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A few questions about game performance

I

Idonex

New member
Hi,

Firstly i just want to say how good i think PJ64 is. I haven't tried N64 emulation since UltraHLE and it's certainly come on far since then!

Onto some questions. I'll give you my spec first: PIII933, 768Mb, Radeon 8500 (Cat 2.5 drivers), Windows XP SP1.

I'm using the default plugins (older plugin for Mario64 and basic audio for Hydro Thunder), all roms are verified with GoodN64 and i have no background processes. On startup i only have a 40Mb commit charge due to lots of tweaking. I'm running PJ64 fullscreen at 1024x768x32 with AA and Aniso enabled and the same settings but at 800x600 in windowed mode.

1) I have noticed that quite a few games that are green with no issues are very slow. Banjo Tooie and Diddy Kong Racing for example are unplayable. The cut scenes are all 60FPS but in game it's down to about 20FPS. (I haven't reached the puzzle parts yet in BT so i dont mean that). Also it's not the pausing i mean, i fixed that in certain games by using the older video plugin as advised.

Is this likely to be because my PC is too slow for the games or something else? I've noticed disabling AA and aniso and dropping to 640x480 doesn't help.

2) On games that have issues regarding slow speeds or high system specs, will they run at a playable speed on a faster system or is it an emulation issue? I'm planning on getting a 2.5Ghz+ CPU and 512Mb of Dual DDR or 32bit RDRAM (keeping the R8500 for now) and wondered if i could expect an increase in these games (Goldeneye, Perfect Dark etc).

Thanks for any help. I'm going back to play Castlevania :D
 
supergamer

supergamer

Banned
If you have an intel with 1,6 ghz (or an AMD with 1,8 ghz), all games will work at screen res. 1280x1024x32. If you have 2,5 ghz they will work perfect.
 
T

Trotterwatch

New member
If you have an intel with 1,6 ghz (or an AMD with 1,8 ghz), all games will work at screen res. 1280x1024x32. If you have 2,5 ghz they will work perfect.
Click to expand...

Close but not quite. The 1.8ghz Athlon would be faster than the 1.6ghz P4 (I think you are comparing the 1800XP to the 1.6ghz P4). I think the Athlon again edges it in that respect.

All games will work fast on that spec but - games such as Mortal Kombat, Killer Instinct etc may have little benefit on such a fast machine (the problems lie elsewhere). If the game is supported without any special notes, then the likely is that with a 2.5ghz machine it will run brilliantly.

If the note by the game in the rom browser says, Slow - and it runs at about 4fps on your current machine, then a faster machine will most likely still be slow.
 
supergamer

supergamer

Banned
Trotterwatch said:
The 1.8ghz Athlon would be faster than the 1