So guys, I think it's time to upgrade my gpu. As of today i'm using a Geforce GT 630 and I'm limited to 1,5 - 2 IR when I'm playing some of my fav games (a little bit worse with PCSX2).
Anybody got some suggestions on a god, maybe cheap card that allows me to push beyond 2 IR in most games with some AA, and the opportunity to record my gameplay (for now I'm using FRAPS, which kills preformance from time to time).
The rest of my setup:
Intel i5-4670k @ 4.2 GHz
8 GB Ram
Z87 Motherboard
Windows 7 for now. Might do a dualboot with Win 10 later.
I would suggest a NVIDIA card instead of AMD because their drivers are better. The GTX 750 Ti seems to be a good, not too expensive GPU. Actually… any recent and decent GPU should be better than the GT 630.
I personally bought an used GTX 660; yes, it's old, but it does the job and it is much cheaper than buying a new, recent GPU (and it is enough for Dolphin). It handles 3-4x IR and 2x SSAA in TP, SS and WW. I haven't tried more intensive games like SMG or SMG2 though.
What games do you plan on playing?
(01-03-2016, 10:39 PM)Chriztr Wrote: [ -> ]So guys, I think it's time to upgrade my gpu. As of today i'm using a Geforce GT 630 and I'm limited to 1,5 - 2 IR when I'm playing some of my fav games (a little bit worse with PCSX2).
Anybody got some suggestions on a god, maybe cheap card that allows me to push beyond 2 IR in most games with some AA, and the opportunity to record my gameplay (for now I'm using FRAPS, which kills preformance from time to time).
The rest of my setup:
Intel i5-4670k @ 4.2 GHz
8 GB Ram
Z87 Motherboard
Windows 7 for now. Might do a dualboot with Win 10 later.
Dolphin isn't really that picky when it comes to GPU power, so a cheap card like a GTX 750 Ti or a R7 360 is enough for 4xIR gameplay. If you want to step it up to the next price point, a GTX 950 or a R9 270X/370 will also perform well with modern pc games if you keep the settings in the mid-ground.
The problem with recording probably doesn't have a lot to do with the GPU unless you've specifically set it up that way. As a default video encoding is done by the processor, so you have the 4670K to blame. Recording and encoding video is a very multi-threaded task and the four threads of the i5, although great for gaming, can fall a bit short in this application. This is why most streamers go for an i7 or a desktop Xeon instead; assuming you're playing Dolphin, it's already keeping two of the four threads busy leaving only two to handle the recording (plus all the background tasks). If you keep having problems, you should just drop the recording settings.
Regarding the recordings, you should also make sure that you don't record on the same HDD/SSD that you run the game off of. Most HDDs especially aren't fast enough to sustain simultaneous read/write performance, and because of this writing lots of data could result in serious fps drops. If you don't have it already, get a second drive for recordings. Even a cheap external USB3.0 drive should handle high bitrate 1080p60 just fine.
(01-04-2016, 12:24 AM)ENAI Wrote: [ -> ]Regarding the recordings, you should also make sure that you don't record on the same HDD/SSD that you run the game off of. Most HDDs especially aren't fast enough to sustain simultaneous read/write performance, and because of this writing lots of data could result in serious fps drops. If you don't have it already, get a second drive for recordings. Even a cheap external USB3.0 drive should handle high bitrate 1080p60 just fine.
If I remember though, even a HDD is already much faster and has much lower latencies than a DVD, so this shouldn't matter a lot. Unless you happen to be in the middle of prefetching a big texture pack… in this specific case the recording will probably slow things down. If you use a SSD, then there's basically no issue with running games on the same disk as the recordings.
(01-04-2016, 12:33 AM)leolam Wrote: [ -> ]If I remember though, even a HDD is already much faster and has much lower latencies than a DVD, so this shouldn't matter a lot. Unless you happen to be in the middle of prefetching a big texture pack… in this specific case the recording will probably slow things down. If you use a SSD, then there's basically no issue with running games on the same disk as the recordings.
It is true that an HDD is miles ahead a DVD, but most drives' speeds crash through the floor when reading and writing simultaneously. While a hard drive will read
or write much faster than a DVD, with mixed load the speeds drop so much that a constant video stream might just exceed the treshold.
(01-04-2016, 12:18 AM)leolam Wrote: [ -> ]What games do you plan on playing?
For now I'm actually playing TLOZ: TP and SS (almost comlpeted TP) but i'm also playing other games like M.K.Wii, D.K. Country and some various games (in-game speed havn't been a problem yet, just when I'm pushing the IR)
(01-04-2016, 12:24 AM)ENAI Wrote: [ -> ]Regarding the recordings, you should also make sure that you don't record on the same HDD/SSD that you run the game off of. Most HDDs especially aren't fast enough to sustain simultaneous read/write performance, and because of this writing lots of data could result in serious fps drops. If you don't have it already, get a second drive for recordings. Even a cheap external USB3.0 drive should handle high bitrate 1080p60 just fine.
So recording on the same drive does infact impact the speed.
Is there any other software for recording that is a little more light-weigh then FRAPS? Or should I look for a caputre card and use my laptop for recording game play on my desktop?
(01-04-2016, 02:27 AM)Chriztr Wrote: [ -> ]So recording on the same drive does infact impact the speed.
Is there any other software for recording that is a little more light-weigh then FRAPS? Or should I look for a caputre card and use my laptop for recording game play on my desktop?
What affects the speed is the settings you record with, not the program. Say, if you record the same resolution (say 1080p60) with the same codec (say h.264 level 4) all the programs do those the same. What you can do is to experiment with the settings to see if some are lighter than others. Sometimes it's possible to get better looking results with lighter codecs since some are newer and better optimized than others.
If it is possible you should try and borrow a spare external drive from a friend to see if it indeed improves performance or if it would be a pointless investment. I wouldn't recommend just straight up purchasing another disk without any concrete evidence that it would help.
The program does matter as certain applications (such as FRAPS) use their own (proprietary) codec. FRAPS records lossless and while that is less taxing on the CPU, you'll need a fast enough HDD otherwise your performance will drop badly. It also depends on what resolution and framerate you are recording (you haven't told us). You can check your HDD performance with CrystalDiskMark for example.
Anyway you should use a different recording application since you can't really change a lot in FRAPS and there isn't a good reason to use FRAPS anymore nowadays with all the great alternatives.
One free alternative is MSI Afterburner. It's a GPU overclocking tool but it includes a lot of nice features such as recording, screenshotting, etc. One of the pros is that you can pick whatever codec you want to use to record. For lossless recording, Lagarith or UT Codec are one of the best codecs you can find and much faster and efficient than what FRAPS is using for example. Alternatively if you want to opt for lossy recording to maintain smaller output sizes, x264 is unbeatable. Pick a fast profile and a high enough bitrate. Note that this will hit your CPU more than lossless recording but it should be pretty minor unless you increase the profile settings.
With your setup I find a capture card an extraneous investment. Save the money.