Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

Hey guys.. I actually had to turn to support.. This is a strange one

Specs in sig.. Running Dolphin 4.0-3419 as we speak.

This is my monitor setup.



Each monitor is 1920x1080..
Top one is HDMI (40in)
Bottom two are DVI (23in)

The problem.. I'm playing New Mario and send EFB copies to RAM so I get spinning coins and see the blue coins. I've been playing weeks now but I wanted to watch football so decided to play the game on one of the bottom monitors instead so I can play and watch football at the same time. When I run fullscreen on the upper monitor it's 60FPS solid at 2x Native. If I try running the emulator fullscreen on either of the bottom two it's unplayable stutter. For whatever reason I can't figure out I can only get playable results with EFB copies to RAM on the top monitor.

New Mario Intro screen top monitor: 60FPS
New Mario Intro screen either bottom two: Stuttering along at 25-30fps
New Mario Intro screen either bottom two with EFB Textures instead 60FPS

So, it's something with the EFB Copies to RAM specifically.

I can literally hit escape, drag the now windowed game down to one of the bottom monitors, click no on the "do you want to stop the emulation" dialog, fullscreen and it goes from 60 down to a stuttering 25-30 instantly. Restarting the entire emulator doesn't help.

Things I've tried

Disabling AV
Disabling SLI
Unplugging the top monitor
Unplugging the other bottom monitor
physically removing the SLI bridge
Reinstalling video drivers

Same results. EFB copies RAM only playable performance over HDMI.

It's only the emulator. I can load up Watch Dogs and blaze through at 60FPS solid.

The amount of the framedrop cutting in half is perhaps due to vsync. Is your top monitor running at more than 60hz with the other two running at 60hz? Also try to disable vsync.

(09-29-2014, 08:34 AM)Link_to_the_past Wrote: [ -> ]The amount of the framedrop cutting in half is perhaps due to vsync. Is your top monitor running at more than 60hz with the other two running at 60hz? Also try to disable vsync.

That was it.. I disabled vsync and it plays perfect, with tearing of course.

Strange.. No.. All 3 monitors are running at 60Hz..

Right from Nvidia CP

Top: Ultra HD, HD, SD - 1080p, 1920x1080 Native, 60Hz
Bottom two: PC - 1920x1080 Native, 60Hz

I've never seen this behavior before now my Tech OCD is off the charts

Just as a follow up

I rolled back to stable 4.02 and this problem ceases to exist.. My problem solved.

Does the backend matter?

That's not exactly fixing the problem though...

(09-29-2014, 10:14 AM)JMC47 Wrote: [ -> ]That's not exactly fixing the problem though...

No not at all but my Tech OCD narrowed down where this was introduced.

Build-2263 - Problem doesn't exist

The very next build

Build-2286 - Problem exists

It was when exclusive fullscreen support was added.

Re-Enabling Borderless Window in advanced doesn't solve it. So however that exclusive fullscreen was implemented is the root problem of the issue I'm having.

So... basically because vsync is actually working instead of Windows handling it (and still having the possibility to tearing) you're losing framerate? Meh...

If you want to turn it back over to windows, you can go into the advanced tab of D3D, and turn on "borderless fullscreen"

(09-29-2014, 10:37 AM)JMC47 Wrote: [ -> ]So... basically because vsync is actually working instead of Windows handling it (and still having the possibility to tearing) you're losing framerate? Meh...

If you want to turn it back over to windows, you can go into the advanced tab of D3D, and turn on "borderless fullscreen"

Read my last sentence. That doesn't solve it either and it still makes zero sense why I can move the Window over to a different monitor and the problem is solved just like that.

Backend doesn't matter either.

oh, so it's not exclusive fullscreen, it's just window management stuff. I wonder what's going on then, if anything.