Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

Hi, I've run into a bit of a problem and can not find any means of solving it online, so I was wondering if any of you guys might be able to help.
I am running Dolphin on an I5-3337U processor and it's integrated HD4000, I know that an integrated graphics chip is not at all supposed to be fast and isn't, but several youtube videos and benchmarks prove that the HD4000 can match and beat several lower end graphics cards as long as Turbo Boost is properly active, but there is my problem. When running Dolphin (tried running Mario Kart double dash, Paper mario and mario sunshine) My system seems to be unable to recognize the need for increasing the graphics clock (standard 350, but turbo boostable up to 1150) Under different gaming circumstances Turbo Boost functions fine and I have run several diagnostic tools, all showing me that Turbo Boost should be operating fine and that its power supply and temperatures are easily good enough to enable Turbo Boost, however when running games on Dolphin it seems as if the system fails to recognize the need for these extra resouces and simply doesn't enable Turbo Boost, whilst it otherwise would. On youtube I have seen several videos of people running Dolphin succesfully on lower graphical settings much more fluently than I on exactly the same hardware ( For example I run only around 15 fps max with super mario sunshine on the very first level, whereas others have run it fluently). Could there be any solveable reason as to why my system fails to recognize te need for Turbo Boost when I run Dolphin?

Anyway thanks for the time and I really hope people read the full post before dismissing this as a simple hardware or temperature problem.

Read the full post, declared a hardware/temperature problem anyway.

However, it is possible that we may be able to give you some tips if you list/post screenshots of your settings.

Is the laptop plugged in?
Have you set the power profile to high?
Have you checked the temperatures?
Does raising your IR work?

btw: An ULV CPU is not really the best CPU for Dolphin. -> http://ark.intel.com/products/72055/Inte...o-2_70-GHz

Turbo Boost is 2.7GHz for one core. Dolphin uses 2 cores (3 when LLE on thread is enabled). So Turbo Boost will stop @ 2.4/2.5GHz.

The system is plugged in, energy profile was set to high the cpu temperatures never went above 60 degrees (105 degrees celsius supported) and raising the ir seems to have a slight negative impact on fps and still not activate turbo boost for the HD4000. I know it is a weaker cpu but should it not turbo boost the hd4000 and have 100% speed on lowest settings for these games?. as far as the rest of the dolphin settings go I will post them later today as I currently have no acces to the system at this hour.

I'm now running dolphin on stock settings. I am running the game mario kart double dash on the very first stage of the mushroom cup, and I measured from the countdown to the start signal, I get an max fps of 62 and a minimum of 30 with an average of about 38 fps, the fps for 100% speed is 60 fps in this game. Simultaniously I am running an intel tool that shows that my cpu temperature is 60 degrees celsius, that my cpu is currently being turbo boosted to 2,2 Ghz and that the cpu is utilized for about 52 percent, however at the same time the gpu does not Turbo Boost and remains at the base 350 Mhz clock, though did at startup boost to 650 Mhz for about a second. I do however know that under the same exact circumstances exept for running a different program that the Turbo Boost can work on both the gpu and cpu, when I run a stress test the GPU gets Turbo Boosted to clocks consistently above 750 hz up to 1100 Mhz and the CPU is constantly swinging around the 2,2 Ghz. So my real question is, why doesn't the system Turbo Boost the GPU when Dolphin is executing a game? Whilst all other factors are good for Turbo Boost to be running.

Also note that the few seconds that the GPU is also boosted to 650 Mhz whilst running Dolphin, that the FPS recieves a massive boost, which suggests that when Turbo Boosting the CPU should not be the bottleneck

Again, dolphin's stock settings don't always match from build to build, so it'd still be useful for you to tell us exactly what they're set to.

It's possible that dolphin at 1x IR is not putting quite enough load on the Intel HD4000 for it to decide to clock up. you may see a difference if you set the texture cache accuracy slightly more to the safe end of the slider.

I am currently running IR 1x, no AA, 1x AF, no aditionall settings such as per pixel lighting or scaled EFB copies, texture cache slider all the way to fast (though I have tried your suggestion which did not work) and dual core proccessing as wel as texture decoding enabled.

It seems that whatever I do the GPU does not recognize the need for the higher clock rate, even when I'm running it at 9x SSAA, IR x4, AF x16 and per pixel lighting on as well as scaled EFB copies it does not get the higher clock rate. The only moment the clock rate increases is either when running other demanding programs than Dolhpin OR when running dolphin the immediate second after I have changed a graphics setting, after that it just return to it's base 350 Mhz clock rate, and during that second the FPS I get is quite desirable for a weaker system, but for some reason it will not properly boost the gpu, could there be any way as to how Dolphin operates that makes my system oblivious to the fact that extra GPU resources are required?

What abour your driver for the Intel HD Graphics GPU? Did u try to update it?

I must say I have not, because the intel site warned me that my system manufacturer probably altered it and on the support page of my systems manufacturer (acer) there is no driver download for the GPU or CPU specifically I did install a newer chipset driver though.

Should I try downloading it from the intel site?

Looking on the Intel site for HD graphics drivers and there is no option for Windows 8 (which I am running) The Windows 7 64 bit driver is also several months old, whilst the processor in my system has only been released in products this month..

Scrap that I needed to look better, downloading and installing now.

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Done, but sadly didn't change anything, as was to be expected I guess since the processor is notable newer than the driver..