decent computer, undesirable fps/sound

[manatee man]

i'm pretty new to emulating, but i'm pretty sure my computer specs aren't being reflected very well in my pcs2x sessions. Often, especially during cutscenes, my fps will drop to 40-50 and sometimes as low as 20-30. it would be playable but everything just becomes so slow, including the audio. i'm getting a mechanical distorted sound that i've heard before when other media is played in slow-motion.

SPECS:
i5 2500k
asus p8z68-lx v
radeon hd 5850
4 gb ddr3 ram

judging from my searching and listening in on other discussions, this should be more than enough with my configuration: native ps2 resolution, sse4, dx11. i didn't apply any ridiculous texturing or AA or whatnot.

help please?

[jesalvein]

In order to help you further with your problem, please make sure the following are all provided.

• The version of PCSX2 you are using.
  
• What games you are trying to play and if you are playing them from ISO or DVD.
  

Thank You.

[manatee man]

oh yeah, sorry
it's 0.9.8 and i'm playing shadow of the colossus, from iso

[jesalvein]

hmm...

try latest svn : http://pxsc2.net/svn.php and enable MTVU hack to use 3 cores instead of 2.
what is your CPU clockspeed BTW ?
keep in mind SotC is a "megathrust", and if you remind well, it had FPS drop on your PS2, too...

1 more tip : VU Cycle stealing speedhack is known to work very well with this game

[Rezard]

I always need the VU Cycle Stealing hack up at least one notch from the default for SotC.

[manatee man]

thank you so much for your help, i'll try it out and see if it works. i'm running at the default 3.3 gHz btw, i feel no need to overclock (for now).

[Rezard]

You usually won't need to overclock for most games.

SotC in particular still stuck around 50fps (NTSC) for me at even 5.0Ghz.
Just the one notch of VU stealing about doubled my FPS.

[manatee man]

haha yes, did it for me too. i was worried for a second but it works like a charm now. i heard emulation can be taxing on the cpu so that played into my decision to get a sandy bridge. thank you guys again for the help, i knew there would be an easy fix