Can anyone please teach me how to keep the fps above 50 at all time?

[pcsx2newbie]

Hi, I am very new to the forums and to the emulator. I have the pcsx2 ver. 0.9.6 and I don't know how to keep the fps of the games I am playing above 45-50 fps. It starts off fine then it starts lagging and the fps drops to around 25-30 fps. Only when I am in the main menu of the games, that my fps returns to around 50-60 fps. I've looked through a lot of threads concerning this but I just can't get it to work properly. Can anyone please show me how to keep the fps around 50-60 fps at all time if possible?

My pc is running on WindowXP SP2
Intel Core 2 Quad CPU
Q9400 @ 2.66Ghz
2.67 Ghz, 3.25 GB of Ram
NVDIA GeForce 9800 GTX+

Games I am playing on the emulator:
Shadow Hearts 1
Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne

Thank you for your help!

[Urisma]

first off, download the latest betas from the official beta page and from the Gsdx thread in the plugins sub forum. Or you can compile your own programs. Look into the compile guide if you wanna do that. You can turn on speed hacks. VU cycle stealing works very well for a multitude of games, even if only set to slight. Make sure that the advanced tab is default. You can use DX10, so use DX 9 in hardware mode. Setting the internal resolution to native will boost speed. Play with the other ticks at the bottom, and see what works best. It'd be a good idea to check logarithmic z. Once you download the latest betas, dont enable micro VU, its slower than super VU, which is default. Also make sure MGTS is ticked under CPU options. Outside of that, I don't there theres much else you can do. If you know what youre doing, try overclocking your cpu. You should be able to get to 3.2 Ghz 9the recommended Ghz by the PCSX2 team) without much trouble.

[Aemony]

Oh, I think it's so sad that you're still on XP with those specs. Oh well, upgrading to Vista or Seven and using Dx10 would surely give a performance boost.

[pcsx2newbie]

Ok, I listened to your advice and got the pcsx2 beta version and these are my settings -

Graphic: Renderer = Direct3D9 (Hardware) / Interlacing = Blend bff (works best for shadow hearts 1 right now) / Native checked / LogZ checked / Alpha Correction checked

CPU: EERec checked / Vu0rec checked / Vu1rec checked / MTGS checked / Frame Skip checked / Custom FPS Limit = 60 / Skip Frames when lower than = 55 / 0 for the other 2 options

Speedhacks: Use x2 Cycle Rate checked / INTC checked / Enable IOP checked / WaitCycles Sync checked / Idle Loop checked

Advanced: Round Mode = ChopZero / Clamp = none / Flush to Zero checked / Denormals Zero checked / Round mode = ChopZero / Clamp = none / Flush to Zero checked / Denormals Zero checked

Anything I didn't mentioned above, I left them unchecked, and my fps is slightly better now, not around 20-30 anymore but 30-40 after running for about a minute. Is there any other way to make it better? If not, then it's ok, thanks for your help up 'til now. I really appreciated it Urisma. And to Aemony, lol I don't have the money to upgrade to window 7 right now and my internet is too slow to download stuff.

[Bositman]

Well I can tell you about Shadow Hearts 1 that it is very slow on DX9,while on DX10 nowadays it is about 2x faster. But still,there is another way to get good FPS: Set GSdx to DX9 software renderer and set software threads to 3. That should give you better FPS with that game.

[Aemony]

Windows 7 RC is free... You don't have the money to free beer? Weird...
I notice you don't have VU Cycle Stealing activated. Set that to slight or moderate since it might increase your performance.

[dralor]

Honestly there is something wrong if you are having trouble with SMT: Nocturne. I have the game myself and on a Q6700 which has the same default clock as your Q9400 and an 8800GT I can run it fine at 1620x1050 res. I used to play it in DX9 before I got vista and it still ran great more graphical glitches but that's not a speed issue.

[pcsx2newbie]

To Bositman: Thank you for the advice! The fps seems a bit more stable now. It remains above 40 fps most of the time.

To Aemony: Thank you for your advice on the VU Cycle Stealing thingy, too. I think it helps speeding it up as well. And yeah, I am asking my friend to download window 7 for me, hopefully, I can increase the performance even more =D

To dralor: lol, I know there's something wrong, that's the reason why I posted this thread, asking for your help. And yeah, I don't care much for graphical glitches but I'm just concerned about the speed issue.