Two strange Issues.

[chaosjr7]

Metal Gear Solid 2 Substance
Deck B Crew's Quarters Has "Huge" Frame Rate Troubles in most areas, where the FPS is around 3.38 to 3.54 and the EE is between 7-12 Percent, the GS is 33-58 Percent. Everywhere else, except for a small part of the intro has been near perfectly playable, and between 34 to 60 FPS, So far at least. and In the FMV right after the photo upload, was 0.04 FPS at it's slowest with EE at 3 to 4 Percent, the GS was between 3 to 6 Percent. Anybody know what's going on here? Speed Hacks weren't used or effective, I also tried Zero GS v0.97.1, and the FPS on MGS2 Substance improved to about 12 to 15 FPS, and it looked like the Textures were messed up, at least in Deck B Crew's Quarters area.

The Above Is with all default settings PCSX2 v0.9.9.4919 and GSDX9 SSE2 r4915, speed hacks didn't affect the issue either.

PC Specs to follow.
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 Duel Core 5800+ at 3.001 GHZ per core.

Video Card: BFG GeForce 8400 GS 512 MB of DDR2 Ram. With Gpu Clock at 567 Mhz, Memory Clock at 400 Mhz, Shader Clock at 1400 Mhz. Due to my Motherboard slot

not being PCIe v2.0 Spec, it runs in PCIe v1.1 Mode. It runs fine everywhere else, and pretty cool, at 53 C., which isn't that bad. Driver Version = 270.61

Nvidia Forceware.

Sound Chipset: Realtek HD Audio Driver Version = 5.10.0.6363.

System Ram: 2Gb of DDR2

Virtual Memory: 10280MB

Hard Drive: 1.0 TByte

OS: Windows XP Pro SP3

Metal Gear Solid 3 Subsistance
Also had a few FPS troubles when using Thermal Googles, the screen would go from relatively normal to greenish on a few areas... During this greenish colored time, the FPS would Drop to Single Digit FPS and the only way to resume normal FPS is to shut off the Thermal Googles, until in an area or subsection that it wasn't going Green, and messing up the FPS.. I don't know what causes the Green effect or the crazy FPS drop, but it's not an all the time thing.

The Above Is with all default settings PCSX2 v0.9.9.4919 and GSDX9 SSE2 r4915, speed hacks didn't affect the issue either.

[refraction]

can you get GPU-Z and monitor the gpu usage in there. i suspect it's going to be hitting 100%, either that or youll be running out of memory because you have your custom res on gsdx too high.

so if you have used a custom res, try ticking the "native" box

[Rezard]

... speed hacks didn't affect the issue either.

This helps confirm that your GPU is your biggest problem.
8400GS (DDR2) is a very weak graphics unit.
MGS games are more of a workload, or "heavier" in general.
Setting the res low like refraction suggested is about the best thing you could do, short of an upgrade.
Based on my experience with a much better GPU, I still believe you'll have serious slow-downs.

Your CPU is also fairly slow (due to it's age), but is undoubtably a better situation than your GPU. Although, even if your GPU was better, I'm pretty certain your CPU would still be falling short at times.

Basically, you shouldn't be surprised to see some serious slow-downs with heavier games on your current hardware.

[chaosjr7]

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.

[tuanming]

I had a 8600GT 512mb and i still think it's crap Your 8400GS is an "entry level" GPU, there's nothing special about it. Oh by the way, you can't compare native pc games to a backward engineered program

[chaosjr7]

Really, well explain this on MGS3. Because, if this isn't either the Emulator or Plugin at fault, well I would be at a lost to Explain this.

Image One: Color Malfunction/Huge Framerate Hit.
[attachment=30005]
Image Two: Normal Activity/Excellent Framerate.
[attachment=30006]

Please, Decompress with 7zip, and take a look.

About that "Nothing Special" Bit, BFG Added at Minimum 384 MB DDR 2 to Nvidia's "Stock" Card. Not to Mention Tweaked all 3 Clock Speeds.
Also, the only 'quote problem', I have had with my 8400GS Card, is the Slot Type on my Motherboard is less than 2.0 PCIe Spec, so it slows the card to PCIe v1.1 Spec. And that alone, I doubt would cause this.

[tuanming]

Try updating to the latest driver and Direct X 9.

[chaosjr7]

Normal Effect Areas GPU-Z Reported
58 MB Used Memory of 512 MB and
26%ish GPU Load and
24%ish Memory Controller Load and
about 49 C. Temperture

Green Effect Areas GPU-Z Reported

A Surprising 420 to 509 MB Used Memory of 512 MB
42%ish GPU Load and
23%ish Memory Controller Load and
49 C. Temperture.

Wierdly enough, but I moved forward for a while till I hit a wall and turn the Camera left by Approx. 45 Degrees and the Issue went back to normal but turning back it returned, and then I tried going right with the camera instead of Left.. And the Same occured. This issue, is very strange indeed.

Oh and I'll try the latest drivers very soon.

[Bositman]

The 'green effect' issue must be a GSdx hardware renderer bug, try pressing F9 while experiencing it to switch to software mode and see what kind of performance you get then.

[chaosjr7]

Green Effect Area In Software Mode Via 'F9' Gpu-Z Reported
35MB of 512 Used Memory and
Gpu Load 1% to 3% Approx. and
4 to 6 Percent Approx. Memory Controller Load
46 C. Temperture

Strange Indeed, Green Effect Areas were at 3-7 FPS and looked less glitchy,
Non Green Effect areas were near the same Looks, but were at 10 to 12 FPS.

Image Three: The Above in software mode Green Effect Area.
[attachment=30007]

Image Four: The Above in software mode Non-Green Effect Area.
[attachment=30008]

Oh and, EE Was Between 20 and 30 Percent in software mode and of course GS was 90 to 99 Percent or so. Without Thermal Goggles or Night Vision Goggles On, It was at Approx. 14Fps and EE at 28 - 34 Approx. and GS more or less the Same.

And in hardware mode EE was 92-98 Percent and GS 52-60 in a normal Area, in a green effect area is about, 92-98 Percent and GS Between 72ish to 84ish Percent, All without Thermal Goggles or Night Vision Equipped. With Either one equipped, EE at approx. 32 Percent and GS near 96 Percent in green effect area in normal area is EE at Approx. 96 Percent and GS at Approx. 48 Percent.

Graphics Drivers also were updated to 280.26 WHQL Nvidia Forceware Drivers. No Apparent effects, for Good or Ill.

Good Luck Solving this.