Pentium D .9.6 Tweaks & .9.7 troubleshooting [SOLVED]
#1
Hey guys,

*EDIT*
For those of you with a Pentium D processor and are wanting to use PCSX2, you may find this thread useful. If you want my suggestion, go get a PS2 from Vintage Stock for $50-80. They also have games for $5-20 each and that's a cheaper way to go instead of upgrading a Pent D to a quad core and new graphics. ($800 at the least)
*/EDIT*

My machine specs should be in my signature for reference on this post. Yes, I KNOW it's not the ideal setup for emulators and is limited to SSE2, but I would like to get a little help if possible.

The only reason I have a PS2 is for Final Fantasy games. In the past they never ran on my computer, but I recently updated my video and ram and thought I'd see if FFX would run. And it ran like before in 0.9.6. CRAP! Then I saw that 0.9.7 came out and tried that. For whatever reason the Gsdx sse2 plugin, even after updating DirectX with the June '10 runtime update, said that my hardware/software wasn't compatible. It wouldn't run. So I was limited to ZeroGS. That was crap. Barely anything was rendered on screen. Stuff missing, skipping frames, slow response, etc.

Not only that but for whatever reason I didn't have an option in 0.9.7 to enable multi-threading in the GS section of the emulator setup. Any thoughts why? I love the new setup and it runs so much smoother than 0.9.6 but it doesn't like my graphics card.

After playing around with the setting in 0.9.6 I can now play FFX at a reasonable frame rate. We're talking 45-55 fps non-battleground, 28-35 fps in battles, and those fun movies run around 188 fps. I have the CPU set to not skip frames and just render every frame as fast as possible. If I set it to skip, the emu crashes or you get objects/characters flickering. I have the graphics in native and windowed. Then I also slapped on a 2xs Speed Hack. That's what ended up doing the trick!

Even though I have the multi-thread option checked in the CPU setup, the emulator will usually use around 50-60% of my CPU. Grant it my GPU is more adept at making the calculations, but I could probably get another 5-6 fps if it used 80-90% of the CPU. Sometimes (without the speed hack) it will use 13% of the CPU and be running at 18 fps! How can I get it to use more CPU? I'm not running anything else while I'm playing.

Also, strangely with my chipset, 0.9.6 is saying that it has a SSE3 feature, but of course that's not true. When I select the Gsdx SSE3 plugin of course it doesn't work. Why is 0.9.6 detecting SSE3 capabilities on a Pentium D chip?

Like I said earlier, I can now play it at a reasonable speed. It's not perfect, and I knew unless I plopped some money down for a Dual Core, or a nice AMD x4 board and chip it may not have worked. So I'm just excited that it does work! It's not 60 frames and it WOULD be nice to know if there were a few tweaks I could make in the emu to make it a touch faster.

Thanks everyone!
Pentium D 4.6 Ghz
1.2 Gig DDR2 RAM
Radeon HD 5670 1G GDDR5 RAM
Win XP Pro
PCXS2 0.9.6

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#2
leave 0.9.6 and start playing around with 0.9.7 is faster by allot from 0.9.6.

as for the gsdx problem you have you should also install latest chipset/gpu drivers and latest windows updates and service packs.

gsdx comes in sse2 ssse3 sse4.1 (yep the middle one has one more S) so your cpu cant use it cause it only supports sse3 (its 1 S less)

when you get around making 0.9.7 to work post all your settings to help you with speed or something like that

edit: multithread option is not needed in 0.9.7 cause its always ON now
OS: Win 7 Ultimate x64 sp1, MoBo: Asus P5QD Turbo, CPU: Q6600 @ 3,0Ghz, RAM: Trancend 2x2gb 6-6-6-18 800 MHz, GPU: HD 4850 1gb.
Pcsx2: Always Latest
#3
Well, I did a little fiddling around with 0.9.7 since you said it was much faster. I just . . . I don't. . . HOLY CRAP! There's a HUGE difference in performance between the two versions. Grant it I'm only playing FFX, but there are a lot of spots that I get 60 fps at a high resolution.

Attached are all my settings. The the SSE2 plugin was originally set to Native resolution. I was getting varied frame rates, but the resolution @ 1024x816 window size was grainy. So I added first blend interlacing and that helped. Then I realized there wasn't enough information, and that's why it was grainy. So I changed the internal resolution to 1024x816. BAM! 60 fps. I was so happy... and then I got into a battle and it dropped to 28 fps. lol There were certain battles that would actually run at 58 fps so, it's possible for FFX, but not all the time. My guess is that I could probably bring the frame rate limit to around 40, but I have it set now at 35 and it's fine.

