Frame drops in a few games

[Leires]

I would have made a more detailed thread subject, but i didn't want it to extend across the entire forum. For some reason, in some games, but not in others, my FPS will drop down to about 50 for a moment or two before going back to normal. It happens a lot in Ar Tonelico 2, as well as other games when it checks for the memory card (In ar tonelico 2, it happens when people talk and things, as well as the memory card times). FMVs play fine, nothing wrong there. I've tested Atelier Iris and it works fine (i didn't check too far, only got the usual slowdown at the memory card), and i played a bit into AT2, only to have the randomized slowdowns usually occur when sprites are loaded for the portraits. I've tried what was posted in http://forums.pcsx2.net/Thread-Ar-Tonelico-2-frame-drop to no avail. I've also tried AT2 with both the disc, and an ISO i'd made. Both of them have the same issue. I tried a bit of Bloodrayne II and everything works fine. FFXII works as well. Is it just a GUST/NIS thing?

My specs are as follows:
Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Processor: Intel® Core™ i5-2500K CPU @ 3.30GHz (4 CPUs), ~3.3GHz
Memory: 8192MB RAM
Available OS Memory: 8158MB RAM
DirectX Version: DirectX 11

Card name: AMD Radeon HD 6670
Manufacturer: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
Chip type: AMD Radeon Graphics Processor (0x6758)
DAC type: Internal DAC(400MHz)
Display Memory: 735 MB
Dedicated Memory: 1008 MB
Shared Memory: 3822 MB

I understand my GPU is rather lacking in power, so it's quite possible that might play a part in the dropping. I'm using version 1.0 of PCSX2, using GSDX 5346 (MSVC 16.00, SSE41) 0.1.16 [GSdx32-SSE4] as a GFX plugin, with USA v1.60 BIOS. Any thoughts or ideas? If i left any information out, please let me know, i tried to be thorough so i dunno how much of all this is really needed ._. For the record, too, those working games give a stable 58-60 frames. It just seems to be NIS/GUST games..

(edit) This'll probably be my only collection of posts here, assuming it gets fixed, so thank you to whoever ends up helping me. =/
(edit 2) Just tried okami, no such problems pertaining to the memory card, or anything whatsoever. Game runs beautifully. (and looks the same)
(edit 3) Mana Khemia, same thing with the memory card loading thing. I think it's just a NIS collective thing. ._.

[naoan]

GSDX setting?

[Leires]

GSDX setting?

As per the thread i mentioned. Dx (edit) Essentially, i just copied what he had, and then modified my settings according to what they said, I've kept em with that for these tests. Oh, except for FFXII, i used default for that, and an older revision, and probably many other settings. But that was months ago. Dx

[naoan]

Try unchecking allow 8 bit textures.

[Leires]

Try unchecking allow 8 bit textures.

Memory card lag still occurs in AT2, will take a moment to get to the part where it normally lags. Will edit this when i get there. D:

(edit) Well, the part where it normally lags at the start when the sprites move onscreen still lags, but you've gained me 2 frames more than usual! Still at 52, and not 60 as it should be, but we're getting somewhere, rofl. (moment to get to the main part, still)
(edit 2) er, i said sprites move on screen, i meant character portraits. apologies. The sprites don't lag at all. Just the moving portrait coming in from the side <-- portrait
(edit 3) Well, it seemed to stopped the lag when she starts to sing, which was the other part that used to normally lag pretty hard at the start (the transition from sprites and such to FMV) so again, progress. Dx Oh, and if it matters, EE sits around 40%. during the laggy parts, 20-30 during non.
(edit 4) Battle transitions suffer the same random drop in frames as well. Battles seem fine (will probably lag at the ones that lag on the PS2, but that's reasonable)

[mroussev]

What internal resolution are you using? Try lower it,sounds like vga are struggling.

[Leires]

What internal resolution are you using? Try lower it,sounds like vga are struggling.

Native. It's the same settings as in the post i mentioned. I'll copy paste his settings just to save time for everyone.

[Image: 21eds0o.png]
[Image: 1zzkqpi.png]

Note that i'm using EE1 and VU1 as per mentioned in the thread.

[Leires]

Dagnabit, mah thread is getting buried. Nobody has any ideas? =/ =/ I could always play something else, but..T.T

[naoan]

Not even 30 minutes, getting buried, What? When did this board became a paid customer hotline?

Try to set EE cyclerate to 1.

[Amak]

What hardware hacks are you using? They could cause trouble.