Dragon Quest 8 Slowdown during Battles / World Map
#1
Hi all,

Sorry to re-post something that's brought up a lot, but trust me I've scoured the forums searching every DQ8 topic for a solution and I couldn't find one.

My problem is this: Everything was running fine when I only had Hero/Yangus/Jessica EXCEPT during battles where there were 6 enemies OR during the world map whenever I would turn the camera to a distant area (I'm assuming because it's more to process). However, once I got the fourth character battles have been slowing down too at random intervals. It was tolerable before but I'm assuming I hit a ceiling of some sort, so I don't know where to go.

My specs:
Intel Core i5 (I don't know how to check max processor speed... whenever I go into the Windows-provided perf tools program it says "1.07 GHz (4 CPUs)." I'm overclocking it to max now so if this isn't helpful tell me what you need and how I can access it)
4 GB RAM
nVidia GeForce GT 335M

Attached are my speedhack/plugin settings. Please request any more info you need, and thanks for any help


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#2
Your cpu speed should show in the log of PCSX2 after you run it(before running games etc.). But it's possible your game is lagging couse graphic card which is a mobile version/for laptops ~ not soo fast. Althrough not soo horrible either. Hard to guess.

What's your EE/GS % at the top of the window when you're playing and notice slowdowns? If EE reaches 100% then your cpu is at it's limits, if GS reaches 100% then graphic card is too weak. If none of them get's to 100% when you get slowdowns then you probably have false readings by setting speedhacks to high.
Also did you actually tried which speedhacks works best or set them to max at once?Tongue Couse many games actually slow down with EE/VU speedhacks at max / sometimes it speeds up some parts while slowing down others.
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#3
(06-26-2011, 03:00 AM)miseru99 Wrote: Your cpu speed should show in the log of PCSX2 after you run it(before running games etc.). But it's possible your game is lagging couse graphic card which is a mobile version/for laptops ~ not soo fast. Althrough not soo horrible either. Hard to guess.

What's your EE/GS % at the top of the window when you're playing and notice slowdowns? If EE reaches 100% then your cpu is at it's limits, if GS reaches 100% then graphic card is too weak. If none of them get's to 100% when you get slowdowns then you probably have false readings by setting speedhacks to high.
Also did you actually tried which speedhacks works best or set them to max at once?Tongue Couse many games actually slow down with EE/VU speedhacks at max / sometimes it speeds up some parts while slowing down others.

It says my CPU speed is 1.335 ghz (4 logical threads).

It would seem as though from your description that my CPU is the problem. My EE regularly stays at 80% normally for the game, but during those slowdowns I noticed it hovered around 98%-100% (pics attached). So am I simply unable to play my game with my current CPU? Here's the odd thing though.... when I bring up Windows Performance Moniter and I play the emulator with DQ8... it only says that 50% of my CPU is currently being worked. Is it possible I'm not overclocking/using turbo correctly? I just went to the max turbo option in the BIOS menu when it boots up (I have Alienware m11x).

Also, yes, I tried out MANY different configurations with DQ8. I literally went through checking off every one of the speedhacks, testing the game with each one.


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#4
You have a quad while PCSX2 uses 2 cores meaning 50% cpu usage in any performance monitor is exactly what it should beTongue. But I dunno with that 1.3ghz O.o pcsx2 log should show normal mode not some underclocked power saving mode you could eventually be. The slowdowns seem to happen couse CPU, I dunno much about i5 to talk about it, but it seem strange to me to see an i5 with such low clockrate. Did you underclocked it to save power/run laptop longer on battery?
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#5
(06-26-2011, 03:49 AM)miseru99 Wrote: You have a quad while PCSX2 uses 2 cores meaning 50% cpu usage in any performance monitor is exactly what it should beTongue. But I dunno with that 1.3ghz O.o pcsx2 log should show normal mode not some underclocked power saving mode you could eventually be. The slowdowns seem to happen couse CPU, I dunno much about i5 to talk about it, but it seem strange to me to see an i5 with such low clockrate. Did you underclocked it to save power/run laptop longer on battery?

