Gaming PCSX2 can now take advantage of Quad Cores!

[Lodis]

It is at beta stage and can be downloaded from the SVN automatic builds here.


I have already seen great performance gains on my 2630QM mobile Quad laptop. I can now play GOW at full speed at 1920 x 1080 and my CPU is 2.0 Ghz on each Core.

pcsx2: Implemented Threaded VU1
Threading VU1 took a lot of rewrites and new code to make possible (MTGS, microVU, gifUnit...), but we finally got to the point where it was feasible, and now we've done it! (so now everyone can stop complaining that pcsx2 only takes advantages of 2 cores ).
The speedups in the games that benefit from it are great if you have a cpu with 3+ cores (generally a 10~45% speedup), however games that are GS limited can be a slowdown (especially on dual core cpu's).
The option can be found in the speedhacks section as "MTVU (Multi-Threaded microVU1)". And when enabled it should should show the VU thread-time percentage on the title bar window (Like we currently do for EE/GS/UI threads).
It is listed as a speedhack because in order for threading VU1 to have been a speedup, we need to assume that games will not send gif packets containing Signal/Finish/Label commands from path 1 (vu1's xgkick). The good news is very-few games ever do this, so the compatibility of MTVU is very high (a game that does do this will likely hang).

 

[kevan]

I get no vu reading at all when enabled.

 

[Satangel]

Best emulator team ever?
I've already been able to complete DQ VIII (!!!) on my Q6600 with this emulator, but hearing news like this makes me want to do it again, in 720p now

Fuck yeah, the last update was already a big step forward, but this makes it look even better. Thanks so much for the heads-up too.

 

[kevan]

Any ideas wht VU doesnt seem to work for me? I get my reading as 0%, so i'm guessing that the VU is doing nothing.

 

[Deleted member 473940]

I want to try this out on my laptop

!
Is there any guide? Dont you need PS2 bios?

 

[Satangel]

I want to try this out on my laptop

!
Is there any guide? Dont you need PS2 bios?

Check out their site for guides:

http://pcsx2.net/guide.php

Any problems, go to their forums. It took me a while to figure out, but now I'm playing PS2 games fluently! And yeah, it even works on my laptop (high-end laptop though, i7 processor)

 

[Deleted member 473940]

Thanks

!
Well, I have a i5 quad core.
Since it says it takes advantage of quad cores now

Dolphin works fine, however not fluently lol

 

[Deleted member 473940]

32 Bit only?
No links for 64x?

 

[granville]

Big speedup for me here. I'm running an i7 laptop @1.7ghz (turbo boosts higher though). It's a lot faster now! Very impressive! Looks like games such as Ico and Shadow of the Colossus might like this speedup.

Dolphin works fine, however not fluently lol

Dolphin requires a pretty beefy CPU, but it usually only takes advantage of two cores (the developers state that making it multithreaded wouldn't be easy and wouldn't even yield very many speedups anyways). You CAN get it to work with more than two cores i think though. But it requires you to use the somewhat slower LLE sound plugin. I think that plugin can use a third core on your CPU.

 

[Deleted member 473940]

So, downloaded that x32 instead.
Played around a bit with the settings and finally able to run Games

.
Now, I am going to play around for a bit to see if it crashes or anything.

@granville, can you tell me your settings?

 

[tommzy2]

doesnt support 64 bit, no interest for me.

 

[Deleted member 473940]

How do I get it full screen? 16:9 leaves really big gap on both sides of the screen -.-

 

[Assax]

I read somewhere that it only supports Intel processors though.
Or is this another release?

 

[Nujui]

Oh yeah, quad cores? Nice.

Finally my computer's quad core became useful for something.

I'd laugh if P4 can actually run good on this now.

