FF12 slowdown

[winters]

I remember playing this game on my old PC (prescott 3.2GHz) and getting close to 60 fps most of the time.

I decided to try the game out again on my current PC (E8500 3.2GHz) only to find I get slowdowns (drops to 50fps). It is very playable, but I expected less slowdowns not more.
I'm running this on the 0.9.8 version of pcsx2 available from the homepage. I can't remember what version I ran it on before (or what plugin version I used).

I tried the game with speedhacks, none of them has any effect on the fps at all. The VU cycle steal @ 3 seem to boost my fps to a constant 60, but you can still see the same slowdown in game.

EE is usually at ~80%, while GS is always 50% or under. I tried the game on 3x native or 1280x1280 custom (which was the setting I played on with my old PC), neither changed the fps at all.
Running at 2x native boosted the fps by about 2-3 (still doesn't allow constant 60) but looks worse than when I ran it on my old pc.

Any idea what version of pcsx2/gsdx would run FF12 better? or is there something I'm missing in the settings?

[Bositman]

Hmm are you by any chance running it off your DVD disc? If so try making an iso image of it using imgburn and running that.

[winters]

I'm running off iso.

[winters]

I also noticed graphical anomalies that weren't present last time I played it (mainly loss of transparency effect in some places. Most noticeably when you enter a new area and the area name shows up, a large chunk of the screen ends up white).

I've turned off all speedhacks and am running everything on default.

What version of pcsx2/gsdx is best for FF12?

EDIT: Sorry for the double post.

[Livy]

Try the 0.9.7. The 0.9.8 might be slower than 0.9.7 for some games.