Horrendous slowdown in PCSX2

[flanks]

I've been experiencing problems in PCSX2 0.9.8 of games slowing down (A falling framerate bringing the game to a crawl) when "effects" happen. Examples are when "Demi" is used at the beginning of FFX, The swooshy animations introducing names in the FFx-2 credits and the starting menu of Persona 4.
I currently have it set to Direct3D9(Hardware) in the video setting because it allows me to sett he resolution of the screen to something more closely approaching my screen resolution (currently set to 3x original). I tried disabling the other features in the same menu, (8-bit textures, filtering, etc) and it didn't really help., but changing it to Direct3D9(software) did, but lowered the resolution without an obvious way to change it (way too blurry, not what I'm looking for).
It may also be worth mentioning I'm using my original PS2 discs in my DVD drive rather than ISOs because I own all the games I want to play.
Here's my spex in a handy .PNG: http://www.giantbomb.com/profile/eve...cs/51-2275473/

If the answer is "Get a better graphics card," I say fair enough, but if there's a way to change the resolution using software rendering or some handy workaround while I wait on a new graphics card, all help is appreciated.

[flanks]

I was messing around with the resolution Scaler to get some nicer looking wallpapers and it certainly goes slower when it's set higher. I don't have another graphics card or a friend with a PC at all I could ask for help testing the problem. If the GPU isn't the problem here, I can probably go another 6-12 months before I upgrade, So I'm kinda hoping someone will sound off on that.

[criosray]

It's a due to videocard. Reduce internal res to 2x - you wont see that much of a quality drop and your fps should increase considerably. Also play with hacks - those which steal cycles for VU.