Two strange Issues.

[Squall Leonhart]

As for the GPU it ain't "stock", it even runs Crysis 2 with very little slowdowns. My point was, in MGS2 in those specific Areas are abnormally slow. And as for MGS3 The "Green effect", was indeed abnormal and with it came crazy slow downs, from 30-60 FPS to about 3-6FPS. As for my CPU, it may be a bit old, but like my GPU, it runs Crysis 2 at High Detail with very little issues. If my GPU is somehow the Problem, it would surprise the heck of me, as I haven't had many problems with it. Crysis 2 at High Detail on v1.08 of Crysis 2, Ran almost flawlessly. I would agree that an Nvidia 'stock' 8400GS is very weak, but this is not the case with BFG GeForce 8400 GS, they have performed vast upgrades to the card. Sure, it still can't use PhysX too well or CUDA at extreme levels like a stock GeForce 9000 Series card. But it does quite well I say.

My quote 'Custom Res' is always 'Native'. Which should insure no problems from that at least. I have tried all I know in terms of emulation settings to fix these two issues, short of tweaking the INI's. I am currently using PCSX2 r4919 straight from the orphis.net build bot, which is as I understand very official SVN's. I shall post a screen shot of an area in MGS3 where the "Green Effect" Happened, very soon.

As for MGS2 the frame rate was actually really good till I hit certain parts of Deck B on the Tanker, even the Olga Fight played fine. The worse part was after the Photo Upload, the FMV turned the FPS to 0.19 to 0.04.. when it was at 35-60 FPS beforehand.

On MGS3 the Framerate was rather constant at 35 or higher to a max of 60 FPS sometimes to a minimum of around 34 FPS, if my memory serves well. The FPS on MGS3 only dropped Critically during the Referenced 'Green Effect' which only happens with either the Thermal Goggles, or Night Vision Goggles. And Turning the Items off resumes the normal frame Rate.

come back when you learn to stop comparing crappy Console ports to console emulation!

[chaosjr7]

I only mentioned, Crysis 2, because you like many, think my GPU is crap.

Crysis 2 has, GeForce 8800 Series 'Stock card' requirements, so many people naturally thought it would not run, well it ran fine...

But, there is still issues to be dealt with here. Please forget about the mention of Crysis 2, except for the above.

Besides, I already know the difference anyway. I only wished to show my GPU was alittle more powerful than it seemed.

My Problem is with MGS 2 and MGS 3, so Please help me find the cause.

[refraction]

for emulation your gpu is crap. It might run crysis, but pc gaming is a completely different ball game to emulation.

for emulation you need fast video memory (ddr2 doesnt cut it) and a pretty fast gpu core, meaning youd need an 8600 or so at least to get reasonable speeds.

Topping it off, the AMD processors are not the best for PCSX2 and cannot take advange of the SSSE3 and SSE4 instructions we've used to optimize things (AMD's SSE3 and SSE4a blow chunks).

Mix that with a demanding game such as MGS and youve got yourself a poop pie right there.

If you came back with an i5 @ 3.4 Ghz and a GTX 240 or 260 graphics card, our opinions might be otherwise. but for now, best you can do is fiddle with speedhacks and keep your gsdx settings as low as you can.

[chaosjr7]

Explain these readings then!

MGS2 Report by GPU-Z Normal somewhat slow but not worst areas.

Hardware Mode. FPS is at 6-10 FPS. EE at Around 24%. GS at Around 30 to 50 Percent. 69MB to 90MB of 512MB Memory Used
A Surprising 92% Gpu Load
A Surprising 73% Memory Controller Load
51 C. Temperture

Software Mode. Around 10-12 FPS. EE at around 29-32Percent and GS at 95-99Percent. 88MB of 512MB Memory Used, 89% GPU load, Memory Controller Load 69%

Normal Gameplay Areas
Hardware mode. FPS around 45 to 50 FPS, EE at 68 to 74ish Percent GS 87 to 100 Percent. Memory Used 62MB of 512MB, GPU Load 50 to 56 Percent, Memory Controller Load 22 Percent.

Software Mode. 24Ish FPS EE at 34 to 40 Percent, GS around 95Percent.
Memory Used 62MB of 512MB, Gpu Load at 56 Percent, Memory Controller Load at 22%.

Codec Screen
Hardware Mode. FPS at 58 to 60FPS, EE from 28 to 38 Percent, GS at 77 to 90 Percent. 46 of 512MB Used Memory, GPULoad 17Percent, Memory Controller Load 16Percent

Software Mode. Fps Near 60, EE around 34Percent, GS 68 to 80ish Percent. 46MB of 512MB Used Memory, 14% Gpu Load, 13% Memory Controller Load.

