Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

Hi,

I'm having issues with FPS in games. I can play games at 60 VPS at all times on auto frame limit with no issue. However, if I set the SSAA to 4x with the resolution very high (1680x1050), or 9x SSAA with any resolution, the game experiences slowdown. The game slows down, however, my VPS is still a solid 60. The FPS drops but the VPS remains unchanged...

If I switch back from 9x SSAA to 4x SSAA or lower the game resolution, then the game speeds back up, but the VPS still stays maximum.

My question is, why does the game slowdown? It's running at 60 VPS, which means there should be no lag at all, right? I'm not understanding why this is happening... is there a setting I'm missing?

Specs:

Dolphin Revision 5207 (anything newer seems to break the frame limit entirely, and the game runs faster than it should regardless of settings, vps and fps)
DirectX Plugin, FPS Limit Auto
Audio Throttle Disabled, made no difference with it on

Windows 7 Professional 64bit
Intel Core i7 860 2.8ghz
ATI Radeon HD 4890
4GB RAM

Confirmed in:
Super Mario Sunshine
Super Smash Brothers Melee
Monster Hunter Tri (Low res and 4x SSAA and it happens)
Tales of Graces (happens at 9x SSAA at max res, 60 vps but like ~50 fps)
Kirby Air Ride (not so much here)

i dont know what it means by VPS but my experienced says that it is the limit for the fps that a game can have. it depends on region. if your set auto limit Auto, your game is NTSC the game VPS is 60, if your game is PAL, the VPS is 50,40 and 30 (it has various). If u notice a slowdown, fps will tell u, not the vps since its fixed

FPS and VPS must be synced or close to each other if u want smooth gameplay.
VPS is not fixed, it changes too.
FPS is the emulated CPU and VPS is the emulated GPU if i'm correct.

Quote:FPS is the emulated CPU and VPS is the emulated GPU if i'm correct.

incorrect - afaik this has nothing to do with what you said.
let me explain it to you as this:
imagine you play counterstrike 1.6... and you want as best 300+fps.... not because your monitor is able to display it... but because the mouse position and ingame position is checked 300+ times per second. you own a tft and it can display only 60fps/hz (this is the FPS on dolphin) but the 300+fps are internally rendered (VPS on dolphin)


the FPS drop down because his graphics card is not good enough for this resolution.

with 9x SSAA at 1280x1024 his graphics card needs to render a resolution of 3840x3072

a radeon 4890 is not good enough for this.
maybe a radeon 5870 is. (it is the double of my card)

i can play most games in 1280x1024 with 4xSSAA fullspeed ... because the 5000er radeons have a better hardwaresupport for very high resolutions/SSAA.

The thing is, I have 60 VPS, but the FPS drops... shouldn't the VPS drop?

VPS should be always be stable and fps should always change

vps=cpu, fps=gpu of wii

VPS should be never higher than FPS, and fps should be the speed of the game

The thing about it is, I know when the FPS is running at maximum, cause the game is running at proper full speed. However, when I up the resolution or SSAA, the game experiences slowdown (which means it's not running at full FPS, but IS running at full VPS).

Yes, because by increasing the resolution or adding graphics features like SSAA, your video card is under more stress and outputs a lesser amount of frames (FPS). Those features do not have an effect on the load of the CPU inside your PC so VPS (graphics frames output by the CPU) stays the same.