Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

Alright, the results are in!

With no AA of any sort, Per-Pixel Lighting OFF and 4x IR, Skyward Sword was too slow in Skyloft with DX9. I changed to 3x IR and I was able to get full speed in all areas. The only problem is that DX9 still had banding issues, which became very obvious to me when I looked at Link's cap and the Kikwi's green leaf portions. Switching to DX11 but keeping all other settings the same unfortunately resulted in 3x IR being too slow.

2.5x IR works fine in Skyward Sword though AFAICT.

I'm using DefenderX's 3.0-758 btw.

EDIT: SN3S, were you able to get the scrapers for Advanced Launcher to download thumbnails for all of your GC and Wii games? I was able to get some horribly pixelated fan art to appear in the background of XBMC but it just said there was no thumbnail available, when I know there is. I used GameFAQs btw. Is there a better scraper for box art thumbnails?

EDIT AGAIN: I just tried out SMG, 2.5 and 3x IR were too slow on the Starship. I used the 758 build for 2.5x and Dolphin 3.0 for 3x. 2x IR works great for this game though.

Check your GPU clocks. That's so slow for a 550 TI that I think something might be wrong. My GTX 260 C216 has similar specs and performance with PC games and runs any games including SS and SMG2 at 4x IR without GPU related slowdowns (I still get slowdowns but I know they're cpu related because lowering my IR doesn't help improve performance at all).

Shonumi Wrote:I thought the GTX 550 Ti was good enough for 4x IR for Dolphin, at least that's what the minimum GPU specs thread says. I know every game is different though. Haven't played this game myself yet on Dolphin.

Please keep in mind that that entire thread is one giant "educated guess" based on the very limited data from Link_to_the_past's benchmarking thread before he threw a hissy fit and ragequited the forum. For many of the GPUs that were not tested I had to guess how fast they would be by comparing their specs and PC game benchmarks with other GPUs that had been tested. This means that my results are inherently inaccurate but it's the best I could do with the resources that were available to me.

Quote:Check your GPU clocks. That's so slow for a 550 TI that I think something might be wrong. My GTX 260 C216 has similar specs and performance with PC games and runs any games including SS and SMG2 at 4x IR without GPU related slowdowns (I still get slowdowns but I know they're cpu related because lowering my IR doesn't help improve performance at all).

D: Why computer, WHY MUST YOU FAIL ME?

Ok I'll check it out.

NaturalViolence Wrote:Please keep in mind that that entire thread is one giant "educated guess" based on the very limited data from Link_to_the_past's benchmarking thread before he threw a hissy fit and ragequited the forum. For many of the GPUs that were not tested I had to guess how fast they would be by comparing their specs and PC game benchmarks with other GPUs that had been tested. This means that my results are inherently inaccurate but it's the best I could do with the resources that were available to me.

Trust me, I keep in mind that it's not perfect nor the final say-so. But it's better to have a source to point to when I'm posting rather than having it look like I'm pulling stuff out of thin air (that was my main concern in referencing your thread, anybody can say anything on the internet, after all). Fwiw, I've tried 4x IR myself on a handful of games (out of curiosity, mostly) and I don't think I pushed the GPU to it's limits with the IR as the only enhancement, so that's why I was puzzled by Axxer's post.

Ok, here are the test results:

At the entrance of Faron Woods (where there aren't many visible objects, I get about 20fps rather consistently. My CPU stays at 4.4GHz, and my GPU sowed I as follows:

Core: 951.8 MHz
Memory: 1089.0 MHz
Shader: 1903.0 MHz
Temp high: 73.0°C

All if this info comes from GPU-Z, and the revision im using is Dolphin 3.0-758 by DefenderX (for a speed boost, it shouldn't relate to this problem at all).

I would assume the memory clock is too low, because I believe it is supposed to go to about 2000 MHz on my factory OC'ed 550 Ti.

EDIT: yeah, Precision X says it should go up to 2178 MHz

(09-16-2012, 12:26 PM)Shonumi Wrote: [ -> ]

NaturalViolence Wrote:Please keep in mind that that entire thread is one giant "educated guess" based on the very limited data from Link_to_the_past's benchmarking thread before he threw a hissy fit and ragequited the forum. For many of the GPUs that were not tested I had to guess how fast they would be by comparing their specs and PC game benchmarks with other GPUs that had been tested. This means that my results are inherently inaccurate but it's the best I could do with the resources that were available to me.

