Performance issues with DQ8

[nekroturkey]

CPU = E6850 @ 3.6GHz
GPU = 8800 GTS 512 OC'd to 750/1873/1020
OS = XP Pro SP3
PCSX2 version = rev 1888

I've been having some performance issues with this game once I got to the angry mob scenario in the first town area. At this part in the game, my FPS constantly shoots down to about ~47. I went ahead and included a screenshot of the area that I'm talking about.

I've tried like a million different combination of settings, and my FPS just doesn't improve. I've tried running the game at the native resolution, with and without speedhacks, and with a different combination of speedhacks. I've tried disabling/enabling 8-bit textures, vsync, and texture filtering. I've even tried lowering the internal resolution to 512x512, and I still can't get my FPS to go any higher.

Am I supposed to lag this bad during this part of the game or something? I've heard people have been able to run this game at, or near full speed with systems similar to my own, so it leads me to believe that it shouldn't be running as bad as it is.

[WarWeeny]

its your graphics card that holds you back
also dq8 is one of the most demanding games out there.
if you got stable speeds in the town before the angry mob senario then you only have slowdowns in the outside world (i think everyone has that problem :/)

if you want to have more stable speeds try frame skipping.
otherwise you have to live with it it isnt THAT low you cant play the game so yah

[nataq01]

also, be aware that in certain scenes later in game ( like retrospections of past ) get strange shader that slows down the game to less than 10fps and the only way to go past em without going nuts is changing to software mode.