Getting the Most out of the EE
#1
I'm currently running on a 3.6GHz AMD Phenom II X4 processor, and whenever running games in situations where the EE is being used 100%, I look at the usage for my 4 cores and notice that they're being 40-60% utilized. I would simply knock this off for the fact that making multi-threaded programs (especially something like this) are hard to set up such that all cores are being used fairly equally, but what I don't understand is why none of my cores are at 100%. One of the cores sticks at around 60-70% usage, but I've never seen it go up to 100%.

Is this simply from mutable-state multi-threading being used? Or am I missing something? I'd like to know if there's something I can do to fix this before I go attempting to hit 3.9GHz and bumping the voltage over AMD's recommended voltage.

P.S.: Other specs:
OS: Win7
RAM: 3x 2GB DDR3 @ 1600MHz
Graphics Card: 2x AMD HD 5770s (from what I've heard X-fire doesn't matter, but the GS is never at 100% anyways)

Speed Hacks being used:
Enable INTC Spin Detection
Enable Wait Loop Detection
mVU Flag Hack

Important Plug-in Settings:
Internal Res: Native
GS Plug-in: GSDX10
HW AA: None

PCSX2 Version: 0.9.7.3113
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#2
That's normal. You can basically sum it up as the emulator not being perfect. PCSX2 is getting the most it currently can from your hardware. If you're wondering if this would hinder your OC, don't worry. If you don't get an improvement on your system with a CPU overclock, then the game is most likely limited by the emulators compatibility at this stage in it's development.

BTW - You do know that PCSX2 only uses 2 cores, right?
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#3
I had no idea. Good to know. From what I've heard, Windows 7 tries to distribute core usage on its own somehow, so if that's true (or even possible) then that would explain it. I'll try with the overclock and post my results.

EDIT: Overclocking to 3.9GHz had no effect, CPU usage this time was only at 40% for most cores, but at least I now have a stable 3.9GHz overclock.

I remember something about frame-skipping for the VUs, but I don't see that as an option anywhere in the setting. Could someone point me to it? I doubt it'll do anything more than screw up the game, but it's worth a shot.
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#4
(09-05-2010, 04:47 AM)NGen Wrote: From what I've heard, Windows 7 tries to distribute core usage on its own somehow, so if that's true (or even possible) then that would explain it.
Pretty much, yep. You can always set the processor affinity to only 1 core and it would use it 100% but most probably be slower anyway Tongue

Quote:I remember something about frame-skipping for the VUs, but I don't see that as an option anywhere in the setting. Could someone point me to it? I doubt it'll do anything more than screw up the game, but it's worth a shot.

Shift+F4 enables frameskip in the 0.9.7 beta, "VU skip" is only available in 0.9.6.
Core i5 3570k -- Geforce GTX 670  --  Windows 7 x64
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#5
If you want to use 100% CPU then underclock your CPU. PCSX2 doesn't use everything, just close. I get 65-90% usage on my hyperthreaded Pentium 4 whereas my friend gets 99% usage on both cores for her 2 ghz Core 2 Duo.
CPU: Pentium D 'Presler' 915 2.8 ghz 2x2MB L2 @ 3.5 ghz
GPU: eVGA [Nvidia] 8600GT 256MB SSC DDR3
Tested: FFX, FFX-2, FFXII, MGS3, KH, KH2, The Hobbit NTSC
PCSX2 FTW! Biggrin
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#6
well dont under lock youre cpu it wont help donttttt doooo it
pcsx2 uses only 2 cores it well not use the other ones ( the extra 2 will not be used )
if you under lock it will get slower because the 2 cores that it useing them will not work 100 %you have an amazying ghz well get high speed unless you are using a laptop and it saving energy ( well not uses all of the 2 cores)
ee must not go more than 70 % (unless the game need )
ee uses one core gs uses one core and ui uses about nothing to3% of the third core
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#7
(09-05-2010, 01:43 PM)Dangerousd777 Wrote: If you want to use 100% CPU then underclock your CPU. PCSX2 doesn't use everything, just close. I get 65-90% usage on my hyperthreaded Pentium 4 whereas my friend gets 99% usage on both cores for her 2 ghz Core 2 Duo.

Haha... wow... I don't think you understand what you're talking about Wink

If you have more than 2 cores, your CPU will never hit 100% no matter how high or low your clockrate is. Hell, most of the time you won't hit near 100% on a dual core either simply because of how PCSX2 works. You'll generally hit max of one or the other (generally the EE core) and then the other core will usually not hit above 60-80% depending on your video card.
[Image: 2748844.png]
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#8
(09-05-2010, 02:23 PM)Koji Wrote:
(09-05-2010, 01:43 PM)Dangerousd777 Wrote: If you want to use 100% CPU then underclock your CPU. PCSX2 doesn't use everything, just close. I get 65-90% usage on my hyperthreaded Pentium 4 whereas my friend gets 99% usage on both cores for her 2 ghz Core 2 Duo.

Haha... wow... I don't think you understand what you're talking about Wink

i agre this is crasynes Wacko underlocking youre cpu well make the game even slower
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#9
(09-05-2010, 01:43 PM)Dangerousd777 Wrote: If you want to use 100% CPU then underclock your CPU. PCSX2 doesn't use everything, just close. I get 65-90% usage on my hyperthreaded Pentium 4 whereas my friend gets 99% usage on both cores for her 2 ghz Core 2 Duo.

Next step: Remove a stick of RAM.
Last step: Install the oldest GPU driver you can find.

This will complete the sabotage of your PC's capabilities.
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#10
I'm just saying because if one core is used by EE and the other core is used by GS and they both cap at 80% on 2 cores of your processor then your processor would probably be more utilized at a slower clockspeed. You could probably presume this since overclocking didn't change anything...

And I saw the 99% when I was using Teamviewer and helping my friend set up PCSX2 and task manager reported about 90%+ CPU usage by PCSX2.

PCSX2 runs kinda slow for me because Pentium 4 is terrible with floating point and I only have one core which makes things worse. The only redeeming quality is that Hyperthreading increases the performance of rendering...

If you hit tab for turbo mode though you can sometimes push 100% out of the EE...
CPU: Pentium D 'Presler' 915 2.8 ghz 2x2MB L2 @ 3.5 ghz
GPU: eVGA [Nvidia] 8600GT 256MB SSC DDR3
Tested: FFX, FFX-2, FFXII, MGS3, KH, KH2, The Hobbit NTSC
PCSX2 FTW! Biggrin
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