Cliche slow emulation
#1
I have been through youtube, tutorials, the forums, and still no luck!

I can get up to about 40 fps during a fight on FFX, or the whole time during KH2. I bit the bullet and played through both of them, and I will not play Shadow of the Colossus or Gran Turismo 4 until the performance issue is fixed.

To me, it seems like its not processing fast enough. I can run Age of Conan on highest settings with no lag, AND it was factory reset like 2 weeks ago, so it is a fresh, speedy version of Windows.

Specs:
System - Windows XP SP3

Processor - AMD athlon 64 x2 +5200(dual processors) 2 cores 2 threads.

Motherboard - Asus M2N - SLI DELUXE - Up to Date

Memory - 3GB dual channel with a 15GB paging file on my formatted and empty second hard drive, and system set for the hard drive used the most.

Graphics - ATI Radeon HD 4850 with 512mb of memory and clocks 993 MHz idle and no over-clock on - Up to Date

Pad - GameStop Xbox 360 Controller - Up to Date Driver



I really would just like some input as to why its slow. I mean, I like playing my old games, but It really takes away from gameplay when it takes 4 minutes for a 3 minute video.

Now, I have tried messing with the base frame-rate to double it at 200 instead of 100, leaving the turbo/slow motion ratio the same, along with a number of plugins, and messing around with said plugins and I still can't get 60 fps unless I'm standing in a dark location.

Understandable for a very basic computer to lag a bit, but the PS2's hardware would be used differently for each game, like any computer. My graphics card is obviously better than the out-dated PS2, along with more processing power and thread handling, so I'm stuck with what seems like an easy fix.

Examples of performance loss:
Blood Omen 2 - video on youtube of 60 fps is quicker than actual running video; its falling behind, slowly, but surely, and attacks are obviously 2x slower than they should be.
FFX - took 3 hours to run from Mi'hien Highroad to Zanarkand with the "no encounters" ability on Wakka's "switch hitter", so I didnt fight.

All of these games Ive played, I max the graphics card and performance is barely changed, the graphics are just way better. Again, Age of Conan doesn't slow this computer down, nor Infestation Survivor Stories which asks for more RAM than I have. I can play that flawlessly, and search the internet.

Any ideas?


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Quick test on FFX - 2: Preset to aggressive plus, uncheck preset, lower EE cycle rate to 2 and Vu cycle stealing to 0. I get 140 fps at the menu after a fight, and 43 fps during the fight. Something is goofy!
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#2
Quote:Again, Age of Conan doesn't slow this computer down, nor Infestation Survivor Stories which asks for more RAM than I have
First, don't compare native PC games to emulated PS2 games. It's a ridiculous nonsense.
Second, pcsx2 uses very few RAM (around 512 mb) and very few raw GPU power unless you try to upscale games.
Quote:video on youtube of 60 fps is quicker than actual running video
Third, don't trust youtube videos. They will always play @ 60fps even if you got 40 fps when recording it.

To make it simple, your problem here is your CPU which is a bit slow for PS2 emulation. Mihen road is quite taxing and I remember having quite a hard time going through it back when i had the same CPU as yours.
This guide for low-end PCs may help you : http://forums.pcsx2.net/Thread-Low-end-P...0-settings
CPU : AMD Ryzen 7 3800X
Mobo : Asus PRIME B450-PLUS
GPU : NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070
RAM : 16 Go
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#3
(11-08-2013, 05:20 PM)jesalvein Wrote: First, don't compare native PC games to emulated PS2 games. It's a ridiculous nonsense.
Second, pcsx2 uses very few RAM (around 512 mb) and very few raw GPU power unless you try to upscale games.
Third, don't trust youtube videos. They will always play @ 60fps even if you got 40 fps when recording it.

To make it simple, your problem here is your CPU which is a bit slow for PS2 emulation. Mihen road is quite taxing and I remember having quite a hard time going through it back when i had the same CPU as yours.
This guide for low-end PCs may help you : http://forums.pcsx2.net/Thread-Low-end-P...0-settings

Can't be nonsense since native and emulated are both using the pc's hardware and software...
The graphics card can call for hardware emulation or software emulation. What does that mean? I see it like, even if you set it to hardware, it will still more cpu scripts than gpu. The hardware setting is to override that, to make the PC run the game with your graphics card. So you implied that hardware to software wouldn't change performance?
And after your "suggestion", it needs a reinstall, because it wont work at all!

