Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

Hi everyone, I will make this post as comprehensive as I possibly can as I would really appreciate any insight into the problem I'm having.

I've found that I'm getting unusual slowdown in certain games. Now, when I say slowdown, I do not mean frame rate drops. The fps counter stays constant and at full speed but the image appears to judder/stutter and is not smooth, audio is not affected - no looping or distortion, for all intents and purposes the game is still running at full speed. This lasts for 3-5 seconds and then the game continues playing normally. This happens intermittently, it's not when there's loading, and it's not when there's a lot going on on screen. It seems, to me, to be totally random. It is also immediately noticeable and really feels like the game has dropped into the high teens frame rate wise but the counter remains constant.

I have, however, discovered that this only occurs with games that normally run at 30 frames per second.

For some examples; Wind Waker, Sonic Colours, Zelda TP, PN03, Goldeneye etc.

I can run the vast majority of games that natively run at 60 fps at 60 fps with no problems, e.g. Mario Galaxy 2, NSMB, and SSB Brawl, Donkey Kong. I get no stuttering whatsoever in 60fps games.

I've looked into this and at first thought it was a problem with ATi graphics cards, however my PC games show no signs of stuttering even when forced to run at a locked 30 frames.

Things I've tried:
disabling frame limit and enabling Audio throttle (resulted in a consistently jerky image)
enabling frame limit and disabling audio throttle (by far the best setting but stutters)
running at lower resolutions (stutters)
running at higher resolutions (stutters)
no AA/AF (no difference)
EFB to texture (stutters)
DX9/11/openGL (stutters)
EFB to RAM (stutters)
HLE/LLE/LLE on thread (stutters)
Xaudio/Dsound (both stutter)
Fullscreen/Window (stutter)
locking threads to core (stutter)
Overclocking/downclocking CPU (stutters)
Vbeams (stutters)
many different revisions of Dolphin (consistent stuttering)

I'm really just wondering if this is something I can fix or if it's just a consequence of using the emulator - the fact that it is only native 30 fps games that suffer suggests to me that there may be a fix out there somewhere, or that it's something that would be worth submitting to the developers.

I'm not sure if this is important but to run 60 fps games smoothly I have to turn frame limit off and enable audio throttle, and to run 30 fps games 'smoothly' I have to put frame limit on auto and disable audio throttle.

My specs are in my sig and my current Dolphin revision is 3.0 with the following settings, the best I have managed to find by myself - although I stress again, this is a consistent problem across many revisions. Settings listed are enabled - if it's not listed it's not ticked.

General:
Enable Dual Core
Enable Idle skipping
Framelimit auto
JIT recomplier

Audio:
HLE
Enable DTK Music

Graphics:
D3D11
1360*768
vsync fullscreen

Enhancements:
Auto (window size)
AA: 8 samples
AF: 16

Hacks:
Ignore format changes
EFB Copies virtual
EFB disable
disable per pixel depth

Advanced:
Enable Progressive scan

Thanks very much for taking the time to read this, I would really appreciate any help you can give.

EDIT- FIXED

I'm adding this in the hope that it'll help someone else out in future. I've completely fixed my problem and now native 30 fps games are running smoothly.

I was running my desktop and dolphin at 1360*768 @60 hz over HDMI to my LG TV. Evidently there was some conflict with resolution/refresh rate causing the stuttering. I was CONVINCED it was an emulator issue but it is 100% not.

My TV supports 720p@60 and 1080p @60 over HDMI so after setting my desktop res and dolphin res to 720p I am able to run games full speed and as smooth as they should be.

So, if you are suffering form unexplained stutter double check your settings and what your TV/monitor actually supports. I feel a bit stupid now but at least it's fixed. Thanks to everyone who offered support. I'll hang around these forums more often and try and repay the favour.

Man, if only everyone post as much info as possible like you.

Have you tried, disabling vsync? on dolphin and ati catalyst? or try disabling catalyst ai.

(11-13-2011, 04:24 AM)naoan Wrote: [ -> ]Man, if only everyone post as much info as possible like you.

Have you tried, disabling vsync? on dolphin and ati catalyst? or try disabling catalyst ai.

I must admit I can't stand when people ask for help and give you nothing to go on so I did want to get as much in there as possible!

I've just given vsync a try now and there's no change but thank you for the advice.

If it wasn't for the fact that it's only happening in 30 fps games I'd just assume it was the emulator doing its thing, unless its only noticeable because of the inherently lower frame rate.

The thing is I have considerably weaker system than you and never really notice that problem on any 30 FPS games I've tried (Including Zelda TP and WW). I do know what you're talking about as the last game I've played exhibit that behavior but using OpenGL solved it.

I'm at a complete loss as to what is causing it. If it was an emulator issue I'd expect to have found more information about it but I could find nothing. If it was a hardware issue surely it should clear up when I overclock.

Its one of those little nagging things, if I knew what it was I'd feel much better. It's also quite distracting when playing games to be honest, it really feels like the game is slowing to a crawl for a couple of seconds.

You have already tried virtually everything that we usually recommend to people in this situation. I can only think of two more things to try, clearing the shader cache and using a ramdisk. What kind of HDD do you have, how full is it, and has it recently been defragmented (this is very unlikely to be the cause but since you've already tried everything else I might as well investigate it)?

Hi, thanks for replying.

I'll just copy and past my HD from Amazon:

Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB SATAIII 6Gb/s 16MB Cache 3.5 inch Internal Hard Drive OEM

I'm running a fresh install of Windows 7 64-bit... however I've just checked and it's 23% defragmented. Ill run defrag now and see if that helps.

How would I go about cleaning the shader cache?

I don't think I have enough RAM to run a RAM disk as the isos I've ripped are all around 4.7 GB, unless I've misunderstood how it works.

Thanks for the advice again!

I've run a defrag and it's made no difference. I tried a RAM disk for Wind Waker as it's a small iso and I still had the same issue.

I think I'll just leave it for now, it must be a normal part of the emulator, I've always been more sensitive to frame skipping/slowdown than most so I assume the majority of people simply don't notice it.

If anyone does come up with a fix please PM me, otherwise just let this thread die.

Cheers for the help guys!

Bumping to help others

That's kinda unexpected but explain why the problem arise uniformly across all 30FPS games. At least you found the solution.