Gaming Why does my PC emulate GC/Wii and PS2 so slowly

[DKAngel]

The thing some people seem to be forgetting is that even though the AMD one is a quad-core, the i3 has hyperthreading and believe me, it makes a huge difference. I have two computers that are almost identical except one has an Intel core 2 duo and the other has an i3, and both are clocked at 2.4 GHz. Dolphin runs sorta slow on my core 2 duo but runs great on my i3, so obviously the hyperthreading must be making the difference.

In short, your cpu isn't anywhere close to as powerful as your friend's.

hyperthreading does nothing the corei3 is a different aritechure to you core2 and is alot more efficient with doing stuff as i have an i5 with no hyperthreading and i can be on par with an i7 with hyperthreading with a little overclocking

plus emulation is better on intel cpu's because of different instruction sets, pcsx2 relies on sse2 and sse4.x the amd cpou's dont have 4.x
also ur graphic card is shit u need a better cpu and better graphics card to run anything decent in pcsx2 my i5 and my gtx470 can run final fantasy 12 at 100fps all the time where as my wifes laptop i3 which is the same as the ops can barly run it at all

 

[DKAngel]

I'm planning on building a PC in the near future and I'm constantly keeping in mind how the hardware would perform with these 2 emulators. Here are a few things I've picked up...

1. CPU performence is more important than GPU performance. The more Ghz, the better. While it helps to have a dedicated video card, it isn't nearly as important as CPU speed.

2. Intel's perform better than AMD with these emulators. Read the thread I'm about to provide at the end of this post and you will see many people with intels that get bettter performance than their AMD counterparts which have higher CPU speeds...

As for me. Both of these emulators perform rather well on my new laptop. I have an i5 clocked at 2.4Ghz and turbo boost up to 2.9Ghz.. I also have a better GPU than you (Intel HD Graphics 3000)

I get full speed on most of the gamecube game I have and 95% on Mario Kart wii. Also get full speed on Jak and Daxter with the resolution up rezz'd 2x...

So my reccomendation would be to save and build your own PC like I am planning on doing.... You could probably get some very good speeds if you bought an AMD phenom 4x black editon and overclocking it to about 3.8-4.1Ghz.... They are reasonably priced. (unlike Intel)

To get a better idea on the whole AMD vs. Intel and weather Quad Cores are better than Dual Cores I would take a look at this thread....

http://forums.ngemu....ad.php?t=126268

(^ I think the author of that thread was reading this thread a few minutes ago!)

getg a cheap quad core i5 2600k dont touch amd for those emulators and that intel hd gfx is a pile of shit for emulation get something dedicated
go try and run pcsx2 on that laptop with a intel hd and u wont get very far in games, the gfx card is just as important as the cpu
thats like thrying to run bf3 on the intel gfx just because u have a 5ghz quadcore, it will still run like crap u need the gfx!

 

[exangel]

@[member='DKAngel'] omg, multiquote instead of double posting, and use even just a little more punctuation.

pet peeves aside,
that thread @[member='Quietlyawesome94'] referenced is very old and I would not bother reading such things unless it referred very specifically to the components I had in question.

for what it's worth I won't argue against intel being better, but AMD's do support SSE3 & SSE4a, just not SSE4.1, (and the plugins for PCSX2 ONLY support SSE2 for AMDs) and though Intel-only hyperthreading may not be a big difference in emulation now, it may and likely will be better implemented in the future. MTVU speedhack was only added to PCSX2 in August, so.. before then the best option was to get the fastest dual core money could buy? I wouldn't have done that (chosen a faster dual core over a solid quad) for any reason, in the purchase or build of a PC.

edit: clarity

 

[NES SNES V.B. N64 G.C. Wii WiiU]

Your friend's PC is slightly stronger than yours, and emulators nned a VERY fast PC to work quickly.

 

[DKAngel]

omg the punctuation fairy is out to get me, i was scolling down and posting as i was reading. and couldnt be bothered to merge or edit =] there isnt any sse3 or 4a plugins any way for intel, they offered no improvments so they used sse2 ssse3 and sse4.1 and amd dont support ssse3 or 4.1. Hyperthreading is a load of crap anyways in somecases it slows things down, its just a gimmick.

 

[exangel]

there isnt any sse3 or 4a plugins any way for intel, they offered no improvments so they used sse2 ssse3 and sse4.1 and amd dont support ssse3 or 4.1. Hyperthreading is a load of crap anyways in somecases it slows things down, its just a gimmick.

horrible language in a technical discussion helps just about no one, except for you get +post count.
i'll address your incorrect statement but but i think this is actually branching off topic and Fudge has not made any response since his original post. plus he's gotten several different correct answers too.

There IS SSE3 support in PCSX2 for Intel, but not 4a. (Intel doesn't do SSE4a at all, see Wiki)
This is selected in the plugin configuration wizard as illustrated in http://gbatemp.net/t...n-2-with-pcsx2/ & it is the first plugin to configure (GS).
The SSE3 GS plugin simply doesn't work for any known AMD processors despite the fact that many AMD processors since before AM2 sockets (obsolete) have supported SSE3.