Worst Areas of slowdown

Hardware Mode
0.10FPS - 0.14FPS, and EE at 2-3 Percent GS at 0-4Percent
Memory Used 86 to 88 MB Memory Used, GPU Load 96 to 100 Percent , Memory Controller Load at 74 to 88 Percent.

Software mode.
EE at 34ish Percent, GS at 96ish Percent, FPS at 6 to 14ish Percent.
46 MB of 512MB Used memory, 3% Gpu Load and 6% Memory Controller Load

How Can this be? On top of that, if software mode does better than hardware mode, something must be wrong. As for me, software mode is normally around half speed of hardware mode and in the slower and slowest areas, it is better than hardware mode.

Another thing, "Final Fantasy 12" Runs flawlessly, "MGS3" Did all the way though except for the Issue with Thermal Goggles and Night Vision Goggles. Even my little Brother had similiar slowdowns, and He has a AMD Quad Core Phenom II X4 945 3.01Ghz per core, Windows 7 and 4GB of Ram, A Galaxy GeForce GT 440 with 1GB of Video RAM, and yes the slowdowns were definitely there though less nasty.
So Please, continue looking for a solution.

[refraction]

That GPU load is huge, put driver overheads on top of that and youve got a fair amount of strain on your system, plus your cpu will be struggling to do the graphics side of it leaving little resources for the actual emulation.

MGS2 is really a gpu intensive game and it's painful on the gs plugin. You could try playing with the skipdraw settings to see if there's a post processing effect causing most of the slowdown.

[chaosjr7]

Did you also notice the GPU Load was a ton smaller in normal gameplay areas.. oh and I also happen to be downloading files and doing a few other things while taking this data.
By the way, what happens to be the proper range for the skip draw hack found in the INI's. Something like 0-4, Maybe?!

Another thing, the Current value was 0, while I was taking this data.

I'll try to modify the Skip Draw hack and see what happens. I tried the Skip Draw hack at values 1,2,3. The Skip Draw Hack didn't appear to change much at least in the areas with the Problems.

Perhaps, I should also mention that In normal areas on MGS2 and MGS3, Speed Hacks Do work,
they simply don't work in the Problem areas, or as least not noticeably, enough for proper gameplay.

[Bositman]

The green screen areas is a known GSdx bug and there is no 'solution'. Software mode with a heavily overclocked quad core (like mine, i5 @ 4,3 Ghz) along with setting GSdx to 3 render threads should get full speed, but the power needed is very far away from your current setup I'm afraid. Your brother could test 3 render threads with his quad core processor see if it helps (it should).
FFXII is one of the easiest games to emulate, while MGS2 and 3 are from the hardest so comparing the 2 isn't telling you much.

[tuanming]

The solution? Upgrade your pc to a Core i7 system and it pair with a GTX 560 Ti!

[chaosjr7]

Yeah, it figures, but the things I don't understand are why in normal gameplay areas I can get approx. 46 to 52FPS with speed hacks, in both, MGS2 and MGS3, yet in other problem areas, the FPS goes way down to the basement so to speak. In MGS3 as you know, the problems occurred only with the Thermal Goggles or Night Vision Equipped, In MGS2, In some areas I'm reading the above excellent frame rate with speedhacks, in others I see huge drops to single digit FPS. And in MGS2 Most of the Tanker level is just fine, but for a few trouble spots, where the frame rate goes down to single digit FPS, or in the case of the FMV I named almost to zero in hardware mode without speed hacks of course. the other FMV's seem to work well so far even when I skipped the troubled FMV and continued to the next cutscenes it ran fine there and even decently after that for the Plant's first level and after I hit the top of the elevator area and started after a codec call, I found yet another FPS drop to single digits.

I do wonder, what's causing the instant drops in frame rate, and it does seem like an Emu or Plugin or?'Disc'?! Issue, as my brother has reported similar slowdowns even on his system. And if it was merely a system Power Level issue, I believe most of the localized slowdowns, would be everywhere, instead of just certain select areas. Anyway, I hope someone eventually finds out the root cause for these two issues, well Good Luck.

[refraction]

the massive drop is caused by gsdx having to try and process the post processing effects of the goggles/night vision, apparently they used some tricks which the plugin and your gpu dont like so much ;p

of course remembering, MGS was never designed to work on a PC, so its understandable it might not be very compatible at times.