Armored Core 3: FPS down to 10, what am I doing wrong?

[gigaus]

Now, I'd like to open this with....I am not running a crappy computer. For that matter, I just upgraded it, and I can run pretty much everything at 60 fps, and 120 in some cases, if I feel like it. This is by no means a dud. 

That said, I grabbed this game, and Darkcloud 2 some time back, maybe little over 6 months ago, and had this problem. Both games had pretty bad FPS, but with DC2 I could fiddle around with it and get it to run at insanely high FPS, which naturally made the game run faster. Not the case with AC3. I tried fiddling with it again on this computer, and I can't get above 10 FPS, which as you'd imagine is pretty bad considering the Process-Frame lock.

So, my question is, is there something about that game that just makes it unplayable, or are there ways to smooth it out so it runs fine?

[Nobbs66]

Specs?
Settings?
PCSX2 version?
Disc or ISO?

[gigaus]

Specs?
Settings?
PCSX2 version?
Disc or ISO?

Oh boy....

Win 10
amd athlon x4 860k
amd radeon r7 360
12 GB ram

Setting....I..What do you need to know?

PCSX2 1.2.1.r5873

Iso


Not the best out there, clearly, but...Unless I missed something, this should be able to run Ps2 games no problem, yes?

[jesalvein]

Oh boy....

Win 10
amd athlon x4 860k
amd radeon r7 360
12 GB ram

Setting....I..What do you need to know?

PCSX2 1.2.1.r5873

Iso


Not the best out there, clearly, but...Unless I missed something, this should be able to run Ps2 games no problem, yes?

not all PS2 games.
It's not a bad CPU, with an STR barely under 1600.
It's good for many games, but the AC series (IIRC) require a CPU with STR above 1800

[gigaus]

not all PS2 games.
It's not a bad CPU, with an STR barely under 1600.
It's good for many games, but the AC series (IIRC) require a CPU with STR above 1800

Right...umm...Lets pretend I don't know what STR is an acronym for and my googlefu isn't turning up much. ><

What does STR stand for?

[KeyToTruth12]

Single Thread Rating.

[ssakash]

Here's a list of processors and their single thread performance: https://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html

might be useful to compare results against a different processor.

[gigaus]

Ah, alright then, if my CPU is just below 1600 then....There shouldn't be that much of a gap between that and 1800, right?

And even so, maybe I missed something, but shouldn't my GPU have a larger factor on the Framerate than my CPU?

[Ice Queen Zero]

Emulation relies more on CPU power, and it's different from games natively made for PCs. 

[Blyss Sarania]

Ah, alright then, if my CPU is just below 1600 then....There shouldn't be that much of a gap between that and 1800, right?

And even so, maybe I missed something, but shouldn't my GPU have a larger factor on the Framerate than my CPU?

It's a fair difference when you consider it like this: PCSX2 uses 3 threads with MTVU. That 1800 STR is what's roughly needed for this game, but for each core.

So you have 1600, 1600, 1600
You need: 1800, 1800, 1800

It adds up because it's not just one core that is a little too weak, but three.

A few light games in PCSX2 can be okay with 1400 or less. Most RPG style games and medium games need around 1600. Popular titles and heavy games need 1800. And games that really push the PS2 itself can need over 2000.

My 3770k @ 4.2 Ghz has 2400 STR and some games still slow down on it. It's just the nature of the beast. Syncing things, emulating multiple processors in single threads, doing things in weird ways like the PS2 does and stuff like that all add up.