EE and GS percentages
#1
Question 
Hey I'm testing out various games on my new laptop and noticed that many of them suddenly have 100% EE usage. That means the CPU is acting as a bottleneck correct? And if it's not at 100%, that means PCSX2 can't possibly render it faster?

For comparison's sake, I took some screens. First pic is on the laptop (2.6ghz i7), second pic is the desktop (4.0ghz i7). Same game, same settings


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#2
Those values indicate the amount of available CPU resource is being used, must not be confused with the actual CPU load.

Lets try to explain this, EE near 100% indicates the emulator is using all the CPU has to supply, so this probably shall slowdown the emulation (although not necessarily if the available power is enough or near it).

Now the oddness, EE may reach that saturation point and still the CPU is not providing all it could... this happen sometimes in CPU with turbo feature (although I know the effect only with Intel, I have not seen reports from AMD Thuban yet) in conjunction with Windows power saving feature. For some reason The system fail to notice it should elevate the CPU clock, which may left it actually working underclocked.

This is more common in laptops although can happen in desktops too, probably due to the aggressive power saving design, the workaround is using a performance power saving plan under Windows.

If that is your case you can change that plan under the "Control Panel" -> "Power Options" and from there choose the Performance Plan (it may be hidden so you'll need to force Windows to show all features).

After playing PCSX2, actually the above is valid for any game, return the power plan used normally by your laptop to increase the battery time and reduce heat.

Imagination is where we are truly real
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#3
2nd pic looks like it has "turbo limiter" enabled, F4 to disable limiter should run it at higher speed where the EE should get closer to 100%. If it still doesn't reach it, you could try reducing the resolution as it could be the bottleneck.
Core i5 3570k -- Geforce GTX 670  --  Windows 7 x64
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#4
It's also possible that the GPU is limiting in the 2nd pic. I forgot if a stalling GPU counts to the GS thread or not Tongue2
You'd notice that by playing in windowed mode and dragging a explorer window around. If it lags horribly, the GPU is maxed Tongue2
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