SotC 'feels' slow.

[Kaywalsk]

So I've done some looking around for settings and such, and I believe I've got everything set the way it should be, on top of that I have a very high-end PC so the game runs at 60FPS with all (or as many as I could get to work) of the bells and whistles.



My issue is that even though the game is running at 60FPS (monitored with Shadowplay, tested against the PCSX2 readout and it seems to be accurate) it 'feels' like it's running much slower, for example when spinning the camera around it's slightly 'jerky'.


I've recorded a small demonstration of the issue, take note of the background when the camera is spinning, specifically when it goes past the temple, there's some jerkiness that you would expect from something running at maybe 30FPS. (if the quality is not 1080, give it more time to process)





All my settings for PCSX2 can be found in this Imgur album: http://imgur.com/a/TnOPa



PC Specs:

CPU: Intel i7 4930K @ 4.2Ghz
GPU: Nvidia 780Ti
RAM: 16GB DDR3 1600



I guess my question would be: Is there anything I can do about this (admittedly small) problem? Or is this just the way the game is?



Thanks for any and all replies in advance!

[jesalvein]

launch it again on your real PS2 and you'll see no difference.

[Kaywalsk]

launch it again on your real PS2 and you'll see no difference.

I kind of thought this was the case, since I had no issues with the other games I've tried emulating, unfortunately my PS2 no longer reads discs (which is how/why I learned about PCSX2!)


So, I assume what you're saying is that there's nothing that can be done about it? (I'm very new to emulation, apologies if this all seems really stupid)

[Rassane]

There's nothing that can be done about it, yet. Sadly, an option to overclock the emulated EE is not high in the priority list, I believe.

[rama]

The game uses a dynamic frame rate system that measures the EE load and tries to target specific rates.
PCSX2 approximates the speed at which instructions finish as making it exact is not trivial. The emulated EE
is somewhere in the same ballpark of the real thing but it's not very exact.
In this game I believe we're pretty close though so yea, you get the original experience which is rather choppy.
(They blur the frames so it looks better but people have reported being unable to finish the game because of the slow frame rate.)

That said, Rassane mentioned the obvious fix: Making the virtual EE faster will make the game slot into a better target frame rate
more often, at the cost of much more host pc CPU power need. I don't think a CPU that can handle 30FPS at all time is available yet

[Kaywalsk]

Thanks everyone for the replies, the game is still very playable so I'll enjoy it for what it is!

[Nobbs66]

The game uses a dynamic frame rate system that measures the EE load and tries to target specific rates.
PCSX2 approximates the speed at which instructions finish as making it exact is not trivial. The emulated EE
is somewhere in the same ballpark of the real thing but it's not very exact.
In this game I believe we're pretty close though so yea, you get the original experience which is rather choppy.
(They blur the frames so it looks better but people have reported being unable to finish the game because of the slow frame rate.)

That said, Rassane mentioned the obvious fix: Making the virtual EE faster will make the game slot into a better target frame rate
more often, at the cost of much more host pc CPU power need. I don't think a CPU that can handle 30FPS at all time is available yet

Yeah, it really wouldn't be that hard to do and it would help with games like SotC, but with the tradeoff of higher requirements.

[Akio]

It could be an option. Even if it's not 30 FPS all the time, it is still better. Just out of curiosity, what frame rates does this game use other than 30 FPS?

[Thewonderboy]

It could be an option. Even if it's not 30 FPS all the time, it is still better. Just out of curiosity, what frame rates does this game use other than 30 FPS?

If I remember correctly the FPS can go as low as 15-20 FPS (based on some random youtube videos with framerate analysis).

Though I think you should reduce EE cyclerate hack to default (off ?) because it doesnt do any good in SotC (?)

VU cycle stealing either at 1 or 2 (test which one is smoother* for you, to me its better when set to 1)

Experiment with MTVu, some say it hinders the performance** but for some it actualy improves the performance**

*talking about the actual smoothness of the game, some settings make the game more choppy

**talking about the emulation consistency, not smoothnes.

I have I7 2600 at 3.4Ghz and for me the best settings are:

- EE Cyclerate hack at default/off
- VU Cycle steal at 1 (2 is a bit more choppy for me but 2 might work better for you)
- MTVu on.

[Kaywalsk]

If I remember correctly the FPS can go as low as 15-20 FPS (based on some random youtube videos with framerate analysis).

Though I think you should reduce EE cyclerate hack to default (off ?) because it doesnt do any good in SotC (?)

VU cycle stealing either at 1 or 2 (test which one is smoother* for you, to me its better when set to 1)

Experiment with MTVu, some say it hinders the performance** but for some it actualy improves the performance**

*talking about the actual smoothness of the game, some settings make the game more choppy

**talking about the emulation consistency, not smoothnes.

I have I7 2600 at 3.4Ghz and for me the best settings are:

- EE Cyclerate hack at default/off
- VU Cycle steal at 1 (2 is a bit more choppy for me but 2 might work better for you)
- MTVu on.

I was messing around with some of the speed hack settings (Cyclerate and MTVU) but I was getting very odd issues when doing so. The game would start to artifact, very quickly getting worse and worse until it crashed my video driver.


This could just be an issue with the video driver itself for all I know, but with the settings i have now it runs 100% stable, and stays at that 60FPS mark (at least according to the readout on the top of PCSX2)