[LIST] The Most CPU-Intensive Games

[Blyss Sarania]

I don't think that's the point. None of these games would be on the list then considering there are work arounds to get them working without problems and that 'decent' hardware will get rid of 'the problem'. SoTC is on the list when it has fixes of that nature too. Subtracting elements from the game to make it work does not count when talking about if the game is intensive or not. Using these fixes solidify the concept of them being intensive.

I didn't say that about the setting to validate my point, it was to help you out in case you didn't want it to slow down. Also:

What would be considered cpu intensive because I think the difficulty of emulation is somewhat subjective. I mean to some people kingdom hearts is cpu intensive while even GOW and GOW II may not be considered all that hard to run to someone else. So my question is what are your standards for a certain game to be considered cpu intensive?

This is a tricky one to answer since we're basically dealing with two different x86 companies who have totally different architectures and chips. As somewhat-outlined in the original post, the goal here is to compile a list of games that are heavy on the EE -- including games that have abnormal dips (10+fps drops for seemingly no reason) in certain areas, games with hard to emulate cutscenes, games that require software mode to function properly, etc. Typically I'm saying for the AMD side, if it requires a modern AMD chip (Athlon II/Phenom II/Stars, Piledriver) @ speeds ~3.8+ghz and still has slowdowns, or for the Intel side, Sandy/Ivy Bridge/Haswell @ ~beyond 4ghz to perform properly, then it's probably EE intensive.

There are lots of low-end chips out there and I think the list would become mega-cluttered if we factored them in.

This is generally from the viewpoint of people with "decent to ridiculous" CPU's.

Emphasis added.

FFXII can get by with much less.

[shinra358]

I didn't say that about the setting to validate my point, it was to help you out in case you didn't want it to slow down. Also:



Emphasis added.

FFXII can get by with much less.

Ok, cool. Yeah, I knew that (about the fixes), I was just speaking on the behalf of those who don't want to get rid fo certain effects just to make things work. Decreasing the res works too but at optimum settings (AA not included) it has some strain to it. That's why I listed them. But even with the reduced rez, switching from area to area still causes lag and even sound lag. Sure, it's playable with this, but in order to not see these things at decent hidef settings, it requires a high gpu and high cpu. My message wasn't snoody btw (or I didn't mean it to sound like it).

[Blyss Sarania]

My message wasn't snoody btw (or I didn't mean it to sound like it).

It kinda did lol, but it's cool, no harm done.

It would be good to know what your specs were that you are running it on though, for comparison sake.

Edit: Nevermind, found it in your profile.

Edit: You seriously have slowdown with that setup? That's pretty surprising.

[shinra358]

Sowries xD

At a custom 1920x1080 rez, yes.

[Blyss Sarania]

Sowries xD

At a custom 1920x1080 rez, yes.

Is your EE% in the title bar high during the slowdown? If it's not, it's probably the GPU holding you back. If it is high, it's the CPU. I would be surprised if it's the CPU with that CPU. Are you using MTVU speedhack?

[shinra358]

I don't remember about the EE% but to see that would probably make me have to go into window mode which is a lower resolution, so it would probably be okay there but I've never paid attention to things in windowed mode. It's gonna be difficult for me to test this right now and give your results because my ps2 games are on an external drive because I am literally out of space (c'mon seagate m9t 2tb 9.5mm laptop hdd ~ you're taking too long to come out to us!)

Yes, I'm using the MTVU speedhack. Not playing from an external drive helps alot, but it's still there. I mean, both ways aren't that bad, but it is still very noticable. I can forget about playing them straight from the bluray drive, that's omega choppiness for everything on pcsx2 xD

[Blyss Sarania]

I don't remember about the EE% but to see that would probably make me have to go into window mode which is a lower resolution, so it would probably be okay there but I've never paid attention to things in windowed mode. It's gonna be difficult for me to test this right now and give your results because my ps2 games are on an external drive because I am literally out of space (c'mon seagate m9t 2tb 9.5mm laptop hdd ~ you're taking too long to come out to us!)

Yes, I'm using the MTVU speedhack. Not playing from an external drive helps alot, but it's still there. I mean, both ways aren't that bad, but it is still very noticable. I can forget about playing them straight from the bluray drive, that's omega choppiness for everything on pcsx2 xD

Yeah, you'd have to go into windowed mode, but doing that doesn't really affect performance. If you set 1920x1080 in GSDX resolution, that's what it renders at, no matter if your window is bigger or smaller. It just gets scaled to the window size.

Yeah, it's always best to play from ISO rips than from the actual discs. Plus it saves your discs.

Well, anyway, you know now about EE% for future reference. Also, if you wanna find out if it's your GPU limiting a certain part, you can get GPU-Z and open it to the sensors tab. If you see GPU load hit 99% then you know that's the bottleneck.

The GS% in the title bar, which is by the EE%, actually has more to do with the CPU part of the graphics synthesizer than the GPU part, so even if it's high, it can be a CPU limitation. At least, if I'm remembering right lol.

[shinra358]

Well I use to have a gpu app that monitors everything when I play and the gpu load always hit 99% during basche's limit break on FFXII or trapping ghosts on ghosthunter but not on anything else (like switching screens) so for one of the problems I do think the bottleneck is active. I can always tell when the gpu load is at 99% when a robotic sounding noise starts to buzz in the game. Also, trying to move the window during this time has windows explorer lag.

Okay, had just enough space to put FFXII on the main internal HDD (4gbs of open space). While just sitting in one place, the EE% is around 45-59%. Up to 74% when fighting stuff or fast forwarding. I'm not getting the per area slowdown anymore except for when first loading a save but I do remember it doing so on a lesser driver. So if 74% EE isn't classified as high, then I know now that the gpu part is considered high.

[Nobbs66]

It seems like your CPU is struggling though your it isn't clocked very high.

[Blyss Sarania]

Well I use to have a gpu app that monitors everything when I play and the gpu load always hit 99% during basche's limit break on FFXII or trapping ghosts on ghosthunter but not on anything else (like switching screens) so for one of the problems I do think the bottleneck is active. I can always tell when the gpu load is at 99% when a robotic sounding noise starts to buzz in the game. Also, trying to move the window during this time has windows explorer lag.

Okay, had just enough space to put FFXII on the main internal HDD (4gbs of open space). While just sitting in one place, the EE% is around 45-59%. Up to 74% when fighting stuff or fast forwarding. I'm not getting the per area slowdown anymore except for when first loading a save but I do remember it doing so on a lesser driver. So if 74% EE isn't classified as high, then I know now that the gpu part is considered high.

74% EE isn't that high, no. It shouldn't be high enough to cause slowdown. I suspected the GPU, as what you were saying happened to me on my GT 610, but not when I switched to 7870. Sorry for the late reply, as I've been asleep for about 19 hours. lol

It seems like your CPU is struggling though your it isn't clocked very high.

How'd you come to that conclusion? The clock rate is lower but the instructions per clock is very high. This is commonly the case in laptops. Although that sentence is kinda broken anyway, maybe I'm misunderstanding?