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Okay so I have done as markyrocks said, monitoring of hdd shown various read values while using pcsx2 but no conjunction with frame stutter at all.
Enabling profile for pcsx2 in nvidia cp and setting maximum performance done nothing so i suppose the same will be for enabling dwm and explorer, but eventually try.

Tsunami2311, the problem is actually turning vsync on gives smooth ps2-like gameplay, but drops fps significantly, and without this I get periodical choppyness.

EDIT: Tried setting both dwm and explorer to high performance mode thru nvcp - no effect.
One thing was weird though, both these .exe have adaptive power settings as default, instead of typical "use global option etc."

(12-25-2014, 02:37 PM)belmont1990 Wrote: [ -> ]EDIT: Tried setting both dwm and explorer to high performance mode thru nvcp - no effect.
One thing was weird though, both these .exe have adaptive power settings as default, instead of typical "use global option etc."

You'll need to reboot after adjusting those profiles for the change to go in to effect. You can observe the operation of your video card and PCI-E slot via GPU-Z or similar utility. Normally, without these profile modifications, your PCI-E slot will downclock to PCI-E 1.1 speeds and your GPU clock speeds will drop while on the desktop. With the changes in effect it should always remain at PCI-E 2.0 or 3.0 speeds (Depending on what spec your motherboard slot is) and your GPU should always operate at the clock speeds specified on their packaging instead of entering a low power mode.

Like I said, Nvidia has hidden profiles for some core windows files (Configured to Adaptive Power) and also has profiles that default to Adaptive Power for web browsers and the Steam client (The profiles for web browsers and steam won't affect anything if Prefer Maximum Performance is defined for DWM.exe and Explorer.exe).

(12-25-2014, 02:37 PM)belmont1990 Wrote: [ -> ]Okay so I have done as markyrocks said, monitoring of hdd shown various read values while using pcsx2 but no conjunction with frame stutter at all.
Enabling profile for pcsx2 in nvidia cp and setting maximum performance done nothing so i suppose the same will be for enabling dwm and explorer, but eventually try.

Tsunami2311, the problem is actually turning vsync on gives smooth ps2-like gameplay, but drops fps significantly, and without this I get periodical choppyness.

EDIT: Tried setting both dwm and explorer to high performance mode thru nvcp - no effect.
One thing was weird though, both these .exe have adaptive power settings as default, instead of typical "use global option etc."

A couple of other things to try if you haven't already. The old task manager trick which has helped some people before on CPU heavy applications w/stutter.

Launch PCSX2. Launch the game you are testing.

Go to task manager, select either of the PCSX2 entries in the applications tab.

Right click and select 'go to process'.

Once it's taken you to the PCSX2 process, right click again and choose 'set affinity'. One by one uncheck each of the cores but leave the first one (CPU 0) checked as otherwise the process could crash or become unstable. Press ok.

Right click again and re-check all the cores. Arguably you could also try leaving the final one unchecked as PCSX2 uses a maximum of 3 (I would try both options). Choose OK.

The next thing to do before closing the task manager is to right click again (on the PCSX2 process) and choose 'set priority'. Set it to as high as you can go without compromising system stability. Usually this means 'high' or 'above normal' but if you can get away with 'real time' give it a go. Choose OK and return to test the game.

(12-25-2014, 01:30 AM)belmont1990 Wrote: [ -> ]Overclocking is only option I refuse to try becasue my tried games should run on pentium g3420 AT LEAST on native hardware full speed (RE CV, Devil summoner - ones from the least deanding titles.)

That is only what you think. The reason to try it is that you can find out if the CPU is the cause of the issue. If you don't want to overclock your CPU, you can revert it immediately after you know the result.

(12-25-2014, 03:58 PM)Franpa Wrote: [ -> ]You'll need to reboot after adjusting those profiles for the change to go in to effect. You can observe the operation of your video card and PCI-E slot via GPU-Z or similar utility. Normally, without these profile modifications, your PCI-E slot will downclock to PCI-E 1.1 speeds and your GPU clock speeds will drop while on the desktop. With the changes in effect it should always remain at PCI-E 2.0 or 3.0 speeds (Depending on what spec your motherboard slot is) and your GPU should always operate at the clock speeds specified on their packaging instead of entering a low power mode.

Like I said, Nvidia has hidden profiles for some core windows files (Configured to Adaptive Power) and also has profiles that default to Adaptive Power for web browsers and the Steam client (The profiles for web browsers and steam won't affect anything if Prefer Maximum Performance is defined for DWM.exe and Explorer.exe).

why are you tell him to mess with dwm.exe? IF PCSX2 already has max performance set for it profile, there is no reason too Which people would be doing to being with.

Vsync has PERFORMANCE HIT which there for reason. more power is needed to sync the frames.

Only reason one need vsync enabled via pcsx2 options is IF desktop composition is disabled. As it is already on from aero being on. and if you enable it again with in pcsx2 when its already on from aero, you may fix stuttering issue in vsync but introduce performance issue.

