07-15-2016, 06:39 AM
I think this might be interesting, so I decided to share my results with all of you.
Everyone is probably aware of this function (CPU clock override) in Dolphin; how it works, its purposes, and all that.
My specs aren´t ideal for what anyone would call "decent gaming", so based on what I knew about the function I did some testing with some of my games. Of course, I found some interesting results.
Now, to the games I tried. I decided to start with Mario Party 5, which has an intro cinematic that always lag in my laptop. Even though I have forced speeds of 80-90% on
the emulated CPU, the lag was still noticeable. What I did was to instead set lower values (like 20, 30%).
Even though the emulator was reporting 100% speed, the video had lots of tearing and was going slow; and the audio was very distorted.
(I won´t tell the story of every game tested, I´ll just put all the results and observations in a list).
1- Mario Party 5: When forced to 25% speed, video is tearing and audio is distorted (even though it is showing full 60 FPS).
2- Smash Bros. Melee (intro and Special Movie): Forcing 30% speed in emulated CPU will make video and audio go full speed (toolbar shows oscillations between 17 and 25 FPS).
3- Smash Bros. Brawl (intro, cinematics): Will go up at full 60 FPS with around 20% forced CPU speed; audio will be perfect but there might be small video tearing.
4- Legend of Zelda - Wind Waker: The FPS change between 15 and 24; audio goes perfect.
5- Super Mario Sunshine: The biggest benefit was in this game: the slowdowns that were happening during dialogs in the cutscenes dissapear; audio is perfect. Sometimes the FPS will reach full speed when in cutscenes (CPU clock was set to 22%). For actual gameplay, I had to increase the forced clocks a bit (31-32%) so the graphics don´t go that slow. Sure enough, that will depend on the area you´re playing.
6- Mario Kart Double Dash and Wii (intro cinematics): Both go full speed, audio goes perfect (MK-DD) and almost perfect (MKWii), CPU clock was set to 24% speed.
7- Super Mario Galaxy 1 & 2: Perfect audio. In SMG 1, the video may run at half speed (30 FPS instead of 60). In some cutscenes (SMG 1), the sound will be distorted heavily and the graphics will go extremely slow. CPU clock speed (SMG 1): 11%. CPU clock speed (SMG 2): 17-23%.
There is a small issue with audio in MKWii; if you set the emulated clock speed while the game is running, a small clicking sound will keep playing during gameplay (this can be solved by reseting the game).
Most of the time, I discovered that while in most cases graphics would go slow, the game´s audio would still go at full speed (just like old HLE behavior... just that it doesn´t crash now).
I´m all open to your thoughts about this, and if any developer wants to comment about how the GC/Wii CPU works in situations like these, they´re also welcome.
Everyone is probably aware of this function (CPU clock override) in Dolphin; how it works, its purposes, and all that.
My specs aren´t ideal for what anyone would call "decent gaming", so based on what I knew about the function I did some testing with some of my games. Of course, I found some interesting results.
Now, to the games I tried. I decided to start with Mario Party 5, which has an intro cinematic that always lag in my laptop. Even though I have forced speeds of 80-90% on
the emulated CPU, the lag was still noticeable. What I did was to instead set lower values (like 20, 30%).
Even though the emulator was reporting 100% speed, the video had lots of tearing and was going slow; and the audio was very distorted.
(I won´t tell the story of every game tested, I´ll just put all the results and observations in a list).
1- Mario Party 5: When forced to 25% speed, video is tearing and audio is distorted (even though it is showing full 60 FPS).
2- Smash Bros. Melee (intro and Special Movie): Forcing 30% speed in emulated CPU will make video and audio go full speed (toolbar shows oscillations between 17 and 25 FPS).
3- Smash Bros. Brawl (intro, cinematics): Will go up at full 60 FPS with around 20% forced CPU speed; audio will be perfect but there might be small video tearing.
4- Legend of Zelda - Wind Waker: The FPS change between 15 and 24; audio goes perfect.
5- Super Mario Sunshine: The biggest benefit was in this game: the slowdowns that were happening during dialogs in the cutscenes dissapear; audio is perfect. Sometimes the FPS will reach full speed when in cutscenes (CPU clock was set to 22%). For actual gameplay, I had to increase the forced clocks a bit (31-32%) so the graphics don´t go that slow. Sure enough, that will depend on the area you´re playing.
6- Mario Kart Double Dash and Wii (intro cinematics): Both go full speed, audio goes perfect (MK-DD) and almost perfect (MKWii), CPU clock was set to 24% speed.
7- Super Mario Galaxy 1 & 2: Perfect audio. In SMG 1, the video may run at half speed (30 FPS instead of 60). In some cutscenes (SMG 1), the sound will be distorted heavily and the graphics will go extremely slow. CPU clock speed (SMG 1): 11%. CPU clock speed (SMG 2): 17-23%.
There is a small issue with audio in MKWii; if you set the emulated clock speed while the game is running, a small clicking sound will keep playing during gameplay (this can be solved by reseting the game).
Most of the time, I discovered that while in most cases graphics would go slow, the game´s audio would still go at full speed (just like old HLE behavior... just that it doesn´t crash now).
I´m all open to your thoughts about this, and if any developer wants to comment about how the GC/Wii CPU works in situations like these, they´re also welcome.