Would quad-core support be useless?

[Chris8282]

Yes, quad-core would help if they had the time to rewrite it, because there are probably at least 4 separate "chips" to emulate.

No. There's not.

Anyone who isn't a PCSX2 coder please stop responding. I don't care what you have to say.

[yeyoo]

Sorry if i angered you but if the devs had any doughts that it would be helpful to the program they would have done a quad core ver so the people who have quad cores benefit from thd extra cores this is my thought dont know what they have to say for them selvs they know much better than do i btw im egyptian thats why im not that good in english sorry for my bad english and sorry again if i angered you

[arcX]

Well, i think this is a valid question. And also very hypothetical.
BTW, yeyoo, the emu has existed since long before dual-core tech even existed, so, don't put it like that. pcsx2 has been in development for more than 6 years. you just can't change 4 years of programming just because it would probably be *slightly* faster...
chris, you'll have to wait for a dev to answer... but, i don't see a way of knowing that without testing...

[Prodigion]

Yes, quad-core would help if they had the time to rewrite it, because there are probably at least 4 separate "chips" to emulate.

No. There's not.

Anyone who isn't a PCSX2 coder please stop responding. I don't care what you have to say.

Watch your ego and see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Playstation...ifications

[Sythedragon]

As far as I can see, it'd be very helpful, as it'll add an extra 50% of power.. So how wouldn't utilizing it be helpful?

Does PCSX2 utilize my two 4870's? If it did, that'd also increase the performance, but that's more down to GDSX, (Gabest), who doesn't have an ATI card, and if I had the money, I'd donate a 4870.

[Chris8282]

Thank you for proof that you were wrong, Prodigion. The PS2 does not have four "chips" to emulate. It's a one core CPU.

---

As far as I can see, it'd be very helpful, as it'll add an extra 50% of power.. So how wouldn't utilizing it be helpful?

Does PCSX2 utilize my two 4870's? If it did, that'd also increase the performance, but that's more down to GDSX, (Gabest), who doesn't have an ATI card, and if I had the money, I'd donate a 4870.

Just because it's using more cores doesn't mean it's using all of the power of those cores. It could be using four cores but still the same performance. It's all in how the threads can be split up. For example, PCSX2 does not use all of the two cores from what I hear. Two threads does not mean maximum use of two cores. Likewise, four threads doesn't mean you'll magically have those threads use the entire CPU. Things like PCSX2 are very thread dependent and speculation doesn't matter. I want a coder to respond; not these technological newbies with attitude problems.

Also, I believe SLI for PCSX2 is something that nVidia themselves has to incorporate in the plug-in's current state. Either way, in PCSX2 you will almost always be more limited by the CPU than the GPU. So, it probably wouldn't help all that much even if it used SLI.

And, for ****sake, all the technological newbies please stop posting. Your input doesn't mean anything and only causes more confusion than help.

[Prodigion]

Thank you for proof that you were wrong, Prodigion. The PS2 does not have four "chips" to emulate. It's a one core CPU.

---

As far as I can see, it'd be very helpful, as it'll add an extra 50% of power.. So how wouldn't utilizing it be helpful?

Does PCSX2 utilize my two 4870's? If it did, that'd also increase the performance, but that's more down to GDSX, (Gabest), who doesn't have an ATI card, and if I had the money, I'd donate a 4870.

Just because it's using more cores doesn't mean it's using all of the power of those cores. It could be using four cores but still the same performance. It's all in how the threads can be split up. For example, PCSX2 does not use all of the two cores that it uses. Two threads does not mean maximum use of two cores. Likewise, four threads doesn't mean you'll magically have those threads use the entire CPU. Also, I believe SLI for PCSX2 is something that nVidia themselves has to incorporate in the plug-in's current state.

And, for ****sake, all the technological newbies please stop posting. Your input doesn't mean anything and only causes more confusion than help.

By the way, in PCSX2 you will almost always be more limited by the CPU than the GPU. So, it probably wouldn't help all that much even if it used SLI.

You wanted a quick answer, I gave you a quick answer. Maybe you should also read that page. Let me help:
* CPU: "Emotion Engine"
* Graphics processing unit (GS)
* Audio
* I/O Processor

And what makes you such an expert on this stuff that you can judge us?

[Air]

That's not an accurate list of the viable threadable parallel processing units anyway. The I/O processor's viability as a threaded item is yet to be determined, but the VU0 and VU1 are entirely and completely threadable (not listed).

Next:

Thank you for proof that you were wrong, Prodigion. The PS2 does not have four "chips" to emulate. It's a one core CPU.

... and a GS, and an I/O processor based on an R3000A (same "core" CPU as the PSX/PS1), and two Vector Units: VU0 and VU1 (each which is half the clock speed of the EE, and perform 2xSIMD instructions in parallel, making them each fairly robust little buggers). But I'll agree, the link sucks.

And to answer the original question:

The Dolphin developers said it would be useless for their emulator. As in, even if it was implemented perfectly it wouldn't give a significant speed boost. Is this the same case with PCSX2? I ask because if that's true then that should be in the FAQ. I think it would cut down on the daily quad core topics...

It's not true, and so it shouldn't be in the FAQ. And so in a sense, the FAQ does answer your question by not saying that Quad Core tech is not applicable. It states that for 3+ cores to be utilized the emulator needs significant rewrites, and we are (as I type this) engaging in such rewrites. MicroVU and R3000air work is a lot to do with producing thread-safe versions of the various recompilers for the various CPUs under the hood of your PS2. When they're done and working, we'll begin the process of expanding Pcsx2 into the realm of more-than-2-cores.

(this should, by the way, also improve the efficiency of the emu on dual core CPUs, since there should be less idle time than under the current system).

[Chris8282]

YES! THANK YOU!

Finaly, someone who knows what they're talking about.

I was soooooooo tired of talking to these people that didn't understand my question or kept pretending like they knew what they were talking about.

-- Once you get these rewrites going, are you going to make the program multithreaded in a sense that it can potentially use more than four threads easier? So, in a sense, are you setting it up so that you can make it use more threads easier in the future? Would that even be necessary? I ask because an i7 has eight threads and I would imagine that eight threads on an i7 would be overkill for PS2 emulation.

[Air]

Overkill.

There are basically four truly viable threads in Pcsx2's core emulation (GS software rasterizer excluded): EmotionEngine, VU1, VU0, and GS core. The IOP may also be threaded, but I'm not sure yet if it'll be much of a performance gainer. If so that'd max it out at five.

However some of those threads are still synchronized with the actions of others. For example the EE core is still the director of the orchestra, and if the EE's tied up with some hard work it can't tell the VUs and GS their next tasks. During such time those threads will idle. And most games don't use the VU0 as a parallel processor much at all, so it'd only be like a little sliver of CPU time. But what having an i7 will do for you is improve task switching and thread sync overhead, so that the 3-5 active threads will still be able to "play nicer" than they would on a cpu with fewer threads/cores. So the emu would still benefit in a small way (very small).