Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

I tried more builds. Most of my games run at almost full speed 96-99% always. But there's sound lag and problems in really any game. I am using DSP HLE and DSound (I tried Xaudio2 too but it's exactly same). I really need help. I really wanna play Mario galaxy 2 on my PC.

SMG2 required LLE for accurate audio but the game needs to run at fullspeed or you'll be back at square one

(03-23-2012, 03:08 AM)Zee530 Wrote: [ -> ]SMG2 required LLE for accurate audio but the game needs to run at fullspeed or you'll be back at square one

I Tried with LLE. Same thing. But it has to be really 100% speed?

Yeah, it does, LLE is dead accurate with the game speed, i see you're using a bulldozer which is poor with dolphin but anyways HLE is decent enough with a number of games, what games were you trying to play?

LLE becomes unusable in higher resolutions, HLE is much faster and does not depend on framerate.
In order to play SMG2, you need a powerful GPU, which is far more important than your CPU (if you have at least a current model).
If the game runs to slow, reduce the internal resolution and disable AF. Also consider using a ICC optimized Dolphin build which can speed up Dolphin by up to 20% if your CPU supports the instructions. Dual Core, Cached Display Lists and Open MP can also speed up emulation.

I really do not understand why LLE depends on framerate so much. On a real Wii if there is a lot of action an the screen the framerate will decrease without causing sound issues but on Dolphin LLE you get massive audio issues if there even is minor slowdown. Why must audio be linked to framerate, is there really no way to change the code creatively to avoid this ?

LLE AUDIO has nothing to do with resolution

Dolphin's GPU requirements are pretty slim, he can use any GPU that passes the minimum requirements, again he only has to adjust his IR so that it dosent bottleneck the CPU, what he needs is a better processor not GPU

This is the fourth time for me reading this but I think it is partly wrong. HLE audio has a lot to do with resolution, or to be more precise with framerate which is more likely to drop on higher resolutions.

Why can I perfectly play in LLE with low internal resolution but get massive problems in 3x internal res.?
Why is HLE audio working perfectly in 3x internal resolution with some minor drops in framerate which I do not care about? -> Because my GPU is to slow to run 1080p with LLE but not to slow to run 1080p with HLE.

As my CPU is not fully utilized (max 80%), the GPU is more important here.

With HLE I can play in 1080p, with LLE I cannot. If I cannot play in 1080p, I see no use in Dolphin, I can then use my real Wii. To play in 1080p, internal resolution must be set to 3x, else it is no 1080p. For me real 1080p is far more important than small and unnoticeable frame drops from time to time. Only in LLE these minor (1-2 frames) frame drops cause massive audio issues, this is why I think that LLE is completely useless in high resolutions. Your GPU must be much stronger to make use of it.

And I strongly disagree that Dolphin must be set adjust IR so that it dosent bottleneck the CPU because this makes only sense for LLE audio. Because you can play almost as fluently but with much better visual output on a different setting using HLE. Therefore, I do not think it is wise to limit your GPU so the CPU is the bottleneck, you should just try to max out both equally.

And if you max out both, LLE cannot be used on 90% of the current systems on the market because they are to slow for LLE in 1080p (or to slow to always run at stable max. FPS in 1080p). Therefore development should focus on HLE which has a lot of room for improvement if you look at the current bugs and patches. And most of these problems can be fixed without rewriting LLE or reinventing the wheel. Where there's a will there's a way.

Oh for crying out loud. And I was trying so hard not to get sucked in to posting in support threads.

No, that's completely wrong. LLE audio has NOTHING to do with your gpu, just look at the code if you don't believe me.
What are your other settings? Are you using efb copy to ram? Is LLE on thread checked?

Quote:As my CPU is not fully utilized (max 80%), the GPU is more important here.

An incorrect assumption. Just because your core load is not maxed out does not mean the gpu is the bottleneck. Please read up on multithreading.

Quote:In order to play SMG2, you need a powerful GPU, which is far more important than your CPU (if you have at least a current model).
If the game runs to slow, reduce the internal resolution and disable AF. Also consider using a ICC optimized Dolphin build which can speed up Dolphin by up to 20% if your CPU supports the instructions. Dual Core, Cached Display Lists and Open MP can also speed up emulation.

I really do not understand why LLE depends on framerate so much. On a real Wii if there is a lot of action an the screen the framerate will decrease without causing sound issues but on Dolphin LLE you get massive audio issues if there even is minor slowdown. Why must audio be linked to framerate, is there really no way to change the code creatively to avoid this ?

I feel like I'm going insane here. This entire post is wrong and you would have known that if you had done ANY RESEARCH AT ALL on the subject before posting.

Quote:LLE becomes unusable in higher resolutions

No it doesn't. At least hundreds of users use LLE with a high IR without performance issues in many games. You've done something wrong.

Quote: HLE is much faster and does not depend on framerate.

"Does not depend on framerate" doesn't make any sense unless you elaborate. I think you meant to say "audio thread speed does not depend on video thread speed" which would be wrong anyways.

Quote:In order to play SMG2, you need a powerful GPU, which is far more important than your CPU (if you have at least a current model).

1. You cannot get fullspeed in SMG2 without an extremely good cpu (heavily overclocked 2500K or higher). That is a fact confirmed by hundreds if not thousands of user reports (just use the forums search function if you don't believe me).
2. You can use a terrible gpu and still get fullspeed if you turn down your IR to 1x. That is a fact confirmed by hundreds if not thousands of user reports (just use the forums search function if you don't believe me).
3. Therefore the cpu is almost always way more important than the gpu.