So I changed the frame limited to 30, and it smoothed out even more. With the frame limit at 60 the frame rate would jump all over the place, 39, 45, 17, 53. So, by slapping on a frame limit it really helped out a lot. The EE (I don't know what that is) was running closer to 30-50% when I did that instead of 100% most of the time. That also helped out my audio problem because then the plugin wasn't trying to stretch it out. Before I also had mistimed audio a lot more too.

There's a few spots where it gets a little slower. ie. crowds of people on screen, particles gallor. But in general, 0.9.7 works just fine with a Pentium D processor with DX9. But, you'll have to get a $150-200 graphics card. lol

Once I dropped the frame rate I was also able to turn back on audio effects.

Overall CPU usage varies from 60-70%. I had it hit 98% at one point, but that was before I changed the internal res. That alone cleared up a lot of issues. Who would think INCREASING resolution would help? That usually taxes emulators more.

I'm not sure how these settings would work with Tekken, but em... he he.

Thanks for the suggestion. Let me know what you guys think.


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Pentium D 4.6 Ghz
1.2 Gig DDR2 RAM
Radeon HD 5670 1G GDDR5 RAM
Win XP Pro
PCXS2 0.9.6
#4
Well, it turns out that not everything was perfect. In 0.9.6 I could limit the frame rate to 30 fps and the MFVs would play just fine. I found somewhere someone said that's because the MFVs are 30fps and the game itself is rendered at 60fps. But for whatever reason the configuration I'm using in 0.9.7 doesn't care. So when I have my frame limiter at 30, I get very choppy audio in MFVs.

So I played around a little more. I'll post screen shots of the configs later, but I brought the limit back up to 60 fps. I turned on ALL speedhacks (which gives me a few ghosts). I also turned on constant frameskip to a 1:4 ratio. Render 1, skip 4. This gave me a pretty big speed boost too and there was very little quality drop.

I then switch from DirectSound to the recommended audio setting, dropped sound effect processing, and dropped the blending time on the crossfade(?) under the Advanced tab for time stretching.

By doing this I was able to walk around a forested area at 47-53 fps, go through a couple battles without losing too much. I may still go back to the 30 fps if someone has a better solution for this one. It plays smoother, but a lot of PS2 games integrate those FMVs so I kinda want to fix dis.

Thanks.
Pentium D 4.6 Ghz
1.2 Gig DDR2 RAM
Radeon HD 5670 1G GDDR5 RAM
Win XP Pro
PCXS2 0.9.6
#5
(07-03-2010, 02:14 PM)ssyoda Wrote: Well, it turns out that not everything was perfect. In 0.9.6 I could limit the frame rate to 30 fps and the MFVs would play just fine. I found somewhere someone said that's because the MFVs are 30fps and the game itself is rendered at 60fps. But for whatever reason the configuration I'm using in 0.9.7 doesn't care. So when I have my frame limiter at 30, I get very choppy audio in MFVs.

So I played around a little more. I'll post screen shots of the configs later, but I brought the limit back up to 60 fps. I turned on ALL speedhacks (which gives me a few ghosts). I also turned on constant frameskip to a 1:4 ratio. Render 1, skip 4. This gave me a pretty big speed boost too and there was very little quality drop.

I then switch from DirectSound to the recommended audio setting, dropped sound effect processing, and dropped the blending time on the crossfade(?) under the Advanced tab for time stretching.

By doing this I was able to walk around a forested area at 47-53 fps, go through a couple battles without losing too much. I may still go back to the 30 fps if someone has a better solution for this one. It plays smoother, but a lot of PS2 games integrate those FMVs so I kinda want to fix dis.

Thanks.
You should not change the frame limiter values, unlike PC where the sync is related to real time, PS2 is directed to TV standards so anything different from 60Hz for NTSC or 50 for PAL is slowmotion or too quick.

You didn't tell the specs so we can't have a parameter for comparison so to say you are already beyond limit or could get more.

Speed in PCSX2 is always dependent on the CPU, of course a good video card will release it from most work it would do otherwise but some work will always be on the CPU in terms of graphic, be it in the EE or the GS itself (although the last will use the most the GPU resources).

So, as a rule of thumb, begin removing all speed hacks and trying first the native resolution. It will give you indeed the granulated image but it's the start point.

Now you sould begin playing with the speed hacks. in your case you should leave the INTC always on. Actually all "recommended" hacks should be ticked initially although the two related to the VU not always gives enhancement for all games.

The two sliders are the sensible point. EE cyclerate above 1 will give chopped sound mainly at the cutscenes, you should avoid getting it above 1.

The VU cycle stealing is where you get the greater boost for this game for it really reduces de load on the CPU, still if it goes above the second notch (or even at 2 for some games) you may get false FPS lectures* and the game will lag and in some games it will totally desync the sound. I would give EE cyclerate = 1 and VU cycle stealing = 2 a try.

