Even with a new rig, I'm still unable to play Shadow of Colossus smoothly! :-(

[ahmed_p800]

Hey guys,

This game is making me go Nutz!!
It is ready damn heavy, even on my new rig:

Malibal P150HM (Laptop...but a powerful laptop)
Windows 7 HP 64-bits
Core i7-2760qm Sandy Bridge (Quad) upto 3.5GHz
8GB DDR3 @1600MHz
ATI 6990M 2GB GDDR5
3Dmark11 is 3600 upto 4000 if GPU is OCed

I used to have a C2D (2.9GHz OCed) couple of months ago, I can tell you this, i7 is WAY more powerful!

I play almost everything at full speed (even games like Valkyrie Profile, Dragon QuestVIII, GOW2...etc) at pretty high resolution (1600x900 up-scaled to 1080p)

EXCEPT this game...Shadow of Colossus! it just doesn't want to run smoothly!

It is very disappointing, as one of the reasons I got this CPU in my laptop (3rd fastest mobile CPU currently in the market) was because I wanted to play SOC at full speed!....really (-____-)"

But no, this game just doesn't want to run as I want it to run! :-(

I know I could make it go faster by activating few hacks and such, or reducing the resolution, but it will look really bad.

Im using Pcsx2-r5076 currently, best so far for me in general.

I noticed that with i7 compared to C2D, Pcsx2 does not push the cpu to the boundaries!

What I mean is, when I used to have the C2D, cpu usage used to be 99% while playing games on Pcsx2.

Right now, with the i7, cpu usage does not go above 23% and the clock speed does not stay @3.5GHz all the time (Intel turbo boost)

It feels low! (o_O)
I know thats because of more cores and such, but I feel the processing power is wasted compared to my previous C2D where it was really pushed to the limits!

MTVu is activated in Pcsx2, and I increased Pcsx2 priority to High in task manager, but I still think the CPU is not pushed hard enough.

Again, this is only with SOC, other games run flawlessly and FAST!

Any tips to make this game run faster would be HIGHLY appreciated!

Thanks :-)

[jesalvein]

Disable mtvu hack

[rama]

Unfortunately you need to enable the VU cycle steal hack in this game.
I'm not even sure a 5Ghz 2600k CPU can play this game without the hack.

[ahmed_p800]

Disable mtvu hack

hmmm, disabling this dropped 10FPS

Unfortunately you need to enable the VU cycle steal hack in this game.
I'm not even sure a 5Ghz 2600k CPU can play this game without the hack.

Yeah I guess so
But I think I read somewhere that SOC needs a +4GHz CPU.
The issue is that SandyBridge mobile CPUs are locked and cannot be overclocked.

[jesalvein]

hm ? weird, I thought MTVU hack didn't do good with this game...
Anyways, try that game on your PS2 and you'll see that basically, it isn't smooth. Even on the PS2.

[DrHycodan]

Uh that's bull. I'm on a core i7 3930k at 4.5ghz and it still doesnt run smooth w/o speedhacks.

[hyakki]

set VU cycle stealing to 1 and mtvu speed hack that should be good enough for 60fps and still run smoothly, if you still get slow downs then lower the upscale res in gsdx (possible gs limitation)

[DrHycodan]

well I know it runs full speed with the VU hack, but whats the point if your depending on a hack to run a game properly?

[avih]

well I know it runs full speed with the VU hack, but whats the point if your depending on a hack to run a game properly?

Not all hacks reduce in-game FPS. You can try the checkboxes at the hacks tab. Most of the time, most of them will speed it up without hurting anything.

Also, define "point"? it will allow you to play the game almost perfectly, what else would you need? perfect? get faster hardware.

[DrHycodan]

I wish I could
Seriously, at least take a look at my hardware before you post something like that