Huge performance drops in Persona 3 FES

[JohnJon]

While trying to play P3FES I get consistent drops from 60 FPS down to about 40 FPS for a about a second every now and then, causing a huge stutter and the sound screws up as well. Apart from that, the game runs fine on almost any settings I try. I've tried every plugin and fiddled with settings for hours now but this problem keeps coming up sometimes when I think I've finally gotten rid of it. OpenGL seems to cause the least amount of this issue but it renders shadows completely wrong and textures often clip into other ones.

The only other game I've tried to run so far has been Katamari Damacy which works almost flawlessly.

I am running on a laptop, if that makes any difference.

Specs are:
Intel Core i7-3720QM 2.6 GHz
NVIDIA GTX680m
16GB RAM

[Nobbs66]

are you playing from a disc or iso
is your laptop plugged in and set to high performance
can you show us your settings

[JohnJon]

Laptop is both plugged in and set to high performance. Both games are played from an iso.

All of my emulation settings are on the defaults. Changing speedhacks doesn't get rid of the problem.

[jesalvein]

try monitoring your CPU temps using coretemp and report back

[JohnJon]

try monitoring your CPU temps using coretemp and report back

Just had a go, all 4 cores hang around 50-60 degrees celsius consistently.

However I noticed that during the performance drops the power reading would drop from ~18 watts to ~12 watts. Could that be what is causing it? It sounds plausible.

[karasuhebi]

Does the stuttering happen during scene changes?

[Blyss Sarania]

Just had a go, all 4 cores hang around 50-60 degrees celsius consistently.

However I noticed that during the performance drops the power reading would drop from ~18 watts to ~12 watts. Could that be what is causing it? It sounds plausible.

It's possible yes.

[JohnJon]

Does the stuttering happen during scene changes?

I noticed it happens more frequently as a new scene is beginning or when a character would transition from one pose to another or say some dialogue. Happens more frequently in busier scenes, but only for these sharp drops and then it plays fine until the next one. It is not always consistent but has a few trends like that.

[JohnJon]

It's possible yes.

Any advice on how to go about fixing that issue to see if it's the problem?

[Blyss Sarania]

I noticed it happens more frequently as a new scene is beginning or when a character would transition from one pose to another or say some dialogue. Happens more frequently in busier scenes, but only for these sharp drops and then it plays fine until the next one. It is not always consistent but has a few trends like that.

Well, the scene change stuff is normal. http://forums.pcsx2.net/Thread-FFX-minor...ne-changes

Any advice on how to go about fixing that issue to see if it's the problem?

Other than running plugged in, setting power plan to high(use Windows power plan, not some third party one), and keeping the heat down, no other ideas.