No, it's been overclocked normally and I have all the battery settings at max power. I'll restart when I get the chance I make sure it's overclocking correctly.

So, should it be that the 1.3ghz should be showing at a much higher level? I have found this all very odd considering my CPU is considered rather great nowadays still. I'll run through the alienware command center too and post back. In the meantime... why would it show 1.3 ghz when I know my processor goes WAY above that? And I know it's not that slow because I've been doing intensive things with it lately...
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#6
It's probably an ultra-low power CPU, dude.

Open your Window's Start Menu, then type the following:

dxdiag

.. Now press Enter to run dxdiag.exe. The initial tab will list your processor, among other things. Smile

BTW - An ulta-low power processor is just about as bad as it sounds, especially for PCSX2. The maxed out EE% during slow downs it also indicating this.
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#7
The log should show normal cpu speed = max not counting any turbo technology of what your system can use. If it shows soo little, then most likely that's max your system can use from it... O.o You talk about "overclocking" you did it yourself or bought OC CPU? Couse maybe your cpu is OC in wrong way, maybe it's OC too much and bios sets it lower, or maybe it was set as lower meaning it was underclocked(which wouldn't be soo strange at laptop) not overclocked.
Edit: I really thought Intel has Atom series for ultra low power, not some variation of i5, ugh maybe I'm just uneducated in that part. I prefer undervolted Amd with unganged clockrate settings for C&Q for low power consumption cpu's myself.Tongue
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#8
(06-26-2011, 04:08 AM)Rezard Wrote: It's probably an ultra-low power CPU, dude.

Open your Window's Start Menu, then type the following:

dxdiag

.. Now press Enter to run dxdiag.exe. The initial tab will list your processor, among other things. Smile

BTW - An ulta-low power processor is just about as bad as it sounds, especially for PCSX2. The maxed out EE% during slow downs it also indicating this.

This would make sense since the m11x is supposed to be an ultra-portable gaming rig, not an all-powerful one. I see now. So I am basically *****? It says I have an Intel Core i5 CPU 1.07Ghz in the diagnostic.

So what I don't understand is that the i5 is listed as a processor that can work well with pcsx2. So is it just DQ8, or what? Or can certain i5's suck and other ones be better? I always assumed they were the same...

(06-26-2011, 04:13 AM)miseru99 Wrote: The log should show normal cpu speed = max not counting any turbo technology of what your system can use. If it shows soo little, then most likely that's max your system can use from it... O.o You talk about "overclocking" you did it yourself or bought OC CPU? Couse maybe your cpu is OC in wrong way, maybe it's OC too much and bios sets it lower, or maybe it was set as lower meaning it was underclocked(which wouldn't be soo strange at laptop) not overclocked.

I did it myself, in the BIOS startup menu there are options to enable it to go higher.

What I don't understand is this: Why is my CPU able to run DQ8 (mostly well) along with pretty much all other games I've tried on PCSX2 even though my speed is only 1.07ghz then....??? I thought that the speed is supposed to be 3.2ghz or you're *****. Wouldn't that be the case with me, even though it's clearly not?

I may be misunderstanding this because I'm kind of new to the gaming aspect of computing so all this technical stuff is confusing me a little...
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#9
Core i5-520UM @ 1.07Ghz - potential Turbo Boost @ 1.6Ghz

Yeah, that's a pretty low clockrate for PCSX2. Your best bets would be some of these games, not Dragon Quest 8.
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#10
(06-26-2011, 04:19 AM)Rezard Wrote: Core i5-520UM @ 1.07Ghz - potential Turbo Boost @ 1.6Ghz

Yeah, that's a pretty low clockrate for PCSX2. Your best bets would be some of these games, not Dragon Quest 8.

Then why

1) Does my laptop still run other claimed CPU intensive games very well?

and

2) The list make reference to game which can run "only" at 3Ghz.... but mine is lower so shouldn't mine be running those poorly too? I tried a couple of those games and they ran perfectly fine. So why does the list imply that anything lower than 3Ghz couldn't pull it off when my 1.6 Ghz can?
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