Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

(06-08-2012, 01:43 AM)LordVador Wrote: [ -> ]

Quote:I am using 3.0-600

This build is from AudioStreaming merge branch by skid. It's supposed to solve some sound issues. Are you sure it didn't have any incidence?

Well I just tested it with latest official build 688 and trick still works for me !

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(06-08-2012, 01:44 AM)Garteal Wrote: [ -> ]Not that I need it, but should be fun to try out.

rpglord Wrote:I dont have a camera I am recording with fraps. AFAIK it only captures when dirext application starts,it can't capture desktop

Yes it can, the option is called Monitor Aero Desktop (DWM). Tick that, and you should see the FPS counter appear on Windows itself.

Ok,good to know ! If needed I can record another video. For now,I am waiting to hear if this is working for other people !

Quote:Well I just tested it with latest official build 688 and trick still works for me !

Ok. I'll try with Dolphin 3.0 too
btw with which system did you experiment this?

(06-08-2012, 02:04 AM)rpglord Wrote: [ -> ]

(06-08-2012, 01:43 AM)LordVador Wrote: [ -> ]

Quote:I am using 3.0-600

This build is from AudioStreaming merge branch by skid. It's supposed to solve some sound issues. Are you sure it didn't have any incidence?

Well I just tested it with latest official build 688 and trick still works for me !

It should still work on newer revs, unless AudioStreaming has since been reverted. At any rate, I experience this behavior on 3.0-416, when skid really made LLE on Thread worthwhile by removing busy-waits. I think it's moreso something to do with Accurate VBeam, though I imagine AudioStreaming might help. Not a dev, so I don't know for sure.

Well, I tried this on my laptop (2.17GHz T3400, GMAX3100, 32-bit Slackware), my super weak test-bed. For some reason, the rev I compiled didn't put the rev number or hash. It was built on December 11, 2011. Anyway, played Time Splitters 2, LLE + Accurate VBeam. Still stuttered, even with Idle Skipping disabled. HLE audio, on the other hand, plays just fine. Audio throttling didn't change that either.

I think this method won't help those whose systems are far too weak to run Dolphin adequately, even with HLE (my laptop qualifies for that category). I might try a newer rev to see if it indeed does help with my laptop. Another thing I noticed is that limiting the frame rate to something like 30 or 15 for half-speed (NTSC games), with LLE + Accurate VBeam still results in stuttering. Audio throttling, on the other hand, works fine for reproducing the results rpglord discussed.

(06-08-2012, 02:18 AM)LordVador Wrote: [ -> ]

Quote:Well I just tested it with latest official build 688 and trick still works for me !

Ok. I'll try with Dolphin 3.0 too
btw with which system did you experiment this?

i5 2400,8gb ram and geforce 460 gtx

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(06-08-2012, 02:24 AM)Shonumi Wrote: [ -> ]It should still work on newer revs, unless AudioStreaming has since been reverted.

I dont think this has anything to do with AudioStreaming.
I just tested it with old r7719m and guess what ? It still works !

(06-08-2012, 02:24 AM)Shonumi Wrote: [ -> ]Well, I tried this on my laptop (2.17GHz T3400, GMAX3100, 32-bit Slackware), my super weak test-bed. For some reason, the rev I compiled didn't put the rev number or hash. It was built on December 11, 2011. Anyway, played Time Splitters 2, LLE + Accurate VBeam. Still stuttered, even with Idle Skipping disabled. HLE audio, on the other hand, plays just fine. Audio throttling didn't change that either.

I didnt expect this to work for every system on every game. That would be too good to be true
I presume this won't work on weak systems. I also have a feeling this wont work for every game-I only tested 3 so far,all other games I have are too fast to test this

(06-08-2012, 02:48 AM)rpglord Wrote: [ -> ]I dont think this has anything to do with AudioStreaming.
I just tested it with old r7719m and guess what ? It still works !

You said that you originally tested on 3.0-600, and then said it works on 3.0-688. Under the assumption that AudioStreaming was playing a role, I was only pointing out that it should obviously work on 3.0-688 unless AudioStreaming had been removed. But I've always believed this bit of magic is related to Accurate VBeam. Glad to see that it still works that far back too though.

(06-08-2012, 02:48 AM)rpglord Wrote: [ -> ]I didnt expect this to work for every system on every game. That would be too good to be true
I presume this won't work on weak systems. I also have a feeling this wont work for every game-I only tested 3 so far,all other games I have are too fast to test this

Right, hehe. This method isn't going to perform miracles, but it was good to test it anyway, just to verify that weak systems are exempt from any potential benefits. At least, it'll make it easier to explain to people asking on the forums why they still get stuttering audio with this method (trust me, we'll see them eventually).

