Let me whine a little (about fps)

[Squall Leonhart]

Nice upgrade. From a quad-core 2.5 Ghz to another quad-core 3.3 Ghz in a lower brand (I am assuming they have the same architecture). Further upgrade to an AMD FX 8150 should help, because it has 8 cores @ 3.6 Ghz.

Has the seller not told you that before?

i was about to refute this. then i realised you were taking the piss.

[natt]

Well, I understand this (the reason of upgrade was overheating problem with old mobo), but still:
1) Even these 4 cores aren't loaded to full capacity - emulator process takes only around 50% of CPU time
2) Athlon II X4 is in the RECOMMENDED CPU list of the project.
3) GPU was significantly upgraded
4) Isn't we REALLY need some 8 cores to emulate 10 years old console? Instead of buying cutting edge HW for over than 1k$ isn't it more reasonable to buy a used PHISICAL PS2 console instead?

He was being sarcastic. The bulldozer is not particularly good for PCSX2, not likely any better than what you have. GPU upgrade doesn't matter if you're CPU limited.

As far as the question of how much power it takes to emulate the PS2, you really can't provide any intelligent feedback unless you understand quite a bit about hardware emulation in general and the PS2 in specific. This is complicated stuff.

[xstyla]

just to complete the bash.

buy a windows 7. XP is so ancient.

[Mertvii]

http://buildbot.orphis.net/pcsx2/index.p...indows-x86

Download that revision and tick all speedhack checkboxes except Fast CDVD. If you're still not getting 60fps, move EE cyclerate one notch over. If still not 60, move it back then try moving VU one notch over. Still not 60? Time for another upgrade lol

Is it really worth trying? I have 4980 revision of pcsx2 and I tried move these sliders already - I need to move vu two notches forward to get 60, or I need to implement really devastating framedroping. And the case was EXACTLY the same on my old confo

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Well, whatever. But how CPU can be exhausted if it 50% free of any useful job while emulator is running? I just can't get it -/

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just to complete the bash.

buy a windows 7. XP is so ancient.

I just bought a whole new computer, for no avail. And how I can be shure buying even new OS would help somehow in this case?

[natt]

Well, whatever. But how CPU can be exhausted if it 50% free of any useful job while emulator is running? I just can't get it -/

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If you're running hardware mode GS and MTVU is off, PCSX2 only has 2 threads of execution that will get any appreciable load. (You can see their statuses in the title bar: EE% and GS%). With 4 cores, even if both of those threads are pegged, that's only 50% overall usage.

[Mertvii]

If you're running hardware mode GS and MTVU is off, PCSX2 only has 2 threads of execution that will get any appreciable load. (You can see their statuses in the title bar: EE% and GS%). With 4 cores, even if both of those threads are pegged, that's only 50% overall usage.

And this takes us... where? Yes, MTVU is checked, yes, I can see two related threads in task manager. Should I make it 4 somehow, to fully utilize CPU potential? And now I should appologizes - I was overobssessed with BoF V before. I checked emulation in ar tonelico (sprite 2d) and Suikoden 3 (3d) - both run in 60fps even without speedhack sliders and w. nice interlacing/scaling too. So its narrows the problem to BoF 5 and SMTigital Devil Saga also. Also, I noticed some intresting fact: in those 2 titles I managed to run at 60 fps those statutes u mentioned, EE and GS, show EE around 30-50, and GS close to 10, when those two (SMT and BoF), that wont, show EE also 40-50 and GS almost 90%.

[Livy]

Well, enough of joking.

First, you must know that most software use no more than 2 cores (including PCSX2 w/o the MTVU hack). Those which do use more than 2 cores are likely productivity software like Visual Studio, Photoshop, Maya... which an end user such as yourself never use. What you need is a powerful dual-core CPU, not a weak quad, hexa, or octa-core one.

Unfortunately the end users are proud of having a quad or hexa-core and think their PC is a powerhouse. AMD successfully exploits this and produce what its customers want - a multicore CPU with weak core. The AMD's performance/price compare to that of Intel is often higher (not including Bulldozer series) when comparing the total performance of 4 cores vs 2 cores but what you get is... well, you can see for yourself now.

Personally I am using an AMD CPU now and have performance issue with PCSX2, but I saw that before I bought it. It is only because my budget was very limited at that time, and with that budget the performance could be more worse if I go with Intel. Next year when I can afford another notebook, it CPU will be Intel's.

Edit: Modern PC games usually utilizes multi-core processor to share the workload between cores, but they rely mainly on GPU power. A dual-core CPU should be enough for most games.

[Mertvii]

Livy, thank you for answer. I considered an option of buying i5 2 core, but.. i choose amd and perhaps that was not so well-thought descision.
Well, for now, I tested another 3 game - FFXII, Shadow of Colosus and SMT:Nocturne. Shadow of Colosus showed the same behavior as BoF and SMTDS, with even less fps and GS load of 95. SMT:N were going fairly well, smooth with 60 fps, while FFXII presented me with 60fps and somehow laggy expirience in patrticular places, what is later was fixed by resetting a couple of options.
Can someone clarify what the deal with this high GS value in this games (which wont run in 60 fps)? What is it represent? Is it due to some features that these games use, or they are merely more technological advanced? Maybe abscense of some specific speedhacks results in the fps decrease?

[xstyla]

2 threads. 4 threads. all blah. the bottleneck, the software VU is running only on 1 thread either shares it with the EE or is computationally seperated and depends on sync. any nerd should know that.

@mertvii
if you can (on XP - not been using it lately) try setting the threads in taskman to:

2 threads and run pcsx2 without mtvu and vucyclestealing to 1 or 2. or try
3 threads and run it with mtvu.

and see which one performs better. not much else you can do with your processor there.

[Livy]

PCSX2 uses 2 threads: the EE thread for emulating the PS2 CPU (and some other components) and the GS thread for emulating the PS2 GPU (or video card if that makes sense to you). Each thread runs on a CPU core -- it is the reason why PCSX2 uses 2 cores. The percentage you saw is the usage percentage of the core which that thread is running.

If either the EE or GS thread is 90% or higher, you CPU is holding the FPS. If not, that must be your graphics card (although the PS2 GPU is emulated using the GS thread, its result must be drawn to the screen using the graphics card). After speedhacks fail, upgrade the corresponding computer component is the only way.

@mertvii
if you can (on XP - not been using it lately) try setting the threads in taskman to:

2 threads and run pcsx2 without mtvu. or try
3 threads and run it with mtvu.

and see which one performs better. not much else you can do with your processor there.

Already did that long ago on my Phenom II X4. No difference. It seems the OS handles the processor workload well without decreasing the performance. So let it do its work.