Trust me, I keep in mind that it's not perfect nor the final say-so. But it's better to have a source to point to when I'm posting rather than having it look like I'm pulling stuff out of thin air (that was my main concern in referencing your thread, anybody can say anything on the internet, after all). Fwiw, I've tried 4x IR myself on a handful of games (out of curiosity, mostly) and I don't think I pushed the GPU to it's limits with the IR as the only enhancement, so that's why I was puzzled by Axxer's post.

Quote:I would assume the memory clock is too low, because I believe it is supposed to go to about 2000 MHz on my factory OC'ed 550 Ti.

It is probably just reporting the real memory clock instead of the BS "effective clock rate" that marketing slaps on the box (thank you tech companies for ruining yet another academically important term by using it inaccurately so many times that the inaccurate definition becomes the new industry norm).

Yeah I figured out what Precision X was reporting (dual channel stuff that doesn't really make sense). So yeah all clock speeds are correct.

Inaccurate as the thread may be, it's still useful. I'll take a rough idea of Dolphin's GPU requirements over no idea whatsoever. It at least provides a starting point to look at, and from there determine if a card is actually weaker or stronger for certain IRs.

...I'm just gonna go on assuming my computer is fine.

(09-16-2012, 10:32 AM)Axxer Wrote: [ -> ]EDIT: SN3S, were you able to get the scrapers for Advanced Launcher to download thumbnails for all of your GC and Wii games? I was able to get some horribly pixelated fan art to appear in the background of XBMC but it just said there was no thumbnail available, when I know there is. I used GameFAQs btw. Is there a better scraper for box art thumbnails?

EDIT AGAIN: I just tried out SMG, 2.5 and 3x IR were too slow on the Starship. I used the 758 build for 2.5x and Dolphin 3.0 for 3x. 2x IR works great for this game though.

First off, advanced launcher is beautiful but a bit flawed scraper wise. It scrapes game info pretty good, but images not so much because it just picks whatever from whatever scraper you select, and it likes to reduce the filesize (and quality) for some reason. Which is fine on a monitor, but on a 72" TV it's not so much :p

What I do is in the advanced launcher config, set my scraper to Google, then if I feel lucky automatically scrape thumbnail and boxart. If that doesn't work, I scrape again and this time set it to semi-auto from Google, limiting the file size to large (might skip a lot of covers that way) or extra large. Then if all else fails, you can either A. hunt down the boxart and any screens / fanart you want to use and then edit each launcher item by hand and link them (tedious, but once it's done it looks so slick. I forgot to get screens but I will tomorrow), or edit each launcher by hand and then have it search google and you pick from the results (For thumbnails I add "cover" to the end of the game name, usually brings up the boxart. For fanart, I just search add "wallpaper" to the end, for 1080p stuff). It takes a while, but when you're done you can back it all up and you're good to go.

Secondly, that's a bit odd. I mean the 550ti is still a solid card, but for reference here's my settings (Audio is using LLE):



And here's two screens (SMG and SS):





Maybe I'm not experienced enough to notice any banding, or maybe my GPU drivers (I always go for the newest ones, even if they're beta) are doing something.

Either way, at those settings most games play 100% speed. Mario Kart Wii needs some tweaking but I figured that as it's a problem child of a game :p

(09-16-2012, 12:08 PM)NaturalViolence Wrote: [ -> ]Check your GPU clocks. That's so slow for a 550 TI that I think something might be wrong. My GTX 260 C216 has similar specs and performance with PC games and runs any games including SS and SMG2 at 4x IR without GPU related slowdowns (I still get slowdowns but I know they're cpu related because lowering my IR doesn't help improve performance at all).

Aye. I did oc my 3750k to about 4.3GHz as well as ocing the 660ti a bit higher as well (somewhere around 110% power, and +70/80 to the clocks). I could go higher on both but for the sake of simplicity and noise level (Those noctua heatsinks are so quiet. It's amazing), I left it at that.

I tested stability by cranking up resolution, then cranking up AA, then starting from lowest res and then upping AA. I was stable at 4x IR + 0x SSAA, or around 2/2.5 IR + 2/4 SSAA. They all looked visually indistinguishable from my view distance, so again for simplicity 4x IR won out.

Sometime next week I can get a formal build log / pictures / any other notes for anyone who wants to attempt a similar build. Was it more expensive than a wii? Yeah, by a lot :p Can a wii store all my movies, play blu-rays, play its own games as well as any past gen games up to the PS2 in high def and surround sound, stream any internet video, and play any current gen game at 1080p? Nope. :p

Between this baby and the WiiU, I'm set for entertainment for a long time. Now to make it more family friendly to use...