Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

I have Dolphin 4.0.2 and am having graphics issues using OpenGL.

Initially when I ran my game the screen would flicker very fast, and looking at what is on the screen it appears that only the top half of the image was being shown. The flickering is not random, but appears to be 1:1 from frame, to black, to frame, to black and so on, kind of like a strobe light when set at it's fastest setting. To stop the flickering I did the following:

Went into the graphics settings, under the hacks tab. Enabled External Frame Buffer and set it to Virtual.

After changing that setting the flickering has stopped, but only the top half of the game is rendered. The graphics are smooth with no lag, but he entire bottom 50% of my screen is all black.

I have tried to change a few things, eventually I changed it to Direct3D11 using my NVIDIA GeForce 8400GS. The only way it will work properly is if I have External Frame Buffer set to real.

Now after doing that, the game runs with full graphics, but runs really slow. I am not sure what else to play around with. If anyone has any ideas please let me know

External Frame Buffer (XFB) should never be set unless a game absolutely requires it (like if the Dolphin Wiki recommends it or someone tells you it fixes a specific issue). Otherwise, you're just playing around with settings that are more likely to do something you don't want it to do.

Tell us which game(s) you've tried to play, that's important to know as well. Have you tried enabling VSync either through Dolphin or your GPU drivers? If you could as well, post screenshots of all of your graphics settings so we can see what you've done.

(04-13-2014, 04:53 AM)Shonumi Wrote: [ -> ]External Frame Buffer (XFB) should never be set unless a game absolutely requires it (like if the Dolphin Wiki recommends it or someone tells you it fixes a specific issue). Otherwise, you're just playing around with settings that are more likely to do something you don't want it to do.

Tell us which game(s) you've tried to play, that's important to know as well. Have you tried enabling VSync either through Dolphin or your GPU drivers? If you could as well, post screenshots of all of your graphics settings so we can see what you've done.

I have messed around with the settings a lot, I am going to uninstall and reinstall the program to reset everything back to the default settings then will go from there.

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Ok that didn't work, the settings are still the same so i will post what I have:

Under Options > Configure:
[General Tab]
Enable Dual Core (speedup): Checked
Enable Idle Skipping (speedup): Checked
Enable Cheats: Unchecked
Framelimit: Auto
Limit by FPS: Unchecked

CPU Emulator Engine: JIT Recompiler (recommended)
Force Console as NTSC-J: Unchecked

[Interface Tab]
Confirm on Stop: Checked
Use Panic Handlers: Checked
On-Screen Display Messages: Unchecked
Theme: Clean
Language: <System>

[Audio tab]
DSP Emulator Engine: DSP HLE emulation (fast)
DSPLLE on Separate Thread: Checked
Dump Audio: Unchecked
Dolby Pro Logic II decoder: Disabled

Audio Backend: DSound
Latency: Disabled

[Wii tab]
Enable Screen Saver: Unchecked
Use ErRGB60 Mode (PAL60): Checked
Aspect Ratio: 16:9
System Language: English

Insert SD Card: Unchecked
Connect USB Keyboard: Unchecked

Under Options > Graphics Settings
[General tab]
Backend: Direct3D11
Adapter: NVIDIA GeForce 8400GS

Fullscreen resolution: Auto
Aspect ratio: Auto
V-Sync: Checked
Use Fullscreen: Checked

Show FPS: Unchecked
Auto adjust Window size: Unchecked
Hide Mouse Cursor: Checked
Log FPS to file: Unchecked
Keep window on top: Unchecked
Render to Main Window: Checked

[Enhancements tab]
Internal Resolution: 1x Native (640x528)
Anti-Aliasing: None
Anisoropic Filtering: 1x
Scaled EFB Copy: Checked
Force Texture Filtering: Unchecked
Disable Fog: Unchecked
Per-Pixel Lighting: Unchecked
Widescreen Hack: Unchecked

[Hacks tab]
Skip EFB Access from CPU: Unchecked
Ignore Format Changes: Checked
EFB Copies: Enabled - Texture
Texture Cache Accuracy: All the way to safe
External Frame Buffer: Unchecked

Cache Display Lists: Unchecked
OpenCL Texture Decoder: Unchecked
Fast Depth Calculation: Checked
Disable Destination Alpha: Unchecked
OpenMP Texture Decoder: Unchecked

[Advanced tab]
Nothing checked whatsoever.

I have only tried one game, Brunswick Cosmic Bowling.
Under the above settings I get the real fast flickering. The image looks kind of stretched vertically and it appears that the top and bottom halves of the image are flickering back and forth in the visible part of the window. So basically if i were to slow it down and watch it frame by frame it would be like the following

Frame 1: top half of the screen shown on entire screen stretched to fit
Frame 2: bottom half of the screen shown on entire screen stretched to fit
Frame 3: black
Back to frame 1, very fast.

I was able to screenshot what it is doing, this is in full screen mode:

http://postimg.org/image/536adlfet/
http://postimg.org/image/lmer1nvrz/

I have messed with the V-Sync setting in the emulator and have found it did not change anything for me. I have to look into changing that within my NIVIDIA settings in the mean time.

