I always test all three backends. And I already reported problems in image quality in DX11 and OGL a year ago (with comparison screenshots), but noone was interested to dig into this problems.
Further testing of latest version from this branch (Dx9) = video rendering seems a little faster, but there is a lot of sound desync, and in that moments when sound gets desynced - it cause major stuttering and slowdowns...
Guys, let's stop this pointless squabbling. You're all wrong. Software Renderer is the beast that the hardware backends shutter away from. Any talk otherwise will result in permanent bans forever.
Anyway, I don't have any regressions to report yet.
@Linear: What audio settings are you using? Do you have "timestretching" activated? There's a little delay there, but I'm not getting desyncs...
Nope, I never use timestreching in any audio backend.
I use XAudio with default buffer size. Audio desync confirmed - Silent Hill SM, RE1 Rebirth, RE4. You can notice it in the cutscenes...
(also I never use IdleSkipping because it gives slowdowns in many games)
Hardware - Core i7 3.5, 8GB Ram, GeForce 670 3GB.
Software - Win 7 SP1 X64
Latest Dolphin Dx9 from this branch.
Linear: i recomend that you use timestretching, is far more reliable than previus version, still not perfect but improves a lot game experience.
Yeah. but current timestreching breaks "Limit FPS by Audio" mode....
i know, i will work out that. meanwhile for the best results in performance and framerate i recomend using frame limit in auto mode, vsync enabled, and audio timestretching enabled.
LINEAR: You have really my attention saying that " (also I never use IdleSkipping because it gives slowdowns in many games)"
Please, Could you tell me more about that, i am really interested in that.
LINEAR: You can have more stable 60fps or 30fps with FrameLimite auto is your PC is enought powerfull to put off IdleSkipping. But more FPS with framelimmiter OFF is very strange.
Hi macrosvitali !
Of course I will share all my testing results to you and other Dolphin DEV's who interested ))
About IdleSkipping - I noticed its buggyness about two years ago and reported this in forums, but looks like noone looked at it.
From what I know - IdleSkipping was intended to speedup emulation process by skipping useless cycles, in theory... But all this years my testing shows that IdleSkipping also tries to skip useful cycles or syncs and cause stuttering or slowdowns. You can see it in most of the games.
Resident Evil series games - all of them have slowdowns 10-15% in cutscenes or in actual gameplay. Silent Hill SM - slowdowns from the beginning title screen movie and entire gameplay about 20% slowdowns with skipped frames. Metal Gear Twin Snakes - video rendering sometimes seems a little faster, but not smooth, with skipped frames and random slowdowns. Conduit = slowdowns in gameplay and uploading moments ~ 15% and random. MHF3 - unstable framerate even if VPS shows constant 60, but FPS is not smooth at all...
My rig is = Core i7 Sandy Bridge 3.5GHz, 8GB Ram, GF 670 3GB. XBOX360 controller. Second machine is = Core i5 3.2 GHz, 8GB Ram, AMD 7870.
Both computers always shows slowdowns with idleSkipping enabled... And I have no idea why it turned on by default... Also - you can check it with any games you have and see this strange behavior...
I always use raw EFB2Ram mode without cache (it slows down some games) and not using any skipping in EFB access or fast deph or MSAA....
By the way - recently I discovered an interesting way to play games on Dolphin with Fullspeed - just enable framelimit mode to Audio and activate VBeam speedhack - most of my games runs nice with that configuration )))
Just found a regression but not due to the last commit: in e5ee8c8 Pandora's tower works perfectly, while in 16fc2be during the first intro displayed with game engine, a message keeps on popping up: "failed to compile pixel shader! This usually happens when trying to use Dolphin with an outdated gpu or integrated gpu"
(but I have a Nvidia Gtx 650ti)...it also tell to provide the file attached (bad_ps_0000.txt) and the debug info ps_3_0 tells "error X3018: invalid subcript rgba"