Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

Thanks all,
I've been fiddling with the settings trying to get something that runs stable and looks good. You can see my system's full specs in my profile, but I can post them here too if that's easier. I am using an Nvidia card. So basically, I've been trying to find the most stable run that can look as good as it does on the Wii. For testing, I've been loading the opening cut scenes, the first fight with Dunban, and the following cut scene. I also have an early save with Shulk outside Colony 9 where I'll run him around. The below settings (see the spoiler link) appear to be the most stable I've managed so far, but still have a slight frame rate drop from time to time and the sounds like it has a bit of an issue (slight static sound). No idea how stable this will be when I get further into the game.
Thanks again for the help!

I am curious why I (in 4.0.2) get FPS drops with 2x MSAA in OpenGL when none of my CPU threads nor my GPU are at 100%, roughly 50% usage on the GPU and 60-70% per core. Would this be a RAM issue?

octanku, your settings look pretty good. I suggest you turn on Per-pixel lighting though. It has no cost and it's more accurate emulation. I also suggest cranking up Anisotropic Filtering (AF), it's free and it helps with textures at angle.

(12-01-2013, 03:19 PM)MaJoR Wrote: [ -> ]octanku, your settings look pretty good. I suggest you turn on Per-pixel lighting though. It has no cost and it's more accurate emulation. I also suggest cranking up Anisotropic Filtering (AF), it's free and it helps with textures at angle.

Well Major, I thought so too, but on trying it out a few more times, I still find my gameplay and cutscenes will drop from 30 frames to about 20 frames or lower. Perhaps it's not in the cards for my setup to run this? I know that I'm using a laptop, but had hoped since it was a newer gaming laptop it was beefy enough to run things flawlessly. Don't get me wrong, I'm very impressed by Dolphin. Wishing I had put a little more money down on this gaming laptop back when I bought it. Not really comfortable trying any kind of overclocking stuff either (if that's even possible). I turned on per-pixel and turned up my AF. It does seem to look nicer, but yeah, frame rate drops still happening.

As for versions, I am using the latest stable version. 4.0.2. If I were to use a different version (for instance an older version that might make xenoblade less costly - what version would you suggest?)

(12-01-2013, 01:50 PM)ExtremeDude2 Wrote: [ -> ]

(12-01-2013, 01:30 PM)MaJoR Wrote: [ -> ]AMD cards aren't as friendly with OpenGL though, so if you have that you may be out of luck. Also, an SSD may be able to help with D3D caching and thus stuttering. Looong story.

Err, have you been like, not looking at development?

https://code.google.com/p/dolphin-emu/source/detail?r=672fa65ee76c0addb31b8c8cacc129a76926331d

I tested 4.0-479 on my AMD card, no noticeable improvement whatsoever on OpenGL over DirectX9 except frequent random stuttering (that did not exist in 4.0.1) when standing still in 4.0.2 is now gone, but the fps is still subpar and any sort of camera movement causes lag. Is that change in 4.0-479? Also, DirectX11 has worse custom texture loading in 4.0-479 than in 4.0.1/2. It's still unusable.

(12-01-2013, 09:57 PM)limith Wrote: [ -> ]Also, DirectX11 has worse custom texture loading in 4.0-479 than in 4.0.1/2. It's still unusable.

And the very only reason for that is that we have exactly zero useful issue reports about those issues. Crying about how things suck won't get it fixed any sooner.

(12-01-2013, 10:11 PM)neobrain Wrote: [ -> ]

(12-01-2013, 09:57 PM)limith Wrote: [ -> ]Also, DirectX11 has worse custom texture loading in 4.0-479 than in 4.0.1/2. It's still unusable.

And the very only reason for that is that we have exactly zero useful issue reports about those issues. Crying about how things suck won't get it fixed any sooner.

What would constitute a useful report? I can file some.

https://forums.dolphin-emu.org/Thread-custom-texture-issue-report-thread

Thinking more than 5 seconds how not to waste my time is a good start usually. If I have no clear instruction and have to think about how to do anything, it's not good enough. Also, I don't need "some" subquality reports, I need one good report. Also, if I have to download some 600 MB file, it's not good enough either. If I need to own Xenoblade Chronicles (which I don't), it's not good enough either. And fyi, all of those things are fairly obvious, I shouldn't even need to mention them, yet people think saying "omg Xenoblade textures aren't working" is some sort of "good" report.

octanku Wrote:As for versions, I am using the latest stable version. 4.0.2. If I were to use a different version (for instance an older version that might make xenoblade less costly - what version would you suggest?)

Go with the latest dev version. A lot of speed improvements have occurred since 4.0. And 4.0.1 and 4.0.2 are just 4.0 with specific critical (crash) bugs fixed. That's it. Use the latest dev version to get all the latest improvements. Get it from the official site, as always - https://dolphin-emu.org/download/

limith Wrote:but the fps is still subpar and any sort of camera movement causes lag.

OpenGL is better all around. Thanks to the recent changes, OpenGL is awesomely fast on both Nvidia and AMD. And it greatly improves the stuttering issue that occurs even at fullspeed, the kind of problem that can't be fixed by just buying better hardware. In fact, what you said appears to confirm this.

limith Wrote:4.0-479 ... no noticeable improvement whatsoever on OpenGL over DirectX9 except frequent random stuttering ... when standing still in 4.0.2 is now gone,

There you go. Hey, if D3D9 in 4.0.2 gets you up to fullspeed, by all means use it. Just remember, D3D9 was removed for a reason: all of it's speed comes from missing effects and inaccurate emulation. If you have to use that hacked up ancient backend to get fullspeed, then use it. Have fun. Enjoy the game (which you had better have bought, games this good deserve it). The limitations of your computer are not our concern, they're yours.

limith Wrote:Also, my general testing result with 4.0.2 is that it is worse than 4.0.1 for Xenoblade on my computer, for some weird reason...

(11-25-2013, 08:36 AM)Shonumi Wrote: [ -> ]EFB Copies : Texture
External Frame Buffer : Disable

Omg, Thank you, thank you sooooooooo much!

This fixed all my issues. Game couldn't run at 20 fps in makna forest in 720p without lagging. I turned that off and now I am back to 45 fps in 1440p with no slow down.

I was about to stop playing when I found this.

Thank you!