Hi !
I've always wanted to play my GC games on my computer, but it is always too slow even if I have good performances on computer games.
I saw on a few pages before on this thread that AMD FX processors are slow ; I have an FX-4100 quad core (it's what is showed on my system properties), and it works very well on computer games, why would it be a problem on a Game Cube game like Skies of Arcadia ? Does GameCube emulation require big CPU performance ? I thought that graphics were more important :/ I'm not english in native language, and i could have read false informations ^^, so i ask you by myself.
I have the same problem as other people before : i'm at 25 FPS (max in this game I saw somewhere) in the intro, but when i see Alfonso for the first time (and when we have a character model zoom) it drops at 21-22 FPS, so the sound looks dirty :/
Do you think that my problem is my processor ? What can I do other than buying another processor ? :p
Ok thanks for your answer ! I'm suprised, N64 games are easily emulated, and by almost all computers, and then emulate GC requires so musch power.
I've seen that a low res can't improve my frame rate, so it doesn't rely on the CPU ?
22-23 FPS aren't too bad, but the slowed music is. Is there any way to reduce the slowered music ? I saw on this forum a thread found on google, where they could reduce that choppy sound by switching to OpenAL with 5 latency. It solves partially my problem, but sometimes it is choppy again. Is there any other hint to reduce that ? :/
I could also try an old version of Dolphin, older than 4.0 ; however i had graphical issues with SoA, but maybe i was unlucky and chose a bad version (it was "dolphin 7693", i downloaded this a long time ago i don't remember where and when).
Komon Wrote:I'm suprised, N64 games are easily emulated, and by almost all computers, and then emulate GC requires so musch power.
You'd be surprised how easy it is to bring even beefy systems like mine to its knees when you try emulating N64 games accurately. Mupen64Plus plus the LLE Z64 plugins crawls on games like Mario Tennis or TWINE. The Gamecube and Wii were great technological shifts from the N64 (though the GC isn't vastly different from the WIi, that's another story). There's simply more "moving parts" so-to-speak that need to be accounted for as your computer basically tries to be a completely different machine.
Komon Wrote:I've seen that a low res can't improve my frame rate, so it doesn't rely on the GPU ?
Fixed that for you.
Actually it's the other way around. Unlike many modern PC games, the CPU plays a significant role in the progam's overall performance when it comes to Dolphin. So if your CPU is the bottleneck (for example, your CPU can't emulate the Gamecube's PowerPC CPU fast enough) then turning down the resolution will not solve your problem. The GPU is largely responsible for controlling how high you can set your Internal Resolution and Anti-Aliasing before it becomes a bottleneck. So if your GPU can handle your current settings, turning down the graphics will not eliminate the true issue: a slow CPU.
Komon Wrote:I could also try an old version of Dolphin, older than 4.0 ; however i had graphical issues with SoA, but maybe i was unlucky and chose a bad version (it was "dolphin 7693", i downloaded this a long time ago i don't remember where and when).
Older revisions before 4.0 required LLE audio (which is very stressful on the CPU), and HLE audio (the default) sounded like garbage until a developer fixed it. He changed HLE audio to be more accurate, so you have to emulate the game at 100% to hear the audio at 100% its normal speed.
You could try increasing the Latency in OpenAL. It goes all the way to 30. Although the very latest revision should slowdown the audio whenever the game slows down. I played this game at 15-20 FPS, and the audio to me does not sound "choppy" but rather "slow". Choppy audio sounds like someone stuttering every other word :p
Ok thanks !
With OpenAl at 5 it's very good. But when i begin to set it to 10 and higher, the sound begins to "glitch" very often (must restart the game, or load a save state). And at 10 (ms as said) i can easily view the latency, at 5 it is not so bad.
Another thing, I think that my FPS are higher when i'm on windowed mode than in fullscreen. But, with tearing my window to all of the screen (i can just see the border at the top), it is the same thing than fullscreen no ? And it seems to have higher FPS with these teared window. I don't like very much the window's border at the top, so :
is there any difference between this and fullscreen or i'm just wrong ?
And if indeed the windowed mode could have more FPS, how can I play with this way "and" don't have the window's top border ?
Well, Windows doesn't offer users a lot of choice when it comes to their UI options, but what you described (borderless window that is maximized like fullscreen without actually entering fullscreen mode) is possible on my Linux desktop and KDE.
Though I am suspicious that you actually get better FPS in windowed mode. It should be the same as in fullscreen. Your GPU shouldn't have any trouble playing this game at 4x Intenal Resolution, so I don't see how it would struggle in fullscreen but not windowed mode. Have you checked the FPS while playing the actual game? Find one part that runs slow (less than 100%) then look at the FPS during fullscreen and windowed mode. There is an option for Dolphin to display the current FPS on-screen, so you can see what you are getting even in fullscreen mode.
Also, to fix the speed issue, have you tried (or considered) oveclocking your CPU?
*trying*
--> When i see Alfonso at the beginning (in his ship) i'm at 22-23 FPS windowed, and 15-16 in fullscreen. I don't understand why, like you i think it should be the same framerate :/
*10 min later*
After other tries, my fullscreen framerate seems now to be higher, it's now the same as the windowed framerate.
I don't know why but now it's at 24 FPS fullscreen with Alfonso. I hope it will continue like that
And i didn't change any setting (i changed some but i "recovered" them)
I considered overclocking my processor, but i don't know anythink about overclocking ; 2-3 days ago i searched on the internet, but i didn't found any easy way to overclock my processor ^^ I saw somewhere that my AMD FX-4100 could be easily overclocked just by the BIOS, but I think I will seek advice before doing anything :p
Are you on auto internal resolution? Going full speed would increase the window size, and thus the internal resolution lowering your FPS.
I'm on "native resolution (640x528)", as recommanded by the setting description.
I should perhaps set it to "auto : window size", i just saw that it could increase my framerate. What it the best to do with that setting in SoA ?
Although I don't know if you did screenshots with recommended settings on SoA, it would be easier than reading this whole thread ; at the beginning it is said that this game doesn't require specific settings to run properly, but each game is different and there are certainly settings which doesn't work well with SoA no ?
Anyway, thank you so much for all your answers !
In the latest revisions of Dolphin, you can just boot up the game and run it without issues (assuming you are running the game at 100%). The Internal Resolution (IR) is up to you. Set it as high or low as you like. Most people like to play in HD, and as I said before, your GPU can easily handle 4x IR. You shouldn't slow down due to the graphics, since your CPU is the issue.
One thing to note, set your Framelimit to Auto. This game hates being manually set to something like 30 or 25.