07-02-2010, 03:00 PM
Hey guys,
*EDIT*
For those of you with a Pentium D processor and are wanting to use PCSX2, you may find this thread useful. If you want my suggestion, go get a PS2 from Vintage Stock for $50-80. They also have games for $5-20 each and that's a cheaper way to go instead of upgrading a Pent D to a quad core and new graphics. ($800 at the least)
*/EDIT*
My machine specs should be in my signature for reference on this post. Yes, I KNOW it's not the ideal setup for emulators and is limited to SSE2, but I would like to get a little help if possible.
The only reason I have a PS2 is for Final Fantasy games. In the past they never ran on my computer, but I recently updated my video and ram and thought I'd see if FFX would run. And it ran like before in 0.9.6. CRAP! Then I saw that 0.9.7 came out and tried that. For whatever reason the Gsdx sse2 plugin, even after updating DirectX with the June '10 runtime update, said that my hardware/software wasn't compatible. It wouldn't run. So I was limited to ZeroGS. That was crap. Barely anything was rendered on screen. Stuff missing, skipping frames, slow response, etc.
Not only that but for whatever reason I didn't have an option in 0.9.7 to enable multi-threading in the GS section of the emulator setup. Any thoughts why? I love the new setup and it runs so much smoother than 0.9.6 but it doesn't like my graphics card.
After playing around with the setting in 0.9.6 I can now play FFX at a reasonable frame rate. We're talking 45-55 fps non-battleground, 28-35 fps in battles, and those fun movies run around 188 fps. I have the CPU set to not skip frames and just render every frame as fast as possible. If I set it to skip, the emu crashes or you get objects/characters flickering. I have the graphics in native and windowed. Then I also slapped on a 2xs Speed Hack. That's what ended up doing the trick!
Even though I have the multi-thread option checked in the CPU setup, the emulator will usually use around 50-60% of my CPU. Grant it my GPU is more adept at making the calculations, but I could probably get another 5-6 fps if it used 80-90% of the CPU. Sometimes (without the speed hack) it will use 13% of the CPU and be running at 18 fps! How can I get it to use more CPU? I'm not running anything else while I'm playing.
Also, strangely with my chipset, 0.9.6 is saying that it has a SSE3 feature, but of course that's not true. When I select the Gsdx SSE3 plugin of course it doesn't work. Why is 0.9.6 detecting SSE3 capabilities on a Pentium D chip?
Like I said earlier, I can now play it at a reasonable speed. It's not perfect, and I knew unless I plopped some money down for a Dual Core, or a nice AMD x4 board and chip it may not have worked. So I'm just excited that it does work! It's not 60 frames and it WOULD be nice to know if there were a few tweaks I could make in the emu to make it a touch faster.
Thanks everyone!
*EDIT*
For those of you with a Pentium D processor and are wanting to use PCSX2, you may find this thread useful. If you want my suggestion, go get a PS2 from Vintage Stock for $50-80. They also have games for $5-20 each and that's a cheaper way to go instead of upgrading a Pent D to a quad core and new graphics. ($800 at the least)
*/EDIT*
My machine specs should be in my signature for reference on this post. Yes, I KNOW it's not the ideal setup for emulators and is limited to SSE2, but I would like to get a little help if possible.
The only reason I have a PS2 is for Final Fantasy games. In the past they never ran on my computer, but I recently updated my video and ram and thought I'd see if FFX would run. And it ran like before in 0.9.6. CRAP! Then I saw that 0.9.7 came out and tried that. For whatever reason the Gsdx sse2 plugin, even after updating DirectX with the June '10 runtime update, said that my hardware/software wasn't compatible. It wouldn't run. So I was limited to ZeroGS. That was crap. Barely anything was rendered on screen. Stuff missing, skipping frames, slow response, etc.
Not only that but for whatever reason I didn't have an option in 0.9.7 to enable multi-threading in the GS section of the emulator setup. Any thoughts why? I love the new setup and it runs so much smoother than 0.9.6 but it doesn't like my graphics card.
After playing around with the setting in 0.9.6 I can now play FFX at a reasonable frame rate. We're talking 45-55 fps non-battleground, 28-35 fps in battles, and those fun movies run around 188 fps. I have the CPU set to not skip frames and just render every frame as fast as possible. If I set it to skip, the emu crashes or you get objects/characters flickering. I have the graphics in native and windowed. Then I also slapped on a 2xs Speed Hack. That's what ended up doing the trick!
Even though I have the multi-thread option checked in the CPU setup, the emulator will usually use around 50-60% of my CPU. Grant it my GPU is more adept at making the calculations, but I could probably get another 5-6 fps if it used 80-90% of the CPU. Sometimes (without the speed hack) it will use 13% of the CPU and be running at 18 fps! How can I get it to use more CPU? I'm not running anything else while I'm playing.
Also, strangely with my chipset, 0.9.6 is saying that it has a SSE3 feature, but of course that's not true. When I select the Gsdx SSE3 plugin of course it doesn't work. Why is 0.9.6 detecting SSE3 capabilities on a Pentium D chip?
Like I said earlier, I can now play it at a reasonable speed. It's not perfect, and I knew unless I plopped some money down for a Dual Core, or a nice AMD x4 board and chip it may not have worked. So I'm just excited that it does work! It's not 60 frames and it WOULD be nice to know if there were a few tweaks I could make in the emu to make it a touch faster.
Thanks everyone!