Hi All,
Long time lurker, first time poster.... not messed around with Dolphin for a while but decided to try it again about a month ago and so glad to see some massive improvements being made and 5.0 being released! Anyway, few games i've tried so far have been great... wind waker looks and performs amazing, but having lots of problems with this game (and metroid 1, but to a lesser extent).
I'm getting really bad slow down alot in this game, running default settings in Dolphin 5.0, used DX11, DX12 and OpenGL and same results more or less. Issues seem to be around entering new areas, or to and from areas, going into scan mode (severe slow down, stuttering etc), cut scenes really choppy and slow. I put it down to maybe the shader cache building, but still getting it after quite a few hours of play, and even visiting previous areas etc, but I'll get random stutters and slow down just walking around.
My FPS/VPS are solid at 60fps until the choppy/slow downs occur, and then it drops to around 40-45, sometimes 30, but the game is a slideshow.... so it doesn't seem to be purely FPS related. Also my CPU usage never goes above 30%.
I'll add my config settings when I get to my gaming machine in a mo (edit: config attached), hopefully i've added enough for someone to hopefully help or give me some pointers.
Specs (to save viewing profile):
i5 3550
8gb RAM
GTX 970
Win 10
Dolphin 5.0
Cheers
(06-30-2016, 01:11 AM)DannyG81 Wrote: [ -> ]Hi All,
Long time lurker, first time poster.... not messed around with Dolphin for a while but decided to try it again about a month ago and so glad to see some massive improvements being made and 5.0 being released! Anyway, few games i've tried so far have been great... wind waker looks and performs amazing, but having lots of problems with this game (and metroid 1, but to a lesser extent).
I'm getting really bad slow down alot in this game, running default settings in Dolphin 5.0, used DX11, DX12 and OpenGL and same results more or less. Issues seem to be around entering new areas, or to and from areas, going into scan mode (severe slow down, stuttering etc), cut scenes really choppy and slow. I put it down to maybe the shader cache building, but still getting it after quite a few hours of play, and even visiting previous areas etc, but I'll get random stutters and slow down just walking around.
My FPS/VPS are solid at 60fps until the choppy/slow downs occur, and then it drops to around 40-45, sometimes 30, but the game is a slideshow.... so it doesn't seem to be purely FPS related. Also my CPU usage never goes above 30%.
I'll add my config settings when I get to my gaming machine in a mo (edit: config attached), hopefully i've added enough for someone to hopefully help or give me some pointers.
Specs (to save viewing profile):
i5 3550
8gb RAM
GTX 970
Win 10
Dolphin 5.0
Cheers
Kill your MSAA - Antialiasing is one of the more intense features laid on a graphics card, followed by tessellation. With a 970GTX you should easily be able to crank up the anisotropic filtering to x16 with zero slowdown; I can do this with my 780Ti.
Have you tried swapping between DirectX11/12 and OpenGL? My card let's me use the DX12 backend and it's significantly faster. Your processor, while not being fully utilized, is on the slower end (I have a 4790K by comparison at 5.0Ghz), but I still suffer slowdowns so not sure on that end. Make sure you're not using the SW end and you're using the HW end in the graphics plugin.
(06-30-2016, 01:31 AM)Eternal Engine Wrote: [ -> ]Kill your MSAA - Antialiasing is one of the more intense features laid on a graphics card, followed by tessellation. With a 970GTX you should easily be able to crank up the anisotropic filtering to x16 with zero slowdown; I can do this with my 780Ti.
Have you tried swapping between DirectX11/12 and OpenGL? My card let's me use the DX12 backend and it's significantly faster. Your processor, while not being fully utilized, is on the slower end (I have a 4790K by comparison at 5.0Ghz), but I still suffer slowdowns so not sure on that end. Make sure you're not using the SW end and you're using the HW end in the graphics plugin.
That's really interesting as I have AA set to none in the gui, yet the ini file =1. So does 1 mean there's an AA enhancement being set and =0 means it's off?
As per my post, I've tried DX11, 12 and OpenGL but the symptoms are still there... although I will say with DX12 they seem slightly better.
I know my processor isn't the best, but the fact it was only 30% used when the slowdowns hit the worst, made me think it couldn't be the cpu. Unless I'm missing something in how dolphin works in respect to actual cpu usage?
1 other thing I've noticed is when scanning something, then going into logbook, when I exit there's a 3-4 second pause before anything responds, yet fps doesn't drop!
Something I have noticed is that it seems to start having that slowdown whenever there is something transparent like the map, portals(most notably). Although in Torvus Bog the water doesn't seem to be too bad..
I switched to Dx12 and noticed a huge improvement, map doesn't lag anymore at the least. Haven't done much exploring since the switch.
EDIT:
I get a solid 60 fps and then whenever it stutters it drops to 30-42 range. Standing infront of a portal and ranging from 36-44
Not sure what just happened. Excited the game for a bit, came back and now it crashes shortly after launching. Switched back to Dx11 and doesn't crash but of course now I get the horrible stutter more often.
Tried restarting computer and using Dx12, no change still crashes.
