack you could use to fix it but I never tried.

I ran DX9 mode on the 6950, I didn't get 60fps in DX11 mode, it was slower.

I'll try that EFB thing but if my GPU is going to operate at 25% capacity I don't think it'll make a difference. I need to know why my GPU isn't boosting at all.

[kirbypuff]

Sounds like a driver issue.
Try the latest NVIDIA driver (and post your Dolphin settings)

This ^^

[Zabi]

Ok so I was able to force the GPU to Max Boost for Dolphin.exe in the nVidia Control Panel and it indeed boosted up to 1267MHz while running Dolphin but I saw ZERO increase in performance. I guess this explained why it wasn't boosting, it didn't need to apparently.

Then I found my old build of Dolphin, turns out it was 3.0-153. I ran F-Zero on it and got the same performance that I got on 3.0-684. I also tried Xenoblade Chronicles on 3.0-153 which was flawless on the 6950 with this build and I again have no text, at the title screen. I see neither the title of the game at the top nor the menu options at the bottom, just the background picture with the sword in the grass. I couldn't see the interface in game either. This was with the exact same settings as with the 6950 so maybe it is a driver issue afterall.

I downloaded 3.0-688 and tried F-Zero GX on that build and I did notice an improvement to about 50fps average. But the thing that's crazy is that I get the exact same framerate no matter my resolution, internal resolution or AA/AF settings. I ran the game in 640x480 with no AA/AF and I have the same framerate as when I run it in 1920x1080 with 9xAA and 16xAF. I usually leave the internal resolution on "Auto (window Size)" but I tried all the others and nothing changed. I still get no text in Xenoblade with 3.0-688 either.

The GTX 670 is a very new GPU, it only came out like a month ago. I'm using the latest nVidia drivers 301.42 and my Dolphin settings are all default except I change the resolution to 1920x1080 enable V-Sync, Fullscreen, Force 16:9 and Widescreen Hack. I've tried unchecking all of those options before so I doubt they're the issue. Same with Internal Resolution and AA/AF options.

I can kind of live with 50fps in F-Zero but I kind of need the text and interface for Xenoblade Chronicles. Maybe it is an nVidia driver issue since the card is so new and it will fix itself when they update them.

[Squall Leonhart]

ah, might you have EFB To Ram enabled?

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I know of a bug affecting Keplers when using D3D9 that may be the cause here (if you're using d3d9), its my speculation that the shader recompiler in the driver is not creating native instructions that are very efficient for the gpu to render.