ZoE2 GPU bottleneck?

[Interocitor]

So a few days ago I downloaded PCSX2 after hearing that the ZoE HD release will not occur anytime soon.
But ZoE and ZoE2 run poorly on my PC. I thought that my CPU was too weak and moved on.

I have read in this thread that ZoE2 needs a very good GPU even at native resolution. I popped open GPU-Z and did some testing.

PCSX2 Version used: 0.9.8.r4600
VU and EE clamping mode: none
Renderer: Direct3D 10 (Hardware)
Speedhacks: see attachment
everything else: default

I loaned my HD4890 to someone who is doing some troubleshooting so at the moment all I have is a HD4850 512MB and a HD4830 512MB.
I'm using the HD4860 512MB. I didn't expect it to be a bottleneck for an emulator...

With native resolution I get 30-60fps. 60fps while piloting the POS frame at the beginning and 30-40fps while fighting raptors.
GPU load was at 70%-80% and VRAM usage was at 100%.

Next I enabled 8-bit textures to reduce VRAM usage.
~30fps while fighting raptors.
Choppy audio.
GPU load was at 100% and VRAM usage was at 20%.

In both cases CPU usage was around 100%.

Could the HD4850 be the reason for the terrible framerate?
The HD4890 has double the VRAM, more than double the bandwith and 1/3 more raw processing power.
If it could provide me with a substantial speedup I'm getting it back as fast as I can.

I also have the PAL version (not ripped yet). Would the 50fps limit result in smoother gameplay on low end systems?

All other games that I have tested since run fine (with 2x native resolution): Drakan, ICO, SotC (more or less)

Edit: Where is my attachment *sigh*

[Alexander]

Take a look at my specs in my signature.

Now consider the fact that I still have fps instability when doing battle in ZoE 2 (Though I use 1920 x 1080 resolution, so...). I haven't tried it recently though, so I might try it on a new revision, maybe performance has increased on the game since a year ago.

I'm not sure how the NVIDIA 580M compares to HD4890 in terms of clockspeed (pretty sure mine has better because of overclocking and...well...how old is the 4890 anyway?), but I definitely got you at GPU memory, which is needed a lot.

ZOE 2 never causes my hardware to hit 100% usage though - it just doesn't work out.

Point is - it's resources guzzler. You need better hardware to play it smoothly. Also, you use DX10...try to get a DX11 card.

[Interocitor]

I'm not sure how the NVIDIA 580M compares to HD4890 in terms of clockspeed (pretty sure mine has better because...well...how old is the 4890 anyway?), but I definitely got you at GPU memory, which is needed a lot.

You can't compare clockspeed between architectures! But you are right the 580m is faster than the HD4890 even if the HD4890 has higher bandwith (125GB/s vs. 98GB/s). The 4890 compares roughly to a 570m.

Why would I need a DX11 card?

I know that I will never reach 60fps with a Core 2 level CPU but maybe a better GPU would make the game at least bearable.
I wouldn't ask if I was entirely sure of how to interpret the GPU load numbers.

[Alexander]

Try the newest SVN, I see you're using 9.8.0 I'm fairly sure. What kind CPU are you running? The MTVU hack might help.

Edit : Okay, you're using Core2 duo...? MTVU is only for 3 cores +, ***** e_e...

[Mr.Bonkers]

I've got a way better PC than OP and I still get issues at 720p here and there. (Even though it's playable at high resolutions)(and My CPU actually can't emulate the game at native res 60FPS. Where as most games it can do very easily. Not even sure if Ivybridge or LGA2011 CPUs would make a difference. But can't tell until someone with one tries.)

It's a lot like MGS2/3, hard to emulate.

Best thing you can do , is use latest SVNs and use modest resolutions/settings, Speed hacks may actually make things worse since this is running on the same engine as MGS2 (IIRC). MTVU didn't make much difference for me on or off. Experiment.

[hyakki]

if you have a good cpu you might get better results in software mode, other then that the game is gpu heavy , even top of the line cards will suffer with anything higher then native mode. a 2gb video card might fair better (someone would need to confirm this though)

[synce]

I believe ZOE2 just runs better on Nvidia cards. I ran some of my own tests back in the day and these are the results. Basically a mid-low range laptop beat out an OC'd rig in ZOE2, and my current laptop destroys it even more (60-70fps iirc)

[Alexander]

if you have a good cpu you might get better results in software mode, other then that the game is gpu heavy , even top of the line cards will suffer with anything higher then native mode. a 2gb video card might fair better (someone would need to confirm this though)

I confirm this. It runs pretty well on mine, and I think it'd run perfectly with current-high-end desktop hardware, like the newest OCed i7s

Point is though, (currently) to play ZOE you need high end hardware.

[Ice Queen Zero]

I confirm this. It runs pretty well on mine, and I think it'd run perfectly with current-high-end desktop hardware, like the newest OCed i7s

Point is though, (currently) to play ZOE you need high end hardware.

*YAY! Alex is online at last!

I wonder how you cool your laptop with such high CPU frequency...

[xstyla]

the important question is what's your actual cpu and how much Ghz it's got. since you managed to stall at 100% cpu.

for that vram issue it's better to run without 8 bit textures and life with the loaded vram. the 8 bit switch is always a vram bottle neck and makes it slower cause the textures get read twice.

*devnote*: not sure if this already in - too lazy to look at that code - but somebody should write a shader to sample the pallete from a constant array. i'm sure that'd make it faster then sampling from memory and cache trashing - even tho sacrifices a lil shader performance.