EE & GS near to 100% but CPU & GPU underexploited

[ekto]

Hi,

I'm beginning to use PCSX2 0.9.7 And with many 3D games, I'm experiencing slowdowns and low framerates.
I spent time searching on this forum but I have not found a solution, so I decided to post.
The issue is that EE & GS are near to 100% but CPU & GPU are in the same time underexploited.
When EE is at 100%, the CPU rarely goes over 60% while the load is well distributed between the 4 cores. ( the CPU is a Q6600 quad core OC to 3.2Ghz)

The GPU never goes over 70% load while the GS is at 100% (The GPU is a ATI HD3870)
This happens for exemple with metal gear solid 2, who has big slowdowns when approching an ennemy, and EE & GS near to 100% all the time and CPU and GPU at 50% and 70%. Before approching the ennemy It's at about 45fps and when approching ennemy it drops to 20fps.(PAL version)
With Gran Turismo 3, EE and GS are near to 100% too, it's a bit slow but playable,but the GPU is still near to 50% and GPU near to 70%.

What should I do to ensure that the CPU & GPU resources are fully exploited to have better performances ?



My OS is Windows 7 64bit and have 4Go of RAM. I'm using Dx10 Hardware and microVU. With DX9 hardware it's the same, and with dx9 or 10 "software" it's worse. SuperVU seems to be slower and causes graphical issues.


Sorry for my bad english and thank you in advance for your help.

PS : How to play with lower fps but full speed ? Is it possible ?

[Itsugawa]

That happens because Pcsx2 supports only 2 cores at the moment.. the only way to use all 4 cores is to use direct3d 10 software mode and set at 3 the rendering threads option, but I don't ensure you it will work well since I have 2 cores and having no problems
Also try setting native resolution and using speedhacks..And no, you can't get full speed with lower FPS, that's unthinkable xD
This is all I know, I'm sure somebody out there will help you more.

[rama]

The measurements are no exact science and especially on many core systems it's hard to get to correct conclusions.

From the descriptions you gave it sounds like the speed you get is indeed the best your PC can manage.
Both, your CPU and your GPU are basically maxed.
The idle cycles you see are from when one of the main PCSX2 threads needs to wait for the other for new data.
This can not be "fixed" as it is just normal for threaded operation.

[Fezzer]

In Pcsx2's eyes however he still has a dual core @ 3.2Ghz which is still...Not bad. Tweaking some options should mean your able to play whatever game it is.

[ekto]

thank you very much for your answers, I managed to run one game at full speed with speed hacks (soul calibur 3) but there are some strange vertical strings and some blur, when D3D upscaling is used instead of native resolution. (also with tekken 5, seems to be namco game specific)

[Image: verticalstringssc3u.th.jpg]

Overall, most of games run, but too slow with a average of 40fps. I hope that one day the quad cores will be supported (or some other improvement found). Although if you look backwards, we see that there have been big improvements, keep it up guys ! Thank you for what you do.

[Shadow Lady]

For the vertical lines you'll have to use custom resolutions, something like 1070x1070, 1020x1020, 1200... others...

[ekto]

Awesome !!! thank you very much for the trick !