Final Fantasy X NTSC running real-time (59.94 FPS) on latest beta using Pentium 4 HT

[Dangerousd777]

All people think if they OC their CPU's to 4-5Ghz they will be god and play any game on pcsx2 with 200-300fps but they are wrong
and having 4 cores wont do a thing PCSX2 will use only 2

I haven't seen most games beyond 120-150 FPS on most peoples rigs, it depends on the game though. Some games are pretty fast, like 2D games or Final Fantasy. Some games are pretty slow, like Gran Turismo 4.

Only 2 cores though? I know some software that supports virtually unlimited threads (like swiftshader) but optimizing software for multithreading like that must be difficult, so it's understandable.

Will we see any optimizations on the recompilers and core of PCSX2 that will increase execution speed any more than 5%-10%?

PCSX2 isn't as resource intensive as I thought it to be. Before I had the misconception that I absolutely had to have a Core 2 Duo before any games would be playable, because with older versions of PCSX2 I was sometimes only getting like 5-10 FPS, and 40 at best.

So to be honest, I'm surprised I'm even posting in this forum with something besides the urgent need for help to configure this emulator. xD

[SonicXPS2]

Dont worry i was also like that but now im here almost everyday

Its because the way the PS2 Is built and the limit is 2 cores and not more..

[Dangerousd777]

Dont worry i was also like that but now im here almost everyday

Its because the way the PS2 Is built and the limit is 2 cores and not more..

Ah, I see, that makes sense. The only way to run more threads would be to split the workload of the cores (In example, basically to take every even instruction or step on thread 1, and every odd instruction or step on thread 2, and to go further just alternate the instructions between threads).

By the way, heads up on the beauty of Besaid, 87-120 fps just swimming around in the water!?!


I could see beyond 150 FPS possible on a dual core above 3.2 ghz maybe.

What are the interpreters for? I notice if I set VU0 to interpreter and leave VU1 at recompiler I lose maybe 6 FPS but if I reverse that I only get like 13 FPS, except for black scenes/screens, then somehow the VU1 is dominant.

My previous experience with emulation came from using Project 64 1.6 and optimizing it to run Goldeneye 007 with the most compatible sound and graphic plugins. I would get about 80-120 FPS if I disabled the frame limiter. The interpreter for the RSP though was so slow.

The Emotion Engine and IOP also have options for interpreter and recompiler, but EE interpreter kills framerate (of course) and IOP reduces framerate by 30%.

But the interpreter interprets and runs the instructions as they are, that's why it's so slow, but if given enough CPU cycles it could probably be somewhere along with the recompiler in accuracy.

PCSX2 doesn't usually fully utilize my CPU, the usage besides what it takes to preprocess frames for the GPU is about 60-80%, sometimes as little as 20-30% for some scenes.

It seems that frame skipping and using Cheat Engine to speedhack are ineffectual. Cheat engine should make it skip frames (and will divide the displayed FPS by the multiplier) and frame skipping doesn't really seem apparent, I tried draw 2, skip 2, draw 3, skip 1, and even draw 10 and skip 20.

Though it seems the later versions of cheat engine use some different speedhack method as the earlier versions worked with PCSX2 and some other programs as well.

[Viperus]

having 4 cores wont do a thing PCSX2 will use only 2

Any plans on adding multicore support? I am aware that doing so, you wouldnt be emulating ps2 anymore, you would be upgrading it, which is a difficult task, but isnt anybody interested in trying? Multithreaded rendering is out of my league, but not impossible, seeing how some games use it (Lost Planet from Capcom)


And why the hell would you want 80fps. Thats clearly a sign that you havent incresed the resolution enough. I mean, FFX @1920x1200 and antialiasing looks waaaay better then ps2 version.

[SonicXPS2]

I dont know,ask the coders but i think this now is not possible.

[nintendo85]

That's funny, I have a Core 2 Duo (E8400, 3GHz) and I don't have to overclock it. Overclocking can be dangerous and voids the warranty the second you do it; unless you have a very effective cooling system, that CPU is going to kick the bucket sooner or later. Contrary to belief, having a Pentium IV clocked to 3.9GHz is not going perform the same as a Core 2 Duo clocked at 3.0GHz (read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megahertz_myth ) Electromigration is going to occur unless you decrease the clock speed to 3.8 or 3.7GHz. Like what was said previously, if you have the money, get a Core 2 Duo; they're relatively inexpensive and run PCSX2 much more stable than a heavily overclocked Pentium IV. Adding the code to utilize more than two cores on PCSX2 would be a very difficult process, not to mention there really wouldn't be that much of a gain. I can run Grandia 3, Star Ocean 3, Final Fantasy X, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 all at full speed with the right settings. Games like Metal Gear Solid 2/3 are much more demanding on the CPU, however.

