Beginner with a few questions
#1
First of all, I want to thank the devs of PCSX2 for their incredible work. I have been using Emulators for close to two decades now and I just love the work you people are putting into this great piece of software.

Now I've been reading up on PCSX2 for the past few days, as well as trying out different games from my PS2 library. And so far I have had mixed results with the performance of some of the games. Now I understand that my FX-8350 barely reaches the recommended STR I've read about, so I just want to make sure that I use the best settings to archive the maximum performance possible.

GS Settings
Since I have an 8 core CPU I am not quite sure if it would be better for me to use software mode with 7 additional rendering threads, or if there is little point in it and I should rather be using hardware mode with my GTX 960. It would be nice if someone could tell my what the best solution is, if there is such a thing at all.

Speedhacks
For now I've kept the settings of PCSX2 on preset 2, which activates all Speedhacks except for "Enable fast CDVD" and "MTVU". Based on the fact that I have an 8 core CPU should I use the MTVU setting in general, except for games where it is known to cause trouble? Or is the speedboost not worth the potential compatibility problems?

EE / GS / VU Percentage in main window
I am not quite sure how much information I can gather from these three percentage infos I can see in the title bar of the game window. As far as I can tell I've read somewhere that the EE percentage can show me whether or not my CPU is the bottleneck for a certain situation, whereas the GS percentage will tell me if it's my GPU (when used with HW). Did I get that right? And what about the VU percentage?

As to the games I've tried so far, these are my current results:
  • Tales of the Abyss seems to run quite well at full speed, though when I am on the world map and I spin the camera around it seems to stutter a little, even though the speed doesn't change. I am not yet sure if that's the way it's always been and I am just rembering it wrong.
  • Final Fantasy XII runs perfectly fine at full speed with not a single hiccup so far, but I am sure I read somewhere that it is one of the least demanding games, so that's why I guess.
  • Suikoden V doesn't have any hiccups either and runs perfectly fine so far.
  • God of War is the first game that ran horrible with SW and kept close to full speed with HW, though there were quite a few spots in the beginning of the game where it slowed down to around 75% speed. I am not sure if there is anything I can do to make it run at full speed with my current spec, but maybe you guys and gals know something I can do.
And that is all for now. I hope you can clarify some of those questions for me so I can play my games without having to keep playing around with my settings and not really knowing if there is any point in whatever I am changing. And some of these days I will have to switch over to an i5 or i7, but that will have to wait for now.

Thank you all for you help and have a nice day.
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#2
(07-20-2016, 12:28 PM)Gibdos Wrote: First of all, I want to thank the devs of PCSX2 for their incredible work. I have been using Emulators for close to two decades now and I just love the work you people are putting into this great piece of software.
Thanks Smile
(07-20-2016, 12:28 PM)Gibdos Wrote: Now I've been reading up on PCSX2 for the past few days, as well as trying out different games from my PS2 library. And so far I have had mixed results with the performance of some of the games. Now I understand that my FX-8350 barely reaches the recommended STR I've read about, so I just want to make sure that I use the best settings to archive the maximum performance possible.
My recommendation is to overclock that CPU as much as you possibly can, every MHZ helps and with those processors you really need to get that clock speed up to make a difference. Of course keep an eye on your temperatures and don't just whack the speed/voltage up!

(07-20-2016, 12:28 PM)Gibdos Wrote: GS Settings
Since I have an 8 core CPU I am not quite sure if it would be better for me to use software mode with 7 additional rendering threads, or if there is little point in it and I should rather be using hardware mode with my GTX 960. It would be nice if someone could tell my what the best solution is, if there is such a thing at all.
Hardware mode, specifically OpenGL would be best for your GPU, that should give you the best speed possible whilst giving you the ability to upscale etc, some games need software mode to function correctly, but there is very few which really need it. That is the correct number of extra threads (for software mode) however Smile

(07-20-2016, 12:28 PM)Gibdos Wrote: Speedhacks
For now I've kept the settings of PCSX2 on preset 2, which activates all Speedhacks except for "Enable fast CDVD" and "MTVU". Based on the fact that I have an 8 core CPU should I use the MTVU setting in general, except for games where it is known to cause trouble? Or is the speedboost not worth the potential compatibility problems?
MTVU is very much worth it and probably makes the biggest difference in emulation speed. As you say some games don't like it, but the list is very short, so you don't need to worry unless you do experience issues. Try to avoid the speedhack sliders where you can, they can cause many problems.

(07-20-2016, 12:28 PM)Gibdos Wrote: EE / GS / VU Percentage in main window
I am not quite sure how much information I can gather from these three percentage infos I can see in the title bar of the game window. As far as I can tell I've read somewhere that the EE percentage can show me whether or not my CPU is the bottleneck for a certain situation, whereas the GS percentage will tell me if it's my GPU (when used with HW). Did I get that right? And what about the VU percentage?
The percentages are a measure of how much of your CPU each part is using, EE being a bulk of the emulator, GS being the GS plugin and VU being the VU's when MTVU is enabled. Ideally you want these to be less than 95%, but of course that isn't always possible, but if your game is running slow it gives some indication to where it is struggling.

(07-20-2016, 12:28 PM)Gibdos Wrote: And that is all for now. I hope you can clarify some of those questions for me so I can play my games without having to keep playing around with my settings and not really knowing if there is any point in whatever I am changing. And some of these days I will have to switch over to an i5 or i7, but that will have to wait for now.

Thank you all for you help and have a nice day.

Good luck!
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#3
Yeah 8350 is okay until you OC it. Just remember to turn off the boost in bios if you OC otherwise crazy things can happen. Forgot to do it and my 8350 boost to 5.3 ghz for like 2 seconds before it locked up. If you do OC that 8350 you can most likely hit 4.7 to 5 ghz if you are using a H100i cooler with it at 1.52v which seems very high compared to intel but for amd it is very doable. You can easily gete 4.4 with a super basic h60. I mean I did.

As you can tell I had a 8350 before I got out of the budget cpu market. Another thing you can do in your bios is to turn off the ability to tone down the cpu speed. Should be under power saving options. This will make it so it doesn't step it down when you are, lets say, on a world map for a little bit the cpu will actually drop to like 400 mhz until you move or something which causes stutters.

Your video card is fine unless you play some of the Zone of Enders or snowblind stuff which is nightmare even on the best systems. Since your card is much better then mine you can jack up setting like crazy in a lot of games which can also help with the videocard doing the same thing like going to power saver mode Smile
MOBO - GIGABYTE X570 AORUS MASTER
CPU - AMD Ryzen 9 3900XT
RAM - 32 Gigs DDR4
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GPU - Nvidia GTX 1070
OS- Windows 10

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