So setting msaa to 0 in the gfx.ini helped a bit, but every time I go into the graphics settings, this gets changed back to 1, even though in the gui I have aa set to none.
I get that same slow down with the portals and transparency, the command centre in particular is just a slideshow! Going into scan visor also triggers the slow down.
I've just reached torvus bog and it's pretty unplayable now
This can't be down to my cpu, as it never gets above 30% usage, unless I'm not understanding how dolphin properly works!
(07-01-2016, 06:43 AM)Naddox Wrote: [ -> ]Not sure what just happened. Excited the game for a bit, came back and now it crashes shortly after launching. Switched back to Dx11 and doesn't crash but of course now I get the horrible stutter more often.
Tried restarting computer and using Dx12, no change still crashes.
Try rolling back to a previous graphics driver if you've just updated it, or if there's an update which has been out for a few weeks go ahead and make sure it's the most current.
Did you do anything else with your PC in terms of updates or any other changes? If all else fails try setting Dolphin settings back to default and re-tweak things from there.
(07-02-2016, 02:39 AM)DannyG81 Wrote: [ -> ]So setting msaa to 0 in the gfx.ini helped a bit, but every time I go into the graphics settings, this gets changed back to 1, even though in the gui I have aa set to none.
I get that same slow down with the portals and transparency, the command centre in particular is just a slideshow!
I've just reached torvus bog and it's pretty unplayable now
This can't be down to my cpu, as it never gets above 30% usage, unless I'm not understanding how dolphin properly works!
It might be a placebo effect unless you're monitoring FPS via shadowplay or using some other third-party FPS diagnostic.
In terms of slowness, let's do a quick rundown of what will affect your performance the most: CPU and GPU. Your CPU is a Intel i5 3550 at 3.3Ghz and a 3.7Ghz turbo speed. My i7 4790k on the other hand is 4.0Ghz standard running at a 4.4Ghz turbo speed, and I can even set it at 5.0Ghz with my liquid cooling. .7Ghz is a HUGE difference, as Dolphin is not going to take advantage of all four cores of your CPU, which is probably why you're seeing such a huge FPS difference as opposed to what I look at. Your CPU should never be at 100% utilization unless you're running some very intense video editing or many multiple tasks which each take up a small percentage; your GPU will obviously take place of the video processing of Dolphin.
GPU-wise we're pretty similar. While the 970 beats the 780Ti on paper the 780Ti is still faster, albeit not by a ton. The only major difference I see between our builds is CPU, which leads me to believe this to be your bottleneck. While your i5 only has 4 cores versus my 8, again, Dolphin doesn't really discriminate on core count (I believe it uses 2), so physical CPU clock speed and cache are what we're looking at here.
Torvus Bog is very hard on my PC as well due to the water refraction effect on the visor. I believe there is a specific version of Dolphin which fixes this, I'll have to look for it.
(07-02-2016, 02:48 AM)Eternal Engine Wrote: [ -> ]Try rolling back to a previous graphics driver if you've just updated it, or if there's an update which has been out for a few weeks go ahead and make sure it's the most current.
Did you do anything else with your PC in terms of updates or any other changes? If all else fails try setting Dolphin settings back to default and re-tweak things from there.
Didn't change anything driver wise. Just exited the game for a bit, came back and crashes.
Wasn't sure how to reset to default so I just shift+deleted my Dolphin Emulation folder from Documents... Working now but good bye save data. Dang.
(07-02-2016, 02:57 AM)Eternal Engine Wrote: [ -> ]It might be a placebo effect unless you're monitoring FPS via shadowplay or using some other third-party FPS diagnostic.
In terms of slowness, let's do a quick rundown of what will affect your performance the most: CPU and GPU. Your CPU is a Intel i5 3550 at 3.3Ghz and a 3.7Ghz turbo speed. My i7 4790k on the other hand is 4.0Ghz standard running at a 4.4Ghz turbo speed, and I can even set it at 5.0Ghz with my liquid cooling. .7Ghz is a HUGE difference, as Dolphin is not going to take advantage of all four cores of your CPU, which is probably why you're seeing such a huge FPS difference as opposed to what I look at. Your CPU should never be at 100% utilization unless you're running some very intense video editing or many multiple tasks which each take up a small percentage; your GPU will obviously take place of the video processing of Dolphin.
GPU-wise we're pretty similar. While the 970 beats the 780Ti on paper the 780Ti is still faster, albeit not by a ton. The only major difference I see between our builds is CPU, which leads me to believe this to be your bottleneck. While your i5 only has 4 cores versus my 8, again, Dolphin doesn't really discriminate on core count (I believe it uses 2), so physical CPU clock speed and cache are what we're looking at here.
Torvus Bog is very hard on my PC as well due to the water refraction effect on the visor. I believe there is a specific version of Dolphin which fixes this, I'll have to look for it.
Well I bit the bullet and upgraded my cpu and mobo to a i7-4790k and MSI Z97 Gaming 5... and straight away this game is so much better! Even torvus bog only stutters every now and then.
Just goes to show the difference a good cpu can make to this emulator!
Thanks for the replies and efforts though, much appreciated
