Dolphin - Spyro A Hero's Tail FPS increased when I go to 'Graphics Settings' page

[TheRyanGuy]

Hello. I am trying to emulate Spyro - A Hero's Tail on Dolphin 4.0, and the frame rate struggles to get to 100%. So it will hover around 85-95% speed, with the occasional 100%. This slowdown is very noticeable. However, the second I go to the 'Graphics Settings' page on the Dolphin menu, and return to the game window, it stays at a constant 100% speed, and will only go slow again once I've restarted the emulator. Of course this can again be fixed by going to the Graphics Settings page. On the page I don't manually change any settings so the speed increase is strange to say the least.

The emulator warns me that going to this page resets certain settings. Which settings exactly? Because whatever settings it seems to be resetting, this seems to be boosting my emulation speed dramatically. I should point out that I don't notice any graphical deterioration upon returning to the game window after visiting the Graphics Settings Page.

My specs:

GPU: 660M 2GB

CPU: i7-3610QM 3.3GHz

RAM: 16GB

Obviously my specs are more than powerful enough for Dolphin emulation, so this can't be the problem (unless the issue is specific to the GPU/CPU model). Any idea what might be causing this slowdown, and why going to the Graphics Settings page immediately fixes it?

Thanks

[ulaoulao]

I don't want to slam you on everything you think you know but consider a few well known things about the people that create software and know emulation.

1) notebooks have physical attributes that request power setting to be constantly modified by the bios. If you know anything about physics this would not be hard to understand. Do you really think you will get the same power out of a laptop that you do from a PC. When I was learning to OC I changed out the fans and my dolphin performance when up %25. 25 for just air flow...
2) There are no technologies or computers available to a consumer that will emulate dolphin at full speeds (all games). It does depend on the game and I doubt spyro is that intense but your dead wrong and what you think about your specs...Many games can not be played at full speeds yet.
3) My system is much faster then yours plus I over clock the hell out of it, near 5GHz and some games require lower settings to play, others do not run anywhere near %100.
4) When writing code, loops change. So if a coder decides a windows must be drawn on the screen it may skip aspects of the game to keep the program flowing. I dont know what you are getting at but if your are saying opening a window makes the game play at full speeds, that sounds like a bug to me. Can you open that config window and just move it out of the way ( just curious )?

Ok that out of the way here are some tips.

1) Are you putting sound to core? Dolpinh uses two cores and the sound engine can use another if you check the box lock to thread.
2) Are you setting AI high? Put it at 1x and be happy you can play the game.
3) Did you check the bench mark tests on that game, what should it play it?
4) Did you read the speed guides.

[TheRyanGuy]

FYI I am by no means a pro in this field; I know nothing about how emulators are programmed or any of the advanced concepts behind it, such as loops changing.

I am aware that notebooks are naturally weaker than desktops, for example the 660M is substantially weaker than the 660M desktop GPU. Even so, I've heard of people with much lower specs running games at 100%, but as you said I guess there is a lot of variance and it really depends on what game you're running. Strangely, the official Dolphin website says, and I quote, "Most games run perfectly or with minor bugs." Since developers are working on subtle graphical improvements at the cost of speed in later revisions, I guess the latter holds much more truth than the former.

Excluding overclocking, my laptop should be running at its full capabilities considering it's fully charged plugged into AC power, with power options at high performance."

AA and AF are both on minimum. When I said opening the Graphics Settings page speeds up emulation, I meant it only needs to be opened once. After that, it can be closed and emulation will continue at 100%. That is, until I relaunch the Dolphin process entirely of course.

Like you suggested I don't think this is a hardware issue, but rather, an emulator bug. I don't believe it happens with any other ROMs though. It's not resolved by window inactivity either, because simply minimizing the window doesn't cause speed improvement; only going to Graphics Settings does.

Thanks for the help. I might consider using an older version of the emulator, but as it stands any additional input into this issue will be appreciated.

[ulaoulao]

I don't personally believe you will get much more help from this board as your problem is very Dolphin biased. I'm pretty sure what you have is a bug and would suggest you try some versions especially the stable ones to see if the problem gets better or worse. Then go a head and create a bug for the Dolphin team to look in to.

[TheRyanGuy]

Alright, thanks for the help. I'll do that