I'm sorry, that guide didnt help. It explained nothing. And also, low end computers cant run Age of Conan, much less run it on high. Its an example to show that processing power and graphics shouldnt be in question, and if so, how is it fixed?

I'm not asking for a list of settings since every computer is different, Im curious as to why is it like that? What on my computer is the problem, and how? Mi'hien wasnt the "problem", it was the entire run. It would take about 45 minutes to run there, no lag. It took me 3 hours, no lag. It's just slow.

If it is my CPU, that I have seen others use a single core of my brand running the game better, how does having two cores hurt my performance?
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#4
(11-08-2013, 06:06 PM)Mythfury Wrote: Can't be nonsense since native and emulated are both using the pc's hardware and software...
sure, but not in the same way. Native pC game rely more on raw GPU power than pcsx2. pcsx2 needs a strong cpu and a mid-range gpu.
i suggest you read the stickies especially his one : http://forums.pcsx2.net/Thread-Sticky-Wi...y-computer
Quote:And after your "suggestion", it needs a reinstall, because it wont work at all!
??? what did you do ? I never suggested something that needs you to reinstall anything.
Quote:I'm sorry, that guide didnt help. It explained nothing. And also, low end computers cant run Age of Conan, much less run it on high. Its an example to show that processing power and graphics shouldnt be in question, and if so, how is it fixed?
as I said, native pC game rely more on raw GPU power than pcsx2. comparing emulation to PC games is ridiculous. Some emulated games may require more than any demanding pc games.
Quote:I'm not asking for a list of settings since every computer is different, Im curious as to why is it like that? What on my computer is the problem, and how?
your cpu, its architecture, its low per-core clockrate.
Quote:Mi'hien wasnt the "problem", it was the entire run. It would take about 45 minutes to run there, no lag. It took me 3 hours, no lag. It's just slow.
A PS2 doesn't work like a PC, it's a completely different architecture. In a PS2, FPS synchronizes with processing speed. In PC games, you will get some "lags" or some frameskipping since the whole game is processed in a completely different way.
Quote:If it is my CPU, that I have seen others use a single core of my brand running the game better, how does having two cores hurt my performance?
maybe they had a higher clockrate ?
CPU : AMD Ryzen 7 3800X
Mobo : Asus PRIME B450-PLUS
GPU : NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070
RAM : 16 Go
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#5
What hurts hurts performance is your oudated hardware. PCSX2 emulates all of the ps2 hardware and because the ps2 is so complex it's a hard thing to do.
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#6
While your computer isn't terrible, the cpu is old and will suffer when it comes to PCSX2 performance.

PC Gaming cannot be compared with emulation as PC games are very graphics card heavy, emulation is very CPU heavy, it is not possible to compare directly how well native PC programs work compared to emulated PS2 games, it is and always will be absolute nonsense. To emulate all the PS2, presuming it was 1:1 conversion, you would need around a 3.8-4Ghz cpu, but because we are emulating it, it is more a 1:3 ratio, so you're looking at a 12Ghz cpu, or a 4Ghz Tri/Quad core (im not saying that it works like this, it doesn't, but we can split the load of some things on to different cores), with your CPU it is much harder to emulate the PS2 efficiently due to the lack of SSE4 or SSSE3.

can you please show us your settings on PCSX2 for GSDX, SPU2-X and the Emulation Settings tabs? Then we can see if we can do anything.
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#7
If it helps here is a small chart that I just made Smile

PC Games =>
Game code runs directly on the CPU and GPU, so it is something like this: software > CPU/GPU > you play

PCSX2 (and this is very high level) =>
Game code must be translated to the proper language and run through special processors that understand that language. Something like this:
Game code > PS2 emulated processors > translator to x86 code > CPU/GPU > you play

Keep in mind this is just to understand that there are several more steps involved in emulation. This is not to say you need three times the CPU power, but you do need quite a bit more than PC games because of all the extra "stuff" happening on the backend.

