Pcsx2 only using CPU

[Unit1Evangelion]

I apologize first off if there was an older thread of this. I looked, but I might of missed it.

I just got back into this stuff and have been messing around with this emulator. Got most of everything to work cept that its running a bit choppy, soundwise. When I looked at both my GPU's, it showed one was using up to 10% if he was lucky, while the other got bored and went to sleep. Checked my CPU and both CPU's were at 100%.

I fiddled around a bit more and have been looking all over the net with no luck. Most threads were just people with under powered CPU/GPU's, unable to run most of anything.

Is there a way to utilize my GPU instead of stress testing my CPU for countless hours?

EDIT:: Hmm I just got GC up and running and it seems to be doin it there too....

I believe everything is fully updated. Stats:
Pcsx2 0.9.4
GSdxv1-9
D3DX10v36
Latest Game Bio's

Rig:
OS: Vista 64bit Ultimate
CPU: Intel E8400, Overclocked to 3.2ghz
Ram: 4gigs DDr2 800
GPU: ATI HD4870x2

Appreciate the help.

[FatTrucker]

Nope, this is why emulation is so system intensive. It requires your processor to emulate every single chip and process of the original consoles hardware.

The console hardware is designed from the ground up to work the way it does, and specifically with the dedicated hardware inside the console, its not the same as the hardware in your PC so your other PC hardware can't emulate it, and that means that all of the things that console hardware does have to be translated through emulation software via your PC's processor.

You can't use your graphics card to do what your PC's processor does, and you can't use the PC's processor to do what your graphics card does.

[onewecallgod]

You can't use your graphics card to do what your PC's processor does, and you can't use the PC's processor to do what your graphics card does.

Actually, you can

With the advent of CUDA for nVidia cards and ATi's equivalent (which name escapes me), you can now write code to specifically take advantage of GPUs to do heavy computational tasks that aren't specific to graphical rendering. Since it's fairly new, I'm sure most emulators haven't taken advantage of it yet as it would require recompiling and probably some modifications to code. But expect to see more and more in the future since GPUs for raw number crunching abilities are way better than traditional CPUs.

[FatTrucker]

Yep, they are looking at implemementing this into Mame in some future build, but again at the moment nothing uses them in this way, and GPU's are still designed to perform graphical functions in hardware, where emulators need pure number crunching grunt.

The thread author was asking why his superior specced PC couldn't just have the PS3 bios installed into a blank partition and run PS3 emulation full speed so in the context of the question my answer stands.

[Zach]

CUDA still has limits though..

GPU's can do shit like render graphics and pump large amounts of data because they have direct access to all that onboard high speed memory.. Most threads I've read seem to indicate the technology has limited uses..

I.E sure you can use it to take the load off your CPU when encoding videos with graphics filters, and it handles the extra work pretty well.. But it can't process data like an actual CPU can, its only good at specialized narrowly defined tasks and won't scale well to multi-tasking, etc.

The only way to take load off your CPU with emulation, is using a rendering plugin for D3D or OpenGL, that renders that graphics via your physical hardware.. But the CPU has still got to do a lot of work and get those frames sent to the GPU as well.

N64, PSX, PS2, Saturn, etc.. These are all much more complicated machines than the consoles that came before them. It's the same reason you rarely see a lot of functional 3D games running in MAME as well. It takes tremendous processing power, it has to be done in code without the benefit of original hardware, that code has to be developed from the ground up, and it is not always going to be efficient or function properly especially in the early years of development.. It took years to get working emulators for NES/SNES/Genesis as well, and it will take even longer to get fully functioning, fast emulators for the more advanced systems.

[Unit1Evangelion]

Lol Damn not the answer I was hoping to hear but that was the theory my buddy gave me. I just couldn't see a logical reason why everyone kept insisting that people should upgrade their video card when its not goin to be used. You could use an onboard video from new mobo's and it should run this just fine, as long as you had a powerful Cpu.

I have installed the D3D and OpenGL Plugins any my Cpu is still hogging all the work . Oh well though. I will just OC my CPU a little more to play the games a bit better.

Thanks for the help guys .

[Unit1Evangelion]

SSF the Sega Saturn emulator uses the GPU on my friends rig. He gets about 25% CPU with about 25-30% GPU.

Phenom 9850
ATI 4870 1GB
4GB RAM

But using Pcsx2 he gets the same result I do, no GPU usage, purely CPU.

I'm wondering why if emulation requires purely CPU then why does the Saturn emulator utilize the GPU?