IF this issue just leave aero on for it "vsync" then go use nvidia inspector or Afterburner to cap pcsx2@ 60fps

and ps2 game where not perfectly smooth they all suffer from the same issues. Nither is vsync on the pc for that mater there plenty of games that stutter and have slight drops in fps causing that studder with vsync on special on nvidia drivers.

This not the first time some complained about similar things, try changing what instruction set gsdx uses.

Again Enabling Vsync there is performance hit, more so then "vsync" aero uses which is not the same as true vsync that has performance hit that is alot bigger then aeros version vsync. What was 60fps with vsync off in pcsx2 options may well be come much less when it enabled. its just simple fact that vsync need more power. which would mean cpu no longer enough.

Like said try changing the instruction set gsdx uses i vagel remeber some saying changing instruction set that was being use for gsdx reduced the vsync performance hit for them when they enabled it

(12-25-2014, 08:52 AM)Ryudo Wrote: [ -> ]It doesn't matter what you format it to, pendrives speeds aren't affected by that. And the fact that you're running the game from the same location pcsx2 is stored all adds up to performance loss. As for the regular HDD, if you format it to FAT32 you won't even be able to create partitions larger than 32GB, or store files larger than 4GB, meaning you'll lose access to a lot of PS2 games that are larger than 4GB (FAT32 only supports up to 4096MB per file and 32GB per partition). Windows Indexing could be an issue if the drive is bad or has performance issues. It'd be enough to cause a drop in FPS if it attempts to index stuff.


Well, in the end it still comes down to read-speeds of a file. The initial access time for a file on a flash drive is faster, but when you're dealing with larger files like PS2 ISOs a mechanical drive (or even a SSD) will always be faster. USB drives are faster with larger amounts of small sized files than a mechanical drive again. (Unless you have a 10000 RPM Raptor HDD ) You also have to keep in mind that a USB flash drive ends up with worse performance eventually as you continue writing to it, much like SSD drives. You can still improve access time of your mechanical HDD too by making sure it's defragged.

If you want the best speed for a drive you'll want a SSD, which actually eliminates the 'cons' of a USB drive. But SSDs are recommended to run the OS on only instead, while leaving the PS2 ISOs on a mechanical drive.

My old setup was a 500GB 7200 RPM HDD for Windows & PCSX2, while the ISOs were on a 1TB 7200 RPM HDD.
Now I have a 120GB SSD for Windows & PCSX2 and the ISOs are still on the other drive.



Yup, that's true too. Even my old AMD GPU had this issue. (Was an annoying thing in CCC).

Thanks for the info. It was my understanding that a decent size external flash drive would trump an internal mechanical HD as the tech used is very similar to SSDs anyway. Personally, I run my current PC games and PCSX2 games of choice off my SSD C drive (I've more than got the space for it) and in some games performance has definitely been better as a result. I am aware of SSD degradation but SSD lifespans and degradation rates have come along away in the past 5 years and just running games off a relatively new one isn't going to degrade it enough to bother me before I upgrade anyway.

Surprisingly Windows itself does more reads/writes than any program will really, as it's constantly doing that the moment you boot into it. While PCSX2 for example only does it when you play a game.

My pc actually have very few processes running with windows, gpu driver, avast, sound driver, daemon tools lite and just basic os stuff.
Even while stuttering occurs my cpu usage is shown in task manager to 60-70% not more.

I recently noticed that some other apps (so far 1 pc game and probably epsxe) also have this stutter ONLY in windowed mode, but in pcsx2 it is most visible actually, in those other two cases it is so very slight that needs some more gamplay to confirm.

I checked my bios settings and everything is okay, nothing here that could interfere with full performance.

My assumption so far -it seems something in windows/running procesesses is bottlenecking games running in windowed mode (pcsx2 even in full screen is actually windowed borderless) but it needs further analysis and confirmation.

Tsunami, I tried capping fps to 60 with dxtory but this isnt the same as enabling vsync becasue I did not removed stuttering at all.
Also tried both gsdx SSE2 and SSE41 versions and no difference in performance and stuttering at all.

BTW Do I need to reboot every time I change something in nvidia control panel? When I set pcsx2 profile for maximum performance do I also need to reboot?

You could try using something like this (it's free)

http://www.razerzone.com/gb-en/cortex/game-booster

FYI, I just tested my own task manager tweak suggestion on Suikoden III. I normally get very minor frame hitching in specific places only (like running through a particular part of a town / village or during a particular camera pan in a specific cutscene, that kind of thing). It doesn't last more than a second. These kinds of things usually really irritate me but it's so rare during general travel and cutscenes and never happens during combat. The issues are also roughly analogous to where there were frame rate issues in the native game (I have done a direct comparison).

Anyway by using the task manager tweak I suggested, those hitches instead became almost like frame skips, as though there was a just noticeable split second speed up and frame skip. Regardless, the effect was much less jarring and noticeable than the frame hitches previously evident. It might not solve your problem completely but it could make some of your lesser stuttering games more tolerable to play.