Further,

AMD supports 4 instructions from the SSE4 instruction set, but have also added four new SSE instructions, naming the group SSE4a. These instructions are not found in Intel's processors supporting SSE4.1 and AMD processors only started supporting Intel's SSE4.1 and SSE4.2 in the Bulldozer-based FX processors.

Bulldozer's been out for a quarter or so now, so it should be considered as part of the market. For more CPU-specific info, one should look into the forums dedicated to those emulators and actually pay attention to the development.

edit: further, I did finally notice that you typed ssse3 with three s's but if you'd not typed like a retard in the first place i wouldn't have wasted all this time addressing your response because, it would've made sense.

 

[Originality]

Just reading over this thread, it can be summarised with a few lines.

Emulation is CPU dependant, not GPU dependant. The stronger the CPU, the better the emulation performance. As for GPU, you can get perfect performance even with Intel HD graphics, which are not designed for games anyway.
The stronger the CPU (which used to be measured in Ghz but is now measured in IPS), the greater the performance in emulation. This is why Intel CPUs get higher performance than AMD CPUs that are clocked higher - because AMD CPUs are generally weak.
Most emulation used to only work on 2 cores. Now quad core performance is available via speedhacks so Intel Core i5-2500K is generally the best CPU to use. Not to mention it's easy to over clock to 4-5Ghz so not only is it the strongest CPU to use, but also one of the fastest.
EDIT: Sandy Bridge E and Bulldozer aside, because both turned out to be disappointing and generally bad value for money compared to the hugely successful Sandy Bridge range.

And finally, never listen to DKAngel because he is misinformed and his laziness in typing reflects the amount of useful information contained within (at least I assume it's just laziness, because I prefer not to think of people as stupid).

 

[Quietlyawesome94]

@[member='DKAngel'] omg, multiquote instead of double posting, and use even just a little more punctuation.
pet peeves aside,
that thread @[member='Quietlyawesome94'] referenced is very old and I would not bother reading such things unless it referred very specifically to the components I had in question.
for what it's worth I won't argue against intel being better, but AMD's do support SSE3 & SSE4a, just not SSE4.1, (and the plugins for PCSX2 ONLY support SSE2 for AMDs) and though Intel-only hyperthreading may not be a big difference in emulation now, it may and likely will be better implemented in the future. MTVU speedhack was only added to PCSX2 in August, so.. before then the best...
...option was to get the fastest dual core money could buy? I wouldn't have done that (chosen a faster dual core over a solid quad) for any reason, in the purchase or build of a PC.
edit: clarity

While I would agree that thread is old, It did help me understand why Intel's are generally better than AMD's. And why say something isn't helpful because it is old?
The C Programming Language is a well known programming book from way back in 1979. C programmers tend to read not it to learn C, but to see how we got from there to here.

I believe the same applies for PC hardware. It might not be the same as it used to be, but we can still read about how it used to be to see how we got to the point where we are at today.

@OP, Listen to Originality and exangle, they know what they are talking about when it comes to computers.

 

[exangel]

that thread @[member='Quietlyawesome94'] referenced is very old and I would not bother reading such things unless it referred very specifically to the components I had in question.
for what it's worth I won't argue against intel being better, but AMD's do support SSE3 & SSE4a, just not SSE4.1, (and the plugins for PCSX2 ONLY support SSE2 for AMDs) and though Intel-only hyperthreading may not be a big difference in emulation now, it may and likely will be better implemented in the future. MTVU speedhack was only added to PCSX2 in August, so.. before then the best option was to get the fastest dual core money could buy? I wouldn't have done that (chosen a faster dual core over a solid quad) for any reason, in the purchase or build of a PC.

While I would agree that thread is old, It did help me understand why Intel's are generally better than AMD's. And why say something isn't helpful because it is old?.

I don't disagree that there is information to be learned from that thread; but for the layman, the additional deprecated information could be needlessly confusing if all they want is to make current gen technology work better.

 

[Fudge]

Where can I download to MTVU hack version of PCSX2?

 

[Quietlyawesome94]

I'm planning on building a PC in the near future and I'm constantly keeping in mind how the hardware would perform with these 2 emulators. Here are a few things I've picked up...

1. CPU performence is more important than GPU performance. The more Ghz, the better. While it helps to have a dedicated video card, it isn't nearly as important as CPU speed.

2. Intel's perform better than AMD with these emulators. Read the thread I'm about to provide at the end of this post and you will see many people with intels that get bettter performance than their AMD counterparts which have higher CPU speeds...

As for me. Both of these emulators perform rather well on my new laptop. I have an i5 clocked at 2.4Ghz and turbo boost up to 2.9Ghz.. I also have a better GPU than you (Intel HD Graphics 3000)

I get full speed on most of the gamecube game I have and 95% on Mario Kart wii. Also get full speed on Jak and Daxter with the resolution up rezz'd 2x...