I made sure V-Sync is on both in Dolphin and my NVIDIA settings, still getting the same effect.

Quote:NVIDIA GeForce 8400GS

This GPU is fairly old, I'm pretty sure it's the cause of these problems. You could get a GTX750Ti to replace that, I'm sure it will increase your speed too.

(04-13-2014, 05:55 AM)Anti-Ultimate Wrote: [ -> ]

Quote:NVIDIA GeForce 8400GS

This GPU is fairly old, I'm pretty sure it's the cause of these problems. You could get a GTX750Ti to replace that, I'm sure it will increase your speed too.

That sucks, bought this not too long ago but it was pretty cheap.

What about the suggestion found here on the Dolphin website, the "Vertex Streaming Hack":
NVIDIA: Due to the importance of the OpenGL Extension “Buffer Storage” no NVIDIA GPU before the Geforce 4xx series can be recommended. Despite being a bit old, the Geforce GTX 460 will handle almost any game you throw at it in HD resolutions. Older NVIDIA GPUs will still be able to run the games fine, especially within the D3D backend and in OpenGL with older builds still using the “Vertex Streaming Hack.”

(04-13-2014, 07:04 AM)therealtomlapp Wrote: [ -> ]

(04-13-2014, 05:55 AM)Anti-Ultimate Wrote: [ -> ]

Quote:NVIDIA GeForce 8400GS

This GPU is fairly old, I'm pretty sure it's the cause of these problems. You could get a GTX750Ti to replace that, I'm sure it will increase your speed too.

That sucks, bought this not too long ago but it was pretty cheap.

What about the suggestion found here on the Dolphin website, the "Vertex Streaming Hack":
NVIDIA: Due to the importance of the OpenGL Extension “Buffer Storage” no NVIDIA GPU before the Geforce 4xx series can be recommended. Despite being a bit old, the Geforce GTX 460 will handle almost any game you throw at it in HD resolutions. Older NVIDIA GPUs will still be able to run the games fine, especially within the D3D backend and in OpenGL with older builds still using the “Vertex Streaming Hack.”

Define cheap. I wouldn't pay more than 10$ for it. It's almost 7 years old. You won't be able to play games with that in an acceptable way. I'd even go about saying you'd be better off using the *gasp* integrated graphics.

(04-13-2014, 07:10 AM)Anti-Ultimate Wrote: [ -> ]

(04-13-2014, 07:04 AM)therealtomlapp Wrote: [ -> ]

(04-13-2014, 05:55 AM)Anti-Ultimate Wrote: [ -> ]

Quote:NVIDIA GeForce 8400GS

This GPU is fairly old, I'm pretty sure it's the cause of these problems. You could get a GTX750Ti to replace that, I'm sure it will increase your speed too.

That sucks, bought this not too long ago but it was pretty cheap.

What about the suggestion found here on the Dolphin website, the "Vertex Streaming Hack":
NVIDIA: Due to the importance of the OpenGL Extension “Buffer Storage” no NVIDIA GPU before the Geforce 4xx series can be recommended. Despite being a bit old, the Geforce GTX 460 will handle almost any game you throw at it in HD resolutions. Older NVIDIA GPUs will still be able to run the games fine, especially within the D3D backend and in OpenGL with older builds still using the “Vertex Streaming Hack.”

Define cheap. I wouldn't pay more than 10$ for it. It's almost 7 years old. You won't be able to play games with that in an acceptable way. I'd even go about saying you'd be better off using the *gasp* integrated graphics.

Paid like $30 for it. I would use the integrated one but I don't think it has an audio codec that works through the hdmi, that's how I get audio/video to my living room. Guess I will suck it up and purchase a better card. Anything you can recommend that will be decent and not break the bank? Preferably NVIDIA?

On-board HDMI uses entirely the sound card for audio. The GPU doesn't have a DAC, decoder, or encoder anyways, in any situation. It's all the soundcard.

(04-13-2014, 07:32 AM)kinkinkijkin Wrote: [ -> ]On-board HDMI uses entirely the sound card for audio. The GPU doesn't have a DAC, decoder, or encoder anyways, in any situation. It's all the soundcard.

I stand corrected. I tried connecting to the onboard HDMI before and got no audio. Went into the BIOS and changed the digital audio mode from SPDIF to HDMI and now it works. Going to see how this works out. I am not a fan of integrated graphics but supposedly this one is good for some gaming.

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According to the system requirements from the Dolphin website, this integrated graphics chip should be able to run this. I am still getting that same flickering where it is flashing the top and bottom halves back and forth.

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At this point the only thing that gets this to load without that top/bottom half flicker is to turn on External Frame Buffer and set it to real (virtual produces the same issue). The game loads and one thing I can say is the graphics are 1000% sharper than they were from my other video card, so I had my hopes up. Then when it actually gets into the game itself it lags really badly. So I am assuming that setting EFB is not the choice to make, perhaps there is something else I should try.