Because of that you may want to sacrifice some visual eye candy in exchange for performance and be less prone to game breakdown sometime in the future.

* - actually correct FPS lectures but the motion will not follow it's increase.
Imagination is where we are truly real
#6
(07-03-2010, 03:21 PM)nosisab Ken Keleh Wrote: You should not change the frame limiter values, unlike PC where the sync is related to real time, PS2 is directed to TV standards so anything different from 60Hz for NTSC or 50 for PAL is slowmotion or too quick.
Yeah, I really started to notice that. For over an hour I was thinking, you know, I know he's running, but I do not like the animation loop! I dropped it to 30 to keep the EmotionEngine under that 90% mark. But that of course made my character move in slowmo all the time. Smile A bit annoying, especially if you're an animator like me.

(07-03-2010, 03:21 PM)nosisab Ken Keleh Wrote: You didn't tell the specs so we can't have a parameter for comparison so to say you are already beyond limit or could get more.

Yes, and I apologize for not updating the new numbers. The new ones are attached to this post.

(07-03-2010, 03:21 PM)nosisab Ken Keleh Wrote: Speed in PCSX2 is always dependent on the CPU, of course a good video card will release it from most work it would do otherwise but some work will always be on the CPU in terms of graphic, be it in the EE or the GS itself (although the last will use the most the GPU resources).

I think that's why I am now able to do this now. I had an old Radeon X1600. Rather decent for most games (only DX9 though). I actually almost went for the big mother $225 card, but it wouldn't fit on my mobo. Sad


(07-03-2010, 03:21 PM)nosisab Ken Keleh Wrote: So, as a rule of thumb, begin removing all speed hacks and trying first the native resolution. It will give you indeed the granulated image but it's the start point.

I did as you suggested while the game was running. I don't remember being able to do that in Ver 0.9.6. This saved me a LOT of testing time when I realized I didn't have to restart every time. I found that the output would be between 20-30 fps during battles, 18-23 in heavy poly areas, and 30-45 in low detail areas. Of course menus got 60. Tongue I also had some ghosting issues. Object further in the background looked "doubled." Almost like burring has been put on. See    

I then jacked D3D enhancement to 3xs and added blending Interlacing. That took care of a lot of the ghosting issue and brought the frame rate up about 10 frames on average.
   

(07-03-2010, 03:21 PM)nosisab Ken Keleh Wrote: Now you should begin playing with the speed hacks. in your case you should leave the INTC always on. Actually all "recommended" hacks should be ticked initially although the two related to the VU not always gives enhancement for all games.

I started with just the recommended hacks and there was a bigger increase. It was hard to see at first, then I did a hard reboot on the bios. The frame rate jumped to, on average, 45 fps. Big improvement, but not 60.

(07-03-2010, 03:21 PM)nosisab Ken Keleh Wrote: I would give EE cyclerate = 1 and VU cycle stealing = 2 a try.

I hadn't noticed this part in the post originally, so I just jacked everything sky high and had pretty nasty results. By the time I noticed this part I had already brought EE=2 and VU=3.

   

I get 58 fps on average for FMV playback with no noise distortion. Of course lower detail areas get 60 fps, medium detail around 57, high detail varies from 40-55. The only time I have it drop below there for FFX is during high detail battles which will run close to 38-44. I can't go full screen with these setting, but that's okay.

   
   

I'm thinking of making an ISO of the game DVD. I had gotten FFOhmyrigins on ISO from "somewhere" with the PS1 emu and that ran pretty quick. I have Nero, I'm assuming it's coded ISO 9660, or is it something special like with PS1 CDs. Those ones had some odd standard.

I also attached a screenshot where you'll notice the ghosting I was talking about. You'll see it to the left of almost each object in the shot. Any thoughts what causes this?

I'm curious if anyone thinks, with my system rig's specs, would I benefit at all from upgrading to Win 7 to take advantage of DX11?

Thanks for all the help. Game looks great, and I just got a $20 PS3 replacement controller that works great with lilypad. Took a while to get Windows to recognize it though. Ya, for analog joysticks!


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Pentium D 4.6 Ghz
1.2 Gig DDR2 RAM
Radeon HD 5670 1G GDDR5 RAM
Win XP Pro
PCXS2 0.9.6
#7
Well, since my Pentium D couldn't push through 60 fps constantly, I took back the graphics card ($150) and bought a PS2 Slim for $80. lol Why I didn't do that in the FIRST place is beyond me.
Pentium D 4.6 Ghz
1.2 Gig DDR2 RAM
Radeon HD 5670 1G GDDR5 RAM
Win XP Pro
PCXS2 0.9.6
#8
Sigh, you should have a PS2 to use PCSX2 legally anyway. Recommending to buy one is not helpful.
Core i5 3570k -- Geforce GTX 670  --  Windows 7 x64




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