[Dangerousd777]

That's funny, I have a Core 2 Duo (E8400, 3GHz) and I don't have to overclock it. Overclocking can be dangerous and voids the warranty the second you do it; unless you have a very effective cooling system, that CPU is going to kick the bucket sooner or later. Contrary to belief, having a Pentium IV clocked to 3.9GHz is not going perform the same as a Core 2 Duo clocked at 3.0GHz (read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megahertz_myth ) Electromigration is going to occur unless you decrease the clock speed to 3.8 or 3.7GHz. Like what was said previously, if you have the money, get a Core 2 Duo; they're relatively inexpensive and run PCSX2 much more stable than a heavily overclocked Pentium IV. Adding the code to utilize more than two cores on PCSX2 would be a very difficult process, not to mention there really wouldn't be that much of a gain. I can run Grandia 3, Star Ocean 3, Final Fantasy X, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 all at full speed with the right settings. Games like Metal Gear Solid 2/3 are much more demanding on the CPU, however.

As said I've already previously stated Pentium 4 Prescott architecture has benchmarked about quarter the speed of a Core 2 Duo at the same frequency. HT improves 5-50% depending on the program, in PCSX2 it seems to have the fullest effect.

My CPU has been very hot before (168 F and beyond) overclocked at 3.9-4 ghz and I'm sure it wasn't healthy but now it's about 50-90 F and I rarely see a hitch with CPU intensive programs even when I overclock it this far now.

I've already known that Core 2 Duo was inexpensive, and I wasn't even planning on using PCSX2 until I bought one, I just got intrigued by some plugins and the promise of the latest Beta, which my curiosity did lead to interesting conclusions.

Your 3 Ghz Core 2 Duo performs altogether like a 13+ ghz Pentium 4 [Albeit with 6 MB of L2 cache]. Unfortunately PCSX2 isn't going to utilize the entire capability of both of your physical and logical cores, same for my physical core and 2 logical cores, only about 80-90% utilization max.

It's just amazing in itself that the program has approached a point over it's development where it's running on the lowest amount of required CPU work for being a PS2 emulator, but I've got GPU to spare in terms of anti-aliasing or resolution.

And the about the cost... well, the money I've had in my household wasn't in my hands or control much, but I could always either save what money I do get or get some help buying. I only have an 80 GB SATA Seagate Barracuda and 2 20GB IDE Western Digital WD200s, so just buy buying a high density hard drive with a fast read speed and plenty of cache, I could greatly improve the performance of all file read, write and copy operations.

But yeah, any CPU I pick out will perform well in PCSX2, and since I have good cooling and Core 2 Duos only get about half to 75% as hot as Pentium 4, I'll be just fine overclocking it that extra 25-30% without added voltage, I don't really think I can really overvolt anyways on this motherboard.

[naoan]

This game has been optimized to death since the era of... well since pcsx2 born afaik, no surprise here.

Now try running any well known hard to emulate games like SotC, MGS3 or Tekken 5. I personally interested on the result.

[Dangerousd777]

This game has been optimized to death since the era of... well since pcsx2 born afaik, no surprise here.

Now try running any well known hard to emulate games like SotC, MGS3 or Tekken 5. I personally interested on the result.

MGS3 is the next I'm going to try, thanks for reminding me lol. I got about 20-30 FPS like I did with FFX but I didn't really have much luck with the speedhacks before, same as FFX, I think I was getting like 5 or 6 FPS.

FFXII is harder to emulate than FFX, it needs another 16-28% in CPU speed than I currently have at the moment.

MGS3 is running only about half speed at best (35 FPS), the speedhacks don't really do much that I know of. It seems that FFX wasn't very demanding on the PS2, so the requirement for the hardest games is still a steep 1.8+ Ghz Core 2 Duo.

This is because of the floating point limitations of the P4. Any games that are within the emulation complexity of FFX and MGS3?

It seems that FFX isn't difficult, 77-83% EE usage for 60 FPS in this battle

A PC port of this game would get 500-600+ FPS on my CPU.

The Emotion Engine was equal to a 600-800 mhz Pentium 4 somewhere along the line for being only 300 mhz, it had 8 different simultaneous functions...

On second note I managed to get the speedhack to work, I had to increase the NTSC or the PAL frame limit past what they were set to, I could force 100 FPS on FFX even if I had to skip frames, and it was smooth, so I'm going to use this to enhance the playability of games which are only half speed so so.

Problem solved?

[Dangerousd777]

I managed to get 120 FPS in FFX (using 1 frame, skip 1 frame, basically 60 but 2x speed, thus more effective measurably than speedhacks).

I could probably disable my speedhacks and get full speed, which means I could get FFXII and MGS3 working quicker without needing double the amount of CPU. (Although choppier because I'm skipping frames, and I'm not really getting a higher framerate)

Although I think there might be a limit to that.

Heh, that's a nice little tweak.

I also tried clamping none and round mode nearest, that should reduce some of the floating point work needed and they don't seem to change emulation accuracy at a high-level, of course.

Less speedhacks are needed besides maximum VU cycle stealing if I force the framerate at 59.94 or 60. Otherwise the Emotion Engine portion tends to take it's time.