Hardware mode 30fps Software Full Speed

[Ramah]

Hi All,
Here's the issue I'm having. When I play any of my games using software rendering using the AVX plugin everything plays full-speed with some room to spare. When I enable Hardware rendering I get about 30-35 fps. I've gone through the configuration guide and believe that I understand all of the settings I'm using. I'm using version 1.0.0. I'm not using any fancy settings for my hardware rendering, everything turned off. I've ripped Madden 2012, Dragon Ball Budokai Tenkaichi 3, and all the Armored Core games but they all experience the same issue. Running from disk does not change anything. Nearly flawless in software but 30fps in hardware. Here are my specs.

Since it doesn't specify I've got a ATI r6950 with 2gb.
PCSX2 1.0.0.r5350 - compiled on Aug 1 2012
Savestate version: 0x9a080000

Host Machine Init:
Operating System = Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate Edition Service Pack 1 (build 7601), 64-bit
Physical RAM = 8168 MB
CPU name = Intel® Core™ i7-2600K CPU @ 3.40GHz
Vendor/Model = GenuineIntel (stepping 07)
CPU speed = 3.409 ghz (8 logical threads)
x86PType = Standard OEM
x86Flags = bfebfbff 1f9ae3bf
x86EFlags = 28100000

x86 Features Detected:
MMX.. SSE.. SSE2.. SSE3.. SSSE3.. SSE4.1.. SSE4.2.. AVX

Reserving memory for recompilers...

I was trying to use the hardware plugin in this case.

Loading plugins...
Binding GS: C:\Program Files (x86)\PCSX2 1.0.0\Plugins\gsdx32-sse4-r5350.dll
Windows 6.1.7601 (Service Pack 1 1.0)
AMD Radeon HD 6900 Series (8.17.10.1151)
Binding PAD: C:\Program Files (x86)\PCSX2 1.0.0\Plugins\lilypad-r5350.dll
Binding SPU2: C:\Program Files (x86)\PCSX2 1.0.0\Plugins\spu2-x-r5350.dll
Binding CDVD: C:\Program Files (x86)\PCSX2 1.0.0\Plugins\cdvdGigaherz.dll
Binding USB: C:\Program Files (x86)\PCSX2 1.0.0\Plugins\USBnull.dll
Binding FW: C:\Program Files (x86)\PCSX2 1.0.0\Plugins\FWnull.dll
Binding DEV9: C:\Program Files (x86)\PCSX2 1.0.0\Plugins\DEV9null.dll

If any other information needs to be provided please let me know and I'll supply it asap.

[miseru99]

HD6900 has problems with all of those games?

I heard in the past that Armored Core is very heavy in hardware mode especially with many opponents visible, soo not sure if any gpu can handle it especially with upscalling;p.
As for other two, dunno madden at all, but BT3 should easily run on your gpu with pretty decent upscaling and that's probably even at 2player mode(it's twice as heavy as single).@_@

And here's the question how high you set your internal res in GSdx config? Couse you know(or not?)... there is no gpu that will run all ps2 games even at x6 res and thanks to custom res I guess you could set it even higher. If you did set it high, just try decreasing untill you find the res that works for you.

Also you could try "allow 8 bit textures" in gsdx config, my radeon usually get's better results with it. It's not an option to "set and forget" through and you should pretty much test it against all your gpu bottlenecked games couse it basically swaps different limitations and give different effects on different hardware/games etc.
Also make note that opposite to some PC games, in pcsx2 DX11 90% of the time works much faster and better than DX9;3, just mentioning in case you set it to dx9 for "best speed";p which would result in totally opposite thing;].

[Ramah]

Wow, setting it to allow 8-bit textures made a huge difference. I wasn't expecting that setting to make much of a difference at all. Games are playable now! I had told the plugin to do native resolution. In the gs window settings I had told it 1024x768 and also 640x480. It is playable but there's lots of fps ups and downs with the hardware mode even with lower settings. My real hope was that I'd be able push the graphics a bit farther with my video card but it seems that software mode is going to be the way to go for me for the time being as it's nearly flawless. It's amazing how much progress they've made with pcsx2 over the years.

I appreciate your help

[miseru99]

To improve graphics you can do few things:
- Most obvious for 3D graphics set internal res in GSdx config.
- Also turning on texture filtering which you probably turned off earlier trying to seek speed(it's not heavy at all for modern gpu's;p).
- Use a shader - you can turn on default FXAA by pressing PgUp or check this thread for some external HLSL shaders created/ported to GSdx or even write your own if you like such stuff. Also gsdx has some others built in shaders, like one called "shadeboost" which you can use to change some simple stuff around colors, or other semi hidden, unnamed one under F7 key if you like silly effects like that.

If you have problems with using higher internal res in more games like you might check if your gpu is not sitting there in power saving mode, there was such problems with radeon drivers in the past, AMD just tries too hard to keep our power usage low at times;p. Also turning off other stuff which might share gpu resources could help, stupid things like too many tabs in web browser is enough to drop fps quite a bit;3.
But yeah software mode isn't so limited and does in fact look better in many games as long as you don't mind the res(and have powerful enough cpu ~ which you do;3).

[Ramah]

Thanks for the great tips I'm doing a re-install of my OS this weekend and I'll have a clean slate to start from

[DaTankAC]

As an Armored Core fan, I will make a side note here regarding GPUs. AC2 and AC2 Another Age run fine. AC3 and Silent Line will have GPU strain in the black background Arena and the forest areas. Some missions in Nexus will have GPU problems, such as the mission where you work for Kisaragi to destroy the power plant (where you fight AC Sad Smile). For some reason the all the power plant missons are very difficult in GPU performance. Best to not go above x2 res there. Water missions in Nexus may have a black stripes effect. I just swith to SW mode for those missions.

I haven't got to playing Nine Breaker or Last Raven yet on pcsx2. I will get to it soon.