 

[granville]

I read somewhere that it only supports Intel processors though.
Or is this another release?
That was a lie then. It supports AMD processors. Intel processors are just faster than current AMD ones (until Bulldozer arrives anyways). Though perhaps those six-core Thubans could do a decent job with the emulator (if it can support more than four cores)

How do I get it full screen? 16:9 leaves really big gap on both sides of the screen -.-
The emulator doesn't contain a widescreen hack to force the graphics to render in widescreen (unlike Dolphin). But you can force it to stretch the game by going to-
Config > Emulation Settings > GS Window > Aspect Ratio > Widescreen (16:9).
Your view will appear stretched though unless you find a game that natively supports widescreen (like Jak and Daxter and the sequels to it). Nothing you can do about that.

QUOTE(Tanveer @ Aug 16 2011, 07:41 AM)

@granville, can you tell me your settings?

Here's some shots of the settings i've customized-

Plugins (use the GSDX plugin with the highest SSE instruction set that your CPU can support, Intels support them all i think but AMD's only support SSE2)-
http://img202.imageshack.us/img202/6091/pcsx2plugins.jpg

Speedhacks (the MTVU hack is the new star, enable it for the quad core support, important setting there, other settings you should customize as needed by the game)-
http://img689.imageshack.us/img689/7684/pcsx2speedhacks.jpg

Graphics Plugin (you can select your own native resolution depending on your GPU's ability)-
http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/5090/pcsx2gsdx.jpg

Window Settings-
http://img199.imageshack.us/img199/5282/pcsx2gs.jpg

I leave pretty much all the rest of the settings at default. Speedhacks and internal resolution i customize a lot. Speedhacks in particular need a lot of tweaking depending on the game. Some games need barely any on, others won't even run properly (on my laptop) without most of them on. Just remember to enable the MTVU speedhack, that's the new option for quad core support. Otherwise you won't be able to use more than two cores.

 

[jamesaa]

Testing now with ZOE2

Had just mentioned in another thread this was the only game i wanted to play that ran slowly in PCSX2 on my laptop, hopefully it will work now

EDIT: first signs not very good, it crashed when i was first meant to be in Jehuty

I hope this is not one of the few games which won't work

Kingdom Hearts still loads and play fine, but i had that at full speed anyway so cannot compare.

EDIT: ZOE2 now working, is full speed 90% of the time, gets slow when i first enter into a battle with a pair of raptors and however many mosquitoes, but picks up in speed after a few seconds. Running on an i7-2630QM, Nvidia GT555M, 4GB DDR3

 

[Deleted member 473940]

Thanks for that man

.

I just finished Metal Slug without any slow downs or crashes.
I know its not that resource hungry probably lol.

Gonna test out a few other games now

!

edit: the emulator can emulate original disc's, right?
PS2 games are dirt cheap these days, might aswell just buy them instead of downloading

 

[Wabsta]

Best emulator team ever?
I've already been able to complete DQ VIII (!!!) on my Q6600 with this emulator, but hearing news like this makes me want to do it again, in 720p now

Fuck yeah, the last update was already a big step forward, but this makes it look even better. Thanks so much for the heads-up too.

Is the emulator that good? Since I've got a Q6600 too, I guess I'm gonna have something to do now, and now even more with this build! (I actually didn't think PC's could run PS2 games at full speed)

 

[Nujui]

Best emulator team ever?
I've already been able to complete DQ VIII (!!!) on my Q6600 with this emulator, but hearing news like this makes me want to do it again, in 720p now

Fuck yeah, the last update was already a big step forward, but this makes it look even better. Thanks so much for the heads-up too.

Is the emulator that good? Since I've got a Q6600 too, I guess I'm gonna have something to do now, and now even more with this build! (I actually didn't think PC's could run PS2 games at full speed)

It's not exactly full speed, but a very good speed (Though some games do run full speed)

 

[granville]

Your success with the emulator will largely depend on your CPU and the clock speed it's at. It'll also totally depend on the game. Games like Kingdom Hearts or Final Fantasy X will likely run on slower PC's, but others might not be so easy to get running. The emulator itself is darn good if your PC is fast enough. Not perfect of course, but many games run perfectly. I've beaten KH 1 and 2 on it without any real glitches.