Games ran good speed prior to gfx card update. Slower since (in .hack GU 3)

[Rezard]

Maybe a driver issue then...?

I don't mean to sound like a fan boy,
but I bet you wouldn't have these troubles with a GeForce...

Maybe it's just failing to treat PCSX2 as a "High Performance" application (possibly on occasion)...?

Or worst case scenario--
You got a bit faulty unit.
I don't know the details of your PC games (exact performance, settings, relative compatibility, etc...),
but I wouldn't be surprised if it shows more with a very performance sensitive application such as PCSX2.
Especially if you have "exactly the same everything else" with PCSX2.

[icemann]

I'm more of a nvidia fan boy myself as well . It just came down to the 7970 having 3GB of memory which sounded good at the time.

On the PC games end I've tested it on Skyrim (which ran pretty well on the old card) on max settings and it ran fine and I've been playing Dead Island on max (ran terrible on the old card) which runs flawlessly. No slow down in either game. Though it gave me a blue screen 1 time on exiting it. And I'd had to swap a sound card to a different PCI slot due to a resource issue (both cards wanting the same IRQ).

I found a way to put it into "High Performance Mode" (you can set the mode via the system tray icon for it) and tried upping the GPU and memory clocks slightly to see if that made any difference whatsoever and it didn't. So I dunno. It did increase the HZ allocated to the card, but no change to speeds in the emulator itself. If anything the speeds went even lower (dropped to 15-18 fps).

[miseru99]

Hmm if it changes correctly and uses default/normal clocks for pcsx2, then pretty much only thing that comes to my mind would be crossfire, but you have only one gpu in there yeah?(and had no bad ideas like using your old radeon in crossfire with new;P) Hmm I read something about radeons of hd7xxx series also got something new to use integrated chip when not needing any power, I doubt that would be a problem especially when it DOES seem to give the power when pcsx2 runs, but who knows maybe the driver messes something up there and causes performance hit as a free bonus;/.

Unless it's different config, couse you didn't said(or I failed to read it) if you changed it or not, you could check native res if you use any higher or do something quite opposite and set it higher than you have and check both on/off "allow 8 bit textures option" just to check if and how it affect fps. Seeing you using latest svn you used different one before for sure(seeing latest is of today;]), maybe some of the new changes caused lags to your game and the new gpu is just a coincidence. Checking older version just to be sure wouldn't hurt, especially pcsx2 which had quite a few changes that could affect performance, gsdx had just cosmetic changes and hackfixes not related to this game.

[icemann]

Well I've tested an older revision (5251) and for the latest version (5269) I've tried both a version I compiled myself as well as one of the downloadable pre-compiled versions supplied on the forums here and still had the same issue.

I'm not running cross fire or anything along those lines. Here is a screenshot of my gsdx config:



Which is pretty much nigh on an exact replica of the settings I had it on a week ago with the other card.

I tested "allow 8 bit textures" prior to commenting here. No difference to fps I'm afraid. I've also tried running it in direct x 9 mode and that has made no difference either. Just on testing the emulator for this post I got this when checking the gsdx settings:



Which has occured a few times when I've been trying to get the emulator working better since the card switch.

An odd thing is that if I've not used the emulator for a while then the game (.hack GU 3) will run well for approximately 3-8 mins before dropping in speed. Like theres a video memory leak or something I dunno.

I can return the card for a refund/switch to something else up till Friday so if I've not got this fixed by then I might return it and ask for an equivalent nvidia card.

[miseru99]

Changing will probably be the best if you're seriously into emulation as nvidia always get's better results in that, from what I see here somebody had tested this in rather very heavy gpu game at x4 internal res and haven't got any serious lags, sure, a bit less fps than on nvidia, but nothing serious for a hardware which wouldn't be fully dedicated to emulation couse gsdx cannot really use gpu same way as native pc games.
Maybe older/newer drivers could fix your problem, couse it's rather not a problem of the gpu itself:]. The strange behaviour of getting full speed and dropping it seems to just confirm that the problem is over drivers, but heh drivers to new gpu's + amd = bugs;], to be expected.

[icemann]

Well I tried updating drivers and it told me I was already using the latest version, so I tried the latest beta catalyst drivers (12.6). Then ran the emulator and drove around in a town area of Dot Hack GU 3 (Dual City Breg Epona) and here was the results:

11:12pm Started running .hack GU 3. 58-60 fps stable frame rate.

11:17pm - Moved down to 38 - 60 fps.

11:20pm - Drop down to 28-39 fps

Something very odd is going on. I'm tempted to switch the cards over and do a 2nd check to ensure that its the new card at fault (which I'm about 99.9% sure of). Though in any PC game I play I never get any fps drops no matter what length of time I play them for. For example I played Dead Island for 5 hours on the weekend without any drops at all in the whole time.

And here's some screenshots from another test I did a few minutes ago:

Pic 1 taken at start of testing:



Pic 2 taken about 5-6 mins after:



And this was with me driving around the same game area for the entire test, not continuously moving to new locations. So any drops if any should have been in specific places and occur again only at those locations rather than a gradual drop in fps over time.

[AcidRains]

this is really getting mysterious and interesting
got no clue at all and am expecting someone come out with another particular suggestion
lastly just want to make sure, do you have it test on other title, i mean other ps2 title,
if other games runs just like this than there is certainly something wrong with the card.

[icemann]

I've not done as extensive a test, but I did briefly test Crash Bandicoot: Wrath of Cortex which ran slower nearly from the beginning.

[icemann]

Double post.

Here's results of testing on some other games:

Wrath of Cortex (PAL) - Level selection area.

2:03am - Started playing. 50 fps stable.
2:08am - Drop to 38-39 fps.
2:10am - Drop to 27-31 fps.

Extermination (PAL) - New game location standing next to lift.

2:18am. Started. 49-50 fps stable.
2:23am. 36-45 fps.
2:28am. 35-44 fps.

Gran Turismo 3 (PAL) - Speed Test course

2:40am. Started. 47-50 fps stable.
2:45am. 36-43 fps.
2:50am. 22-40 fps.

And here's a screenshot of both pcsx2 at the time and the Catalyst clock stats at the end of it:



Note that the GPU clock would jump from 300 MHZ to 900 MHZ (or higher if I had set it to a higher GPU clock setting), with no impact on fps in the emulator.

I wonder if its going into an idle state or of a memory leak of some sort. Though I have no idea. Just taking guesses.

[miseru99]

I would advice a change while you still can return that gpu;3, but out of curiosity the clocks which seems to correctly kick in with the start of the game in pcsx2 still stay high even when you get slowdown? Couse that's a bit unclear and it would be nonsense of a bug if they still were high yet pcsx2 couldn't get that power.

I just think AMD drivers in addition to profiles, for unknown applications check for some pattern based on pc games which are obviously using DX in completely different ways how much power the application requires;]. They decide GSdx fits lower profile pattern and decrease power, GSdx hits even bigger limitation and then it fits even lower profile, and the gpu feeds it with less and less power with time. O.o Made up that story to fit the result, but well it's possible;]. If it would be like that, you would need to force your clocks high each time while playing pcsx2 untill some new drivers would change it, not sure if it's worth.