So my reccomendation would be to save and build your own PC like I am planning on doing.... You could probably get some very good speeds if you bought an AMD phenom 4x black editon and overclocking it to about 3.8-4.1Ghz.... They are reasonably priced. (unlike Intel)

To get a better idea on the whole AMD vs. Intel and weather Quad Cores are better than Dual Cores I would take a look at this thread....

http://forums.ngemu....ad.php?t=126268

(^ I think the author of that thread was reading this thread a few minutes ago!)

getg a cheap quad core i5 2600k dont touch amd for those emulators and that intel hd gfx is a pile of shit for emulation get something dedicated
go try and run pcsx2 on that laptop with a intel hd and u wont get very far in games, the gfx card is just as important as the cpu
thats like thrying to run bf3 on the intel gfx just because u have a 5ghz quadcore, it will still run like crap u need the gfx!

You sir, don't know what you are talking about. Intel HD graphics have come quite a long way. Did I mention that I have Crysis, Skyrim, Portal 2, and many other games running on low to medium settings?
Also, comparing real PC games to emulation is ignorant. PC games are optimized for, well, PC's! Emulation is a whole other animal. Everything is different. Like Originality said above. Even Intel HD Graphics are perfect for the emulators. And how do you expect me to get dedicated graphics? I have a freaking laptop.

 

[Fudge]

OK, so I'm pretty sure I have the MTVU hack enabled (under the Speedhacks tab), however my games are still not running at full speed. My Emotion Engine is around 95-100%, however my Graphics Synthesizer runs at only around 50%. Are there more ways to improve emulation?

 

[exangel]

@[member='Fudge'] would be helpful if you supplied screenshots of what settings you currently have selected on the GS plugin screen and the speedhacks Emulation Config screen
Also, read into the thread here for examples of settings other people have gotten some success with: http://forums.pcsx2.net/Thread-PCSX2-configuring-for-low-end-PCs

 

[Fudge]

GS:
http://img828.imageshack.us/img828/3755/39826116.png

Speedhacks:
http://img210.imageshack.us/img210/6551/speedhacks.png

 

[exangel]

You don't even have the MTVU speedhack option enabled, so you must be running the stable build.
I also meant this screen {Config -> Video (GS) -> Plugin Settings} when I referred to the GS plugin screen (sorry for not clarifying):
http://i.imgur.com/baH3Z.jpg
Protip: start at Native resolution (checkbox) and work your way up

Anyhoo, get an SVN build from the Buildbot link on my guide: http://gbatemp.net/t...n-2-with-pcsx2/
Then you will have access to the multithreading speedhack (MTVU) which you see enabled here:
http://i.imgur.com/y7Glj.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/RNnV4.jpg

 

[jarejare3]

GS:
http://img828.images...55/39826116.png

Speedhacks:
http://img210.images.../speedhacks.png

Try to type this into your GSdx.ini file, It helps to play your game in a lower resolution.

[Settings]
Renderer=3
Interlace=0
AspectRatio=0
upscale_multiplier=1
windowed=0
filter=1
paltex=1
vsync=0
logz=1
fba=1
aa1=0
nativeres=0
resx=800
resy=600
swthreads=2
msaa=0
UserHacks_AlphaHack=0
UserHacks_HalfPixelOffset=0
UserHacks_SkipDraw=0

EDIT: Forget it Exangel ninja'd me to it, with more better solutions too, RESPECT!

 

[Fudge]

OK, so I enabled MTVU, but I'm still not seeing any performance increase. I think I should note that the build were made for 32-bit Windows while I'm running 64-bit Windows.I followed exangel's steps and set the settings as they were pictured.

 

[jarejare3]

OK, so I enabled MTVU, but I'm still not seeing any performance increase. I think I should note that the build were made for 32-bit Windows while I'm running 64-bit Windows.I followed exangel's steps and set the settings as they were pictured.

Follow mine and try to see if anything changes

EE/IOP​

- recompiler/recompiler, Chop/Zero, None​

VUs​

- MicroVU Recompiler/MicroVU Recompiler, Chop/Zero, None​

Speedhacks​

- EE Cyclerate:2 (33%),VU Cycle Stealing: 1 (mild), Enable INTS Spin Detection. Enable Wait Loop Detection, Enable Fast CDVD, mVU Flag Hack​

[Settings]
Renderer=3
Interlace=0
AspectRatio=0
upscale_multiplier=1
windowed=0
filter=1
paltex=1
vsync=0
logz=1
fba=1
aa1=0
nativeres=0
resx=800
resy=600
swthreads=2
msaa=0
UserHacks_AlphaHack=0
UserHacks_HalfPixelOffset=0
UserHacks_SkipDraw=0
​
EDIT: I did not made this Credits is taken from here http://forums.pcsx2.net/Thread-PCSX2-configuring-for-low-end-PCs

 

[rasputin]

Fudge... you sure those pics in the first post are the right way round ?

Do you have the Intel machine?

The A8 should cream the i3+intergrated graphics from a very big height.

 

[Fudge]

Fudge... you sure those pics in the first post are the right way round ?

Do you have the Intel machine?

The A8 should cream the i3+intergrated graphics from a very big height.

That's what I thought too. I'm positive I have the A8 with Radeon graphics. My laptop was $600, while my friend's was $400 IIRC. They are both from the same manufacturer (HP). I'm thinking it has to be my processor.