Difficulty playing Kingdom Hearts on i7 - 2720 QM.

[iPochama]

The "High Performance" switch would be my guess.
It can literally force your processor to run slower.

Oh...that's really inconvenient actually. Well thanks! I'll always remember to enable high performance now! I actually do use my laptop with the battery on often though, so switching back and forth is annoying but nothing I can't handle!

"Framerate jumping problem" during an FMV?
You mean it dips down sometimes during the FMV?
Are you using Speedhacks at all?

It is totally possible for you to encounter parts here and there within a game that hit your hardware harder. If your internal resolution is up-scaled, it's worth dropping it down to native so you can see if your GPU is seeing it's limits.

It was at native and I don't understand where the problem was if changing to DX9 helped the FMV run perfectly, it's very bizarre. I've been running everything at native and had no problems other than that, and I'm not using any speedhacks.

It really is.
Much like buying parts to build your own laptop.

OEMs can make them that much cheaper thanks to mass production.
It's just not the same world as a desktop.

Rather than upgrading,
you'd usually do better to just sell your current,
put that money with your upgrade cash,
and get a better system all-around.

Also-- Your GPU needs to be MXM capable to be switched out.
I don't believe yours is.
You usually only get that with GTS or GTX units, I believe.
Ironically-- those GPU are less in need of an upgrade...

Oh damn, that's horrible.

So this laptop is pretty much useless for emulation? It's fairly new too and I was hoping to have it for a few years. It's a shame that I can't replace the GPU. Especially if this GPU is as bad as it seems.

Thanks for the long and detailed response.

[hyakki]

We see these questions over and over on this forum about laptops, nearly every laptop is going to be restricted in some way (Heat, cores, cache, pipelines, pwr management features, integrated graphics, slow hard drives..etc), just take a look at a desktop pc with the same specs , they need a huge powersupply, video card needs dedicated power, cpu has a huge heatsink and consume more power.

ever wondered how they eliminated most this in a laptop?

(btw make sure you are running offical nvidia drivers and not the ones from windows / windows update, since they can be restricted sometimes, make sure directx is up-to date also)

[Chik'Tikka]

I don't think it's your GPU, after some time of playing around, i managed to both force the 540m to stay running and i even OCed by 200MHz, (only went up 2° too) what's the clock rate of your CPU? you could be getting bottlenecks, turn on only the one MTVU speed hack and be sure your frame limiter is not turned off and that base frame limit is set to 100% to limit FPS to go no higher then 60FPS (or 50FPS for PAL, or what ever you have your limiter set)+^_^+ if none of that works, you can see if maybe overclocking might be an option, but 2nd gen i core mobiles often can't be overclocked by any means+^_^+

[Agrobacterium]

I have not read the thread in its entirety, but I am absolutely positive that your laptop has Nvidia optiums. Those specs should really give you way higher performance, and your problems are indicative of that your are running on the Intel integrated graphics.

I can personally confirm that it dos not automatically switch to the Nvidia GPU when you run pcsx2. You have to go into the Nvidia control panel and manually specify pcsx2.exe and set it to use the Nvidia card. Once you do that, set gdsx to DX11, and start with 2x scaling and see how high you can go from there. I have a similar CPU and a gt555m, and in games such as Persona 3/4 I can get several hundred FPS. Even in software it is fairly fast, so you should definitely be able to run that way.

Here is a screenshot from the Nvidia control panel. It is unfortunately stuck in Swedish, but essentially you should go to 3D-settings, manage 3D-settings, program settings, select the pcsx2.exe, and select high performance Nvidia GPU.


Hope this helps, because I am confident that your system should handle most, if not almost every game at the very least in native.

[Chik'Tikka]

Here's the english one+^_^+

[iPochama]

Hi, I'm definitely running the official nVidia drivers, but thanks Hyakki for clarifying.

Thanks for your support Chik'Tikka, the clock rate of my CPU is 2.20Ghz, and I'll try those solutions soon. That's a shame if it can't be overclocked by any means! I had hoped for better emulation!

Agrobacterium, thanks for this very detailed response! I am reasonably sure that I don't in fact have Nvidia optimus, and I'm pretty sure I'm not running on the Intel graphics.



I have tried setting it to use the Nvidia GPU but I'm not entirely sure how as I don't have the options that you guys seem to have. I'm not really interested in the 2x scaling or anything like that, native is fine! But I'd love to be able to play my copy of P4 on this emulator so thanks for your support.



Thanks for the screenshot Chik'Tikka!

[omnikam]

If your SURE you dont have optimus. Then enable MTVU hack, as it makes a HUGE difference.Also i recommend using All the recommended speed hacks +EE cyclerate set to 2. Set you profile to High Performance, and plug the AC power cord in. Your CPU is close to mine and i can run ALL games at full speed. And your GPU isnt that bad.

[Direct10]

I have the same processor as you omnikam with the 540M and I'm able to run KH2 at 720p fullspeed so it must be a misconfiguration with his pcsx2 settings or somethinf else with his laptop.

[omnikam]

I have the same processor as you omnikam with the 540M and I'm able to run KH2 at 720p fullspeed so it must be a misconfiguration with his pcsx2 settings or something else with his laptop.

Agree, he`s got something going wrong

[synce]

Download Intel's turbo boost monitor gadget and see what your CPU is doing during the game. If it's not getting the full turbo download ThrottleStop