FF12 FPS Issues

[Prexus]

I am currently trying to run Final Fantasy 12;

I am using PCSX2 0.9.8 (r4600)
GS: GSdx 872m (MSVC 15.00, SSE2) 0.1.12 [GSdx-sse2]
(I have also used ZeroGS KOSMOS 0.97.1 [ZeroGS KOSMOS 0.97.1 sse2] with the same problem)
PAD: LilyPad svn (r4510) 0.10.0 [lilypad-r4600]
SPU2: SPU2-X r4600m 1.4.0 [spu2-x-r4600]

My PC Specs are:
AMD Phenom 9500 Quad-Core 2.20GHz
8GB DDR2 RAM
Windows 7 64-bit
AMD Radeon HD 6800 PCIe2.0 1024MB GDDR5 Core Clock 775mhz Mem Clock 1000mhz Mem Bandwidth 128GByte/s using Driver 8.930.0.0
Direct X 11



Essentially, the game runs fine. I get no issues, and a steady 60 FPS, until I hit any sort of gameplay. The non-FMV Cutscenes slow to a 25-35FPS crawl, causing the voice overs to sound slow and drawn out. This occasionally drops as low as 10FPS.

The ZeroGS plugin was keeping the FPS slightly higher (35-45FPS range), but causing a lot of graphical errors (bottom 3/4 of the screen didn't render certain models, some models were appearing over top of walls and such.)

I hear tell that most people don't have framerate issues with FF12, so I'd love to know what I am doing wrong.

Any help would be greatly appreciated (and I apologize if this was posted in the wrong area.)

[Saiki]

*points to sig*

[smartstrike]

GS: GSdx 872m (MSVC 15.00, SSE2) 0.1.12 [GSdx-sse2]

i wonder why you are still using older+modified("m") GsDX?
you supposed to use the official GSdx r4600 that comes w/ pcsx2 0.9.8

[Prexus]

@tallbender: I was messing around with some other GS plugins and found that 872m worked better. However;

@Saiki: I tried your settings, with the proper GSdx r4600 that comes with 0.9.8 as tallbender mentioned and got a small amount of increase. Much closer to the FPS I got with the ZeroGS GS. It now only dips down to about 35-45 in heavily populated areas and during cutscenes. It's a bit more tolerable, but I imagine it will drop like a stone in some of the more populated fights.

Any further suggestions?

[Saiki]

did you read the REST of the thread or just GSdx settings?

[Prexus]

I did everything up to this line:

NEW REV settings:

because I don't have the testing release.

[miseru99]

With your graphic card you shouldn't really use ancient buggy GSdx, as it's very decent one, it's your cpu slowing you down. Grab SVN version and use MTvu speedhack + all other recommended ones(better not touch the sliders, couse they can as well slow it down), with 2.2ghz you're limited by your cpu speed, those speedhacks will speed it up, MTvu add's another thread using 3 cores which should be noticeable speedup. You could also OC that phenom a bit. FFXII isn't really soo demanding though and gains alot from MTvu and other speedhacks soo possibly 2.2ghz will be enough.

[Prexus]

I installed the SVN version and used the MTvu hack but it made no difference. Exact same FPS slowdown in the exact same situations.

This has begun to get frustrating because everything I have read says I shouldn't have much of an issue, and that the CPU is the limiting factor. Yet lots of people seem to be able to run it on similar or slower CPUs.