Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

Apparently Delroth decided I was doing too much testing and providing too much feedback and so he closed my bug issue because I was "wild guessing", as if my guesses weren't attempts to help, but ways to annoy him personally, especially after telling me my hardware was broken or overheating (nope, it's not):

http://code.google.com/p/dolphin-emu/issues/detail?id=7031

In these last couple of years I've always had problems with Dolphin because of freezes, desynch, sound drops and crashes. Delroth doesn't want I generalize these issues into one, but the branch that fixes one seems to fix all of them:

http://code.google.com/p/dolphin-emu/issues/detail?id=6705

I can't test Wii games on that build, though, because Wii controller support is broken. One of the devs also says that branch is too buggy.

But couldn't one of the devs look specifically into these desynch issues to figure out if that code can be actually used to fix all these problems?

Did you try reinstalling Windows. It really does sound like you have something broken on your end, not our end.

Also: "Instead I can reproduce the crash right away, for example spinning the camera and saving states one after another." Save states can still cause issues, especially in the scenario you described.

Also, your CPU is not great for Dolphin (but you know that when you said there's slowdowns)

Having tested save states for stability recently in XBC myself, it's rare to still have saves crashing (only has happened twice for me over 40 hours). I doubt it's save states specifically, but maybe Dolphin encounters a more general issue.

Could be an issue on your end. Try another OS if you can (Windows 8, Linux, etc) or a clean install like KHg8m3r suggested.

Yeah, I remember your thread on that. But what the OP was saying, how he was spinning the camera and saving states one after another probably isn't very good

Fadeout: I dug up the last build of that branch that has working Wiimote support.

https://dolphin-emu.org/download/dev/aa3d141e815d26b86528e928c07ac901ecab0e57/

If that fixes your crashes, then you are correct.

Guys, I've had this PC for 5 years. I've seen maybe 3 bluescreens in this time, all three because of known bugs in the graphic drivers. No other application or game crashes. EVER.

In this last couple of weeks I've played Guild Wars 2 for hours without a single problem in intense PvP with hundreds of players. I used countless of emulators, from PPSSPP to PCSX2. I use this PC to code and compile my stuff. Only Dolphin crashes, and it always gave me problems that have been verified and fixed.

The Netplay branch of Dolphin is ROCK STABLE. So how the hell you can tell me it's MY PC when one version of Dolphin works and the other not?

The only problem with that branch is:
1- It's quite a bit slower than the last dev build.
2- Doesn't work on Wii games.

But as far as Gamecube games are concerned, it fixed ALL my freezes, crashes and sound drops. At least in the games I have: Tales of Symphonia, the two Zeldas and Skies of Arcadia.

Of these four games only the Tales game doesn't show freezes or crashes or sound drops with the latest dev build.

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(02-15-2014, 09:21 AM)JMC47 Wrote: [ -> ]Fadeout: I dug up the last build of that branch that has working Wiimote support.

https://dolphin-emu.org/download/dev/aa3d141e815d26b86528e928c07ac901ecab0e57/

If that fixes your crashes, then you are correct.

So:

1- It runs like shit. Like half the framerate of latest dev version (and it completely maxes CPU usage to 100%, that I don't think normally happens).
2- It lags and stutters because of bad performance, but absolutely zero crashes or freezes.

Even spinning the camera and saving states repeatedly can't make it crash. Doing this with the latest dev version causes a crash within a few seconds. It lags like hell, but it can always recover.

Go tell Delroth that next time he should try to be a bit more humble instead of a righteous prick. These issues are indeed related.

Also: the latest dev version ALWAYS crashes if I try to access Dolphin graphic options while the game is running. This doesn't happen with other versions. And I tested this again: latest dev, crash within 10 seconds by repeatedly saving game. Tried with the Netplay build: no crashes, just lots of lag.

It's NOT saving states producing the crashes, it's the stress on the game that makes desynchs more likely to happen in multicore threading. Every time the game lags it risks desynching and crashing, saving states only increase the load and so make crashes more probable. But even if I run the game normally I'd get crashes, sometimes after 10 minutes, sometimes after more, but it will eventually crash. The Netplay build is instead rock solid.

If you run Dolphin on powerful hardware I guess these desynchs are less likely to happen, so you don't see the crashes, or see them more rarely.

The issues are most likely different manifestations of inaccurate CPU timing, the way that asynchrous HLE desyncing different problems in different games that are all solved with new-AX-HLE or LLE. But this is CPU. I think the issues are different enough that they should not be in the same thread. But it is a real issue, if what you're experiencing is true.
Also, running background tasks is a valid way of producing stress, save states can cause problems. Those problems are part of the savestate system, not the engine. Savestates may be able to expose engine issues, but I don't think it's always really valid to use them.

(02-15-2014, 10:35 AM)jimbo1qaz Wrote: [ -> ]Also, running background tasks is a valid way of producing stress, save states can cause problems. Those problems are part of the savestate system, not the engine. Savestates may be able to expose engine issues, but I don't think it's always really valid to use them.

It remains the fastest way, and the Netplay branch doesn't crash even when playing with those savestates.

I was only hoping that some dev could look into what the Netplay does differently and make a patch for the standard branch to see if this is fixable without losing performance.

Something in Dolphin is stressing your CPU beyond what it can handle in the dev builds. Its possible something in the DC-Netplay branch isn't as intensive.

Don't open the Graphics tab during a game, it can break something in the game and cause a crash.

When was the last time you re-applied thermal paste? The CPU could be under too big of a load during Dolphin, and it throttles down in a way that Dolphin doesn't like. Dolphin could be trying to pull resources that are being used by other programs, which is why you get a speed boost when there's barely anything else running.

Comparing PC games to Dolphin is not a good way to show off your computer. Dolphin relies on single-core speeds on the CPU to work, where PC games rely a lot more on the GPU. Dolphin also tends to be more CPU intensive than PCSX2 (PPSSPP is lightweight). In PCSX2, you can get away with old Intel and AMD APUs/FX CPUs and get near-to-full speed, while in Dolphin you basically need an Intel Core i- series CPU to get near or at fullspeed, due to the way Dolphin is and has been optimized.

It's very likely that whatever the netplay branch is doing costs performance. Are you sure it's any better than just running it in single core if it's really laggy and slow?