Hope this helps (and is accurate) Smile
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#8
(11-08-2013, 06:20 PM)refraction Wrote: While your computer isn't terrible, the cpu is old and will suffer when it comes to PCSX2 performance.

PC Gaming cannot be compared with emulation as PC games are very graphics card heavy, emulation is very CPU heavy, it is not possible to compare directly how well native PC programs work compared to emulated PS2 games, it is and always will be absolute nonsense. To emulate all the PS2, presuming it was 1:1 conversion, you would need around a 3.8-4Ghz cpu, but because we are emulating it, it is more a 1:3 ratio, so you're looking at a 12Ghz cpu, or a 4Ghz Tri/Quad core (im not saying that it works like this, it doesn't, but we can split the load of some things on to different cores), with your CPU it is much harder to emulate the PS2 efficiently due to the lack of SSE4 or SSSE3.

can you please show us your settings on PCSX2 for GSDX, SPU2-X and the Emulation Settings tabs? Then we can see if we can do anything.

Thank you! So my 2, 2.47 HZ cpu's arent getting the trick done? Wouldnt be the first time the CPUs have been a problem. Im going to upgrade them within the month.

My GSDX plugin set to default, GSDx 5334 0.1.16 ssee2.
Renderer: D3D9 hardware
Auto interlacing
Native resolution
Shade boost on and default
Texture filtering, logZ, alpha correction(fba) with MSAA 8x and aggressive CRC.(here, ive experienced better gameplay with skip draw at 4, but I try not to adjust these for my games.)
5 extra rendering threads and NO AA1

My emulation is at aggressive plus, then I uncheck the preset, and turn EE cycle to 2 and VU cycle to 0.
On KH2, I experience better gameplay with MTVU on, nothing else receives that experience though, especially KH1.
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#9
(11-08-2013, 06:17 PM)jesalvein Wrote: sure, but not in the same way. Native pC game rely more on raw GPU power than pcsx2. pcsx2 needs a strong cpu and a mid-range gpu.
i suggest you read the stickies especially his one : http://forums.pcsx2.net/Thread-Sticky-Wi...y-computer
??? what did you do ? I never suggested something that needs you to reinstall anything.
as I said, native pC game rely more on raw GPU power than pcsx2. comparing emulation to PC games is ridiculous. Some emulated games may require more than any demanding pc games.
your cpu, its architecture, its low per-core clockrate.
A PS2 doesn't work like a PC, it's a completely different architecture. In a PS2, FPS synchronizes with processing speed. In PC games, you will get some "lags" or some frameskipping since the whole game is processed in a completely different way.
maybe they had a higher clockrate ?

Adjusting my settings back to default through the code caused a serious error, and the emulator wouldn't start my games, and crashed as soon as I did the fast boot.

My core speed is 2792.58 MHz with 13.5 multiplier (stats from CPUID) for processor number 1, same stats for processor 2. Are those low clock rates for emulation? Edit: I see it now, im throwing out 5 MHz with two cores, and some single cores offer 4.7 GHz, with is a multiple of 1,000 times quicker.
From that, it looks as though I should have about 6 MHz of processing coming from the backend, but is getting lost in translation, I guess.
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#10
(11-08-2013, 06:44 PM)Mythfury Wrote: Adjusting my settings back to default through the code caused a serious error, and the emulator wouldn't start my games, and crashed as soon as I did the fast boot.
I see. when smething like that happens, reverting the settings back to default is a better idea than reinstalling (or just delete the .ini files)
Quote:My core speed is 2792.58 MHz with 13.5 multiplier (stats from CPUID) for processor number 1, same stats for processor 2. Are those low clock rates for emulation?
we recommend quad core above 3.0 ghz for most games.
FFX is an exception and may run @ playable speeds (not full speed all the time, though) on low-end machines
Quote: Edit: I see it now, im throwing out 5 MHz with two cores, and some single cores offer 4.7 GHz, with is a multiple of 1,000 times quicker.
From that, it looks as though I should have about 6 MHz of processing coming from the backend, but is getting lost in translation, I guess.
I'm not sure i got what you mean ... what are those 5 Mhz you're talking about ?
CPU : AMD Ryzen 7 3800X
Mobo : Asus PRIME B450-PLUS
GPU : NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070
RAM : 16 Go
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