Framerate & sound issues

[Stormblazer]

2.8Ghz Q6600 CPU, 4GB RAM, GTS250 512mb, Windows 7 64bit.

I'm getting about 50FPS in Star Ocean 3 - I have no issues with that, but the 50FPS is causing *everything*, including the sound and animations, to run at 5/6 speed. Voices are disturbing and the entire game feels like it's in slow motion.

Setting the base framerate adjust to 50% and using 60FPS limit just makes everything run at 50% speed (much worse than 5/6 speed).
Setting the framerate limiter to 30FPS does the same thing except that the audio is chopped up instead of slowed down.

How do you set the FPS limit to just plain 30FPS instead? I've been scouring the options but there doesn't seem to be anything.

Edit: I tried using frame skipping, but it doesn't appear to anything what-so-ever, doesn't even affect the image at all.
Edit2: So apparently the frame rate options are pointless from what I'm reading since all it does is slow the actual game engine down to unplayable speeds, and I'm supposed to use the frame skipping. But frame skipping does nothing. I can set any value I want in the frame skip and it won't change a thing, it's as if the options aren't implemented in the first place...?

[Rezard]

PS2 games were made to run at 60fps (PAL is 50fps). Unlike PC games, they were never intended to be run on systems that vary in hardware. PC games were made to run smoothly at different FPS. PS2 games were not, therefor they will be like half speed at 30fps.

The framelimit is there to keep games from running over 60fps, and it does it's job. Likewise, if the framerate of a PS2 game exceeds 60fps, it could become like "Hyperspeed" or whatever you wanna call it.

[Stormblazer]

PS2 games were made to run at 60fps (PAL is 50fps). Unlike PC games, they were never intended to be run on systems that vary in hardware. PC games were made to run smoothly at different FPS. PS2 games were not, therefor they will be like half speed at 30fps.

The framelimit is there to keep games from running over 60fps, and it does it's job. Likewise, if the framerate of a PS2 game exceeds 60fps, it could become like "Hyperspeed" or whatever you wanna call it.

Right, I found that much out after I had posted. Surprises me that they would tie the game clock to framerate on the PS2 though, I thought nobody did anything that silly since the DOS-era.

I managed to figure out the issue was actually CPU, and turned on a lot of the speed hacks, but I'm still curious why frame-skipping doesn't work at all (doesn't appear to do anything - game runs exactly the same no matter what options are selected / values are put in for frame skipping).
As it stands, I have to turn every single speed hack setting to the max in order to get 60 FPS - surprising given that I'm running a multi-core CPU at 2.8Ghz.

[Rezard]

I honestly have never messed with the frame skipping. The only thing I could see would be if you're not using "Constant skipping", but I'm guessing you know that.

[naoan]

surprising given that I'm running a multi-core CPU at 2.8Ghz.

Eh... not really, welcome to the world of ps2 emulation.

[jesalvein]

As it stands, I have to turn every single speed hack setting to the max in order to get 60 FPS

speedhacks tend to fake FPS counter. and enabling all speedhacks isn"'t a good idea it can slow down your game, even break it. Enable them one by one, and use only the ones that are useful.

And a multi core at 2.8 ghz isn't bad, but for a game like Star Ocean 3, (given pcsx2 uses only 2 cores anyways)it's a bit weak.