New cpu, slightly better gameplay

[addendum]

Previous: AMD Athlon 64X2 Dual Core processor 4200+ 2.2GHz
Now: AMD Athlon 64X2 Dual Core Processor 5400+ 2.8GHz

Vid card is 8400gs
2gig ram

What's the problem? Do I need a better video card or was the processor a minor upgrade?

[GoldenX]

The cpu sure give you some speed, but that vga is causing a big bottleneck, depending of the game.
Sorry for my english.

[addendum]

So I need a better graphics card then or what exactly do I need to do? Btw, your english is fine

[pcsx2fan]

The minimal requirement for GPU is 8600GT or better. Update your GPU to that grade.

Go check Recommended System Requirements at pcsx2 on Google code before upgrading your PC.

[Shadow Lady]

Try using the "native" checkbox in GSdx and see if it improves speed at all, the upgrade should help in CPU limited games however if the game you're using is more GPU limited and taking in count your graphics card is not that good you gotta try other stuff. What game was this in anyway?

Try getting the latest PCSX2 plublic beta and enable speedhacks from the "Config > Speed Hacks" menu specially "Vu cucle stealing" set to slight/moderate and "x2 cycle rate", also try using 512x512 as D3D internal resolution in GSdx or ticking the "native" checkbox.

Do you have windows vista/7? if so make sure you use DX10 (hardware) as renderer in GSdx as well.

[nataq01]

dont listen to those people, they are intel users and they dont know anything about amd processors, even if you will buy new graphics card you will still have low fps, i had AMD Athlon 64X2 Dual Core Processor 5400+ 3.0GHz and radeon hd4850 and still everything was slow and unplayable, what you need is a fast processor, athlon's 64 are damn slow, ive bought amd phenom II x2 550 and overclocked it to 3.4ghz and finaly i can play SOME games ( like ffx or budokai 3 ) at full speed. Buy new good CPU

[Sythedragon]

dont listen to those people, they are intel users and they dont know anything about amd processors, even if you will buy new graphics card you will still have low fps, i had AMD Athlon 64X2 Dual Core Processor 5400+ 3.0GHz and radeon hd4850 and still everything was slow and unplayable, what you need is a fast processor, athlon's 64 are damn slow, ive bought amd phenom II x2 550 and overclocked it to 3.4ghz and finaly i can play SOME games ( like ffx or budokai 3 ) at full speed. Buy new good CPU

Ironically, seems you know nothing about AMD CPU's..

It's not exactly "slow".. It's just not as "powerful"....

Anyways, to the OP.

The Athlon X2's were a bad series, and thus aren't the best for emulation when compared to a traditional wolfdale.

[nataq01]

in this context, how is "slow" different from "not as powerfull" ?

[refraction]

Actually the X2's an Athlon 64's in their time were outstanding processors, nothing was better. However as stated these chips do not provide much advantage in terms of emulation. the Phenom II and Intel Core 2 series should provide good FPS in a majority of games. I fear nataq01 may be suffering from the infamous "ati bug" in gsdx which requires a newer revision as with that sort of setup, you should be exceeding the full FPS of ffx, not "just about"

[Sythedragon]

Actually the X2's an Athlon 64's in their time were outstanding processors, nothing was better. However as stated these chips do not provide much advantage in terms of emulation. the Phenom II and Intel Core 2 series should provide good FPS in a majority of games. I fear nataq01 may be suffering from the infamous "ati bug" in gsdx which requires a newer revision as with that sort of setup, you should be exceeding the full FPS of ffx, not "just about"

AMD's single core CPU's were generally far ahead of Intel, this was also true during Intel's Pentium D (dual core range).

However, Intel then began down the core 2 range (45NM) and the Athlon X2's (90nm) couldn't cope with them. This is obvious with the lack of any real overclocking potential, and the fact a 2.5GHZ Core 2 Duo (E5200) will out perform a 3GHZ dual core X2 (AMD X2 6000+)

And, to get back on topic, the ATI bug as far as I'm aware was sorted in an update, either from ATI's side in a new CCC or a Gabest update to his plugin.