Quote:If the game runs to slow, reduce the internal resolution and disable AF.

Lots of people do this and most don't see any increase in performance at all from changing graphics settings. This is because as long as you have a good gpu you shouldn't see any increase in performance from lowing IR, and especially not from turning off AF.

Quote:Dual Core, Cached Display Lists and Open MP can also speed up emulation.

Cached display lists causes issues with vertex shaders in several levels.
OpenMP provides no speedup in this game.

Quote:I really do not understand why LLE depends on framerate so much. On a real Wii if there is a lot of action an the screen the framerate will decrease without causing sound issues but on Dolphin LLE you get massive audio issues if there even is minor slowdown. Why must audio be linked to framerate, is there really no way to change the code creatively to avoid this ?

No. Clearly you have no idea how dolphin or DSP emulation in general works.

Please stop posting nonsense, it's annoying and embarrassing to the rest of us.

(03-23-2012, 04:35 AM)NaturalViolence Wrote: [ -> ]LLE audio has NOTHING to do with your gpu, just look at the code if you don't believe me.
What are your other settings? Are you using efb copy to ram? Is LLE on thread checked?

In LLE, audio speed is linked to game speed. This is the major problem. Game speed is (in)directly linked to internal resolution if you do hot have an high-end GPU. If you not always reach full frame rate (as the case for most average users), LLE is completely useless.

Reality (and logic) shows that LLE runs much better in lower internal resolutions on my System (Dell XPS 17 notebook with overclocked GT555M). I use EFB to Texture, LLE on thread makes no real difference. LLE audio works much, much better in lower resolutions but HLE audio is always 100.000 times faster anyway. So no need for LLE at all. As long as there is no automatic frame skipping in dolphin HLE is completely useless for me. The average user has no high end graphics card, so I cannot understand why using the (performance-wise) inferior LLE is always recommended? My GPU is just to slow for running LLE sound at full speed, this is really trivial. (I know that Sound runs on CPU only but audio speed in LLE is linked to game speed and game speed is limited by GPU in both HLE and LLE)

Quote: Just because your core load is not maxed out does not mean the gpu is the bottleneck. Please read up on multithreading.

If I overclock my GPU more I get higher framerates. In LLE, all 4 real Cores are below 80% utilization all the time in HLE and LLE. Dolphin is set to completely avoid HT cores on my system. So the GPU is for sure the bottleneck not the CPU. Or I do not understand what you are trying to say.

Quote:At least hundreds of users use LLE with a high IR without performance issues in many games. You've done something wrong.

Many user are using HLE hacks because LLE is not applicable and unusable for them as well as for me.
The reason for my LLE problem is that my GPU is to slow. It sometimes cannot reach the maximum framerate. The limited framerate causes the audio to slow down or stutter in LLE. If I reduce the internal resolution and always reach full framerate, LLE audio runs fine! Why?
And as LLE requires much more resources and is inferior in almost any way, why even consider using it? I'd need a much, much better system for LLE in 1080p, a Core I7 and a GT555M is not enough.

Quote:"Does not depend on framerate" doesn't make any sense unless you elaborate. I think you meant to say "audio thread speed does not depend on video thread speed" which would be wrong anyways.

HLE causes massive audio bugs whenever the framerate is slower than expected. And I am sure the low framerate is caused by GPU. Why is there no automatic frame skipping in dolphin to ensure audio can always run at full speed like in many other emulators? To skip a fixed number or frames is not really helpful here.

Quote:1. You cannot get fullspeed in SMG2 without an extremely good cpu (heavily overclocked 2500K or higher). That is a fact confirmed by hundreds if not thousands of user reports (just use the forums search function if you don't believe me).
2. You can use a terrible gpu and still get fullspeed if you turn down your IR to 1x. That is a fact confirmed by hundreds if not thousands of user reports (just use the forums search function if you don't believe me).
3. Therefore the cpu is almost always way more important than the gpu.

1. SMG2 runs quite nice on my PC with HLE. It may not be always be fullspeed but I do not notice any slowdowns when not looking at the framerate counter. In LLE I have massive audio issues in 1080p as mentioned before. This is because in LLE audio speed is linked to game speed and minor changes can make huge difference for human perception. LLE is unusable for me and therefore not even an option as i do not want to reduce my internal resolution.
2. I never told something different. But for higher resolutions you need a better GPU, this is trivial. If your GPU only is capable of performing at 99% speed at the desired resolution, you just cannot use LLE audio. Especially if the framerate is not stable.
3. Only if you have a high end GPU which most users dont. For these (most) people GPU is far more important (or both are equally important)

Quote:No it doesn't. At least hundreds of users use LLE with a high IR without performance issues in many games. You've done something wrong.

Yes it does, unless you have a high end GPU. But most people do not have a high-end GPU. Even I dont, my GT555M is just lower middle class and causes massive LLE audio slowdowns.

Quote:

Quote: Just because your core load is not maxed out does not mean the gpu is the bottleneck. Please read up on multithreading.

If I overclock my GPU more I get higher framerates. In LLE, all 4 real Cores are below 80% utilization all the time in HLE and LLE. Dolphin is set to completely avoid HT cores on my system. So the GPU is for sure the bottleneck not the CPU. Or I do not understand what you are trying to say.

Dolphin uses 2, (sorry) Cores.
The Dell XPS 17 with the standard configuration have 4 cores, so 2 cores are unused.
If you use DSP LLE, it uses a third core if you tell it to do so, but it's not compatible with most games or crashes mid-game.

Remember: 4/2 = 2, Dolphin uses 2 cores, so it uses half the cpu which means half the usage, so that's why it's lower than 100%