Tested ToS more, audio is perfect, even though it can drop to 30 FPS at times. Tried it with EFB Copies->Texture, Accurate VBeam and disabling Idle Skipping. Seems like it the FPS are very prone to dropping in this case, as I've played it before with LLE, no Accurate VBeam, and Idle Skipping enabled while maintaining 55~60 FPS with no noticeable audio skipping.

(06-08-2012, 03:10 AM)Shonumi Wrote: [ -> ]Tested ToS more, audio is perfect, even though it can drop to 30 FPS at times. Tried it with EFB Copies->Texture, Accurate VBeam and disabling Idle Skipping. Seems like it the FPS are very prone to dropping in this case, as I've played it before with LLE, no Accurate VBeam, and Idle Skipping enabled while maintaining 55~60 FPS with no noticeable audio skipping.

Thanks for reminding me about those old gamecube games !
This doesnt seem to work unfortunately for ToS or Skies of Arcadia.
Both games were running fullspeed,so I disabled "lle on thread" to slow them down and induce stuttering.
Maybe this works only for wii games,unless lle on thread has something to do with it ? Any idea how to slow down these older games so I can test this more ?

(06-08-2012, 03:45 AM)rpglord Wrote: [ -> ]This doesnt seem to work unfortunately for ToS or Skies of Arcadia.
Both games were running fullspeed,so I disabled "lle on thread" to slow them down and induce stuttering.

Doesn't work? How so? It works fine over here. Like I said, there were drops in FPS for ToS, but the sound was perfect. Same for Skies of Arcadia, and the audio's just fine. Without VBeam, SoA stutters, ToS not so much, since I can run it at/near fullspeed, but VBeam does allow them to play LLE audio perfectly with drops in FPS.

You can slow down games by setting the framelimit to anything less than fullspeed. I tested this, and it does induce stuttering, even when measuring by VPS or FPS (toggled by "Use FPS for limiting" checkbox).

(06-08-2012, 03:58 AM)Shonumi Wrote: [ -> ]Doesn't work? How so? It works fine over here. Like I said, there were drops in FPS for ToS, but the sound was perfect. Same for Skies of Arcadia, and the audio's just fine. Without VBeam, SoA stutters, ToS not so much, since I can run it at/near fullspeed, but VBeam does allow them to play LLE audio perfectly with drops in FPS.

Disabling vbeam with SOA is not an option-that game is more demanding then SMG2 without it,so no point in testing that.
What I did is disabled lle on thread,while keeping vbeam on and that caused sound skipping which did not go away when disabling idle skipping.
Did the same thing with SOA and it would stutter a little bit in combat.
Of course,no stuttering when lle on thread is enabled,but how can I slow these games down otherwise to test more ?
Framelimit didnt work for one reason-it completely breaks this trick.
I tested it with SMG2 and even setting it to 55 fps induce sound skipping. If leaving it on auto,game will drop to around 50 but will not stutter with idle off+vbeam on.
So,thats curious-why does this trick doesnt work when framelimit is used to reduce fps ???

Curious, might this trick have something to do with LLE on Thread + LLE + Accurate VBeam? I always enable LLE on thread when I use LLE, so I rarely take it off. I'll have to try to see if that makes all the difference.

You can also slow down the game play by raising your graphical settings to something ridiculous. 4x IR + silly amounts of AA would slow down the video thread, and in turn cause Dolphin to slow down.

Did some more testing.
Raised graphic settings to ridicolous levels-4x resolution and 4x SSAA.
These are the results :

Tales of Symphonia standard settings,with LLE and LLE on thread on:
20-40 fps ,sound stuttering
Tales of Symphonia vbeam on and idle skipping off,with LLE and LLE on thread on:
20-40 fps ,perfect sound

Last story standard settings,with LLE and LLE on thread on:
8 fps ( yes you read that right this is most demanding game currently,not SMG2 ) sound stuttering
Last story vbeam on and idle skipping off,with LLE and LLE on thread on:
10 fps,perfect sound

SMG2 standard settings,with LLE and LLE on thread on:
20-25 fps,sound stuttering
SMG2 vbeam on and idle skipping off,with LLE and LLE on thread on:
20-25 fps,perfect sound,but did stutter just a little bit when game started-no stuttering during actual gameplay

Zelda twilight princess..well same thing as above you get the idea
Perfect sound in Hyrule field with 20 fps
But then

Skies of Arcadia standard settings,with LLE and LLE on thread on:
12 fps,sound stuttering
Skies of Arcadia , vbeam on and idle skipping off,with LLE and LLE on thread on:
12 fps,sound still stuttering.

This seems only game I found so far where this LLE trick doesnt work.

Also,LLE on thread do play some role,since ToS did stutter without it,even with vbeam on + idle off