Few questions about settings

[capdase]

Sorry for making another thread for another question but i felt it would be inappropriate if i continually ask different questions with a thread subject that's totally different.

Anyhow, back to the question.

Thanks to the kind people of this forum, my previous problem has been solved and I could finally emulate my ps2 games! Now, I'm trying to optimize the settings for the plug-in to find the sweet spot between performance and speed and would just like to ask some settings.

for the gsdx plugin:

What exactly is the difference between Resolution (ie 1280x720 60hz) with Internal Resolution (the number besides native box)

I have a feeling that resolution talks about the window size of the program while internal resolution talks about the resolution of the game itself. If that's the case, why is then that when i increase either resolution or internal resolution, my CPU% increases yet when I maximize the game, my CPU% remains the same?

And a totally different question:

I've been reading around the forum that it's stupid to mount the game image to a program (let's say daemon tools) and use a cdvd plugin to read from that drive (like Gigaherz cdvd plugin). Why is that exactly? is there a difference in speed? if so, is it that significant?

Moreover, is it illogical to use speedhacks when you're already at 60fps?? Haha, sorry if this is such a dumb question. was thinking that it might lower the CPU% since it speeds it ups a little!

Anyone care to shed some light?

[Bositman]

I have a feeling that resolution talks about the window size of the program while internal resolution talks about the resolution of the game itself.

Correct. The first setting is simply the window size while the second setting is the resolution the game will be rendered at. Thus, when maximizing or in any way changing the window size, nothing changes. Everything is still rendered at the internal resolution you have set. Maximizing the window will just stretch that.

There is no need to mount the image since you can use the Linuz ISO plugin that reads directly ISO images.

[Koji]

To expand on the mounting versus running ISOs, there have been complaints about several games not even running using that method. Running the ISO through the ISO plugin (or through the menu in the beta builds) usually fixes the issue for the people who had problems. Why go through the more complicated procedure of mounting a game via daemon tools when a file can be run natively anyways

As for the resolution, you're right as bositman said but I'll expand on it a little bit. The reason for the difference is that you can get an anti-aliased image if you set the internal resolution HIGHER than the window resolution. This has become a bit more moot since the MSAA option was added to GSDx (though it's still a tad buggier and has a memory leak in 1888 beta version). Or if your monitor doesn't support certain low resolutions or certain super high resolutions you can customize it to your needs, you can set the proper window size and the image is merely matched up to your screen.

As for the speed hacks, it really depends on which ones you use. If you aren't getting any negative side effects, there is no reason not to use them... but you probably wouldn't notice a huge drop in CPU usage (at least not on the main core). If you turned something like VU cycle speed up, it would probably make a definite drop to CPU usage on the graphics plugin core and lower the wear and tear on your graphics plugin as well... but that speed hack is almost always going to screw something up though.

[capdase]

So the main issue with the mounting and the direct play is compatibility? Because I do have a game which runs when i use the mounting method BUT does not load (goes to the red screen when going through the bios) when I use the ISO plug-in. Weird. Haha!

So increasing the resolution to the resolution of my monitor is pretty much the same as maximizing it? Because when I increase the resolution (not maximizing) it increases the CPU% but maximizing doesn't increase the %. Are both of them on the right track?

[Bositman]

Maximizing does nothing in regards to either visual quality or drawing resolution. So it won't have any affect on the CPU% (which is actually the GPU load) or image quality