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When I am playing games I have noticed that I hardly use my system resources, making turbo mode a bit slower than it should be.

I have a computer with the following hardware/software.

PCSX2 r3113 per the recent beta release. (I have tried a newer version of gsdx without any major impact, AA is off since it breaks the shadows in the game.)
Windows 7 X64 (fully updated)
Geforce GTX 275
Intel i7 920 OC to ~3.2GHz (custom cooling)
3x2GB DDR ram running in tri-channel
A Gigabyte X58A-UD5 motherboard
6 HDDs
Nothing else is connected internally.

When I run the emulator the EE at the top shows 90%+ at all times while using turbo, it varies greatly in the normal setting, rarely going over 90%. Yet any program I check in shows low CPU loads over all and on single cores. UI occasionally takes 1%.

I do not know if my GPU is bottlenecking me or how to check for that. Yet it doesn't seem to increase in temperature so I doubt it.

GS tops at 30% since I play in window mode (thus low resolution). It is annoying how the emulator window doesn't get focus back once you tab in again so I can't turn turbo on/off while checking things in other windows (unless I restart the emulator, assume that bug is known along with cursor going missing).

I added everything I thought you would think is relevant in attachments. If I should try something or submit something else just ask.

If this is how the program is meant to work then I apologise for wasting your time.

Edit below here.

Quote:Why is my CPU load less than 100%?

As said above,PCSX2 only uses 2 cores,so if you have more the CPU usage will be way less 100%. Even if you have exactly 2 cores, the emulator will not cause 100% CPU usage because of the way threading works. This does NOT mean PCSX2 isn't using the full power of your CPU, it is normal.

I missed that part of the FAQ the first time through. Still think it seems a bit odd that the numbers are sub 50% on the cores being used.

Game used is Persona 3 FES (94A82AAA).
PCSX2 can only use 2 threads at any time and your CPU has 8. Windows spreads the load from the 2 threads that PCSX2 uses to all 8 threads you have, resulting in the low percent you see there. If the EE% is that high, it means you are hitting a CPU speed bottleneck on the game.

Also window resolution has no effect on speed. What does affect speed and quality is the internal resolution set on GSdx. In your case it is set at 2x native (you can either use a multiplier of native or specify a resolution on your own). Try setting it to 4x and see the GS load get larger Wink If you're curious you could also set GSdx on software mode and set sw render threads to 7, to see the resource usage then Tongue

Off-topic: Nice mobo there, it's the one I'm considering for my new PC, does it fair well on overclocking?
I am not used to over-clocking but it does seem to fare decently well. I havn't really tested the current OC I have, just dragged it up since I didn't generate any temperature/load and wanted a bit more FPS in PCSX2.

If I set affinity to certain cores (perhaps disabling hyper threading), would that make the load look more balanced?

Just tested setting affinity to 2 cores (without mistaking HT on the same one), one went up around 90% then and the other around 10%. So will just have to test if the spread or concentrated has higher fps.

Edit

Seems to be a tad higher (like 2 FPS) when using just two cores over all on the affinity setting in windows. This seems to be the same result as in the CPU test. Would perhaps be a good idea to have a check box for the program to do that automatically?
Yeah probably but you would have little to no gain in speed (except if turbo mode decides to kick in then)
Hmm seeing as it is a bit faster on just two cores I should probably try experimenting with forcing turbo mode, perhaps turning off two cores in the bios would make it kick in.

Or I realise I am on a Gigabyte card and they have the custom solution of 21x on all cores instead of using turbo mode at 22x. I don't need it though, waste of time.
(06-14-2010, 01:48 PM)Bositman Wrote: [ -> ]Yeah probably but you would have little to no gain in speed (except if turbo mode decides to kick in then)

Setting CPU affinity pretty much guarantees Turbo mode kicking in. Unfortunately, Turbo on Bloomfields is a measly 1~2 steps up (133~266MHz) compared to the 4~5 steps (533~666MHz) available on Lynnfield.

I made the following batch file to run PCSX2 with CPU affinity set to the third and fourth core:
Code:
@echo off
cmd.exe /c start "Run with Dual-Core" /affinity C "pcsx2.exe"

Makes quite a big difference on an i7-860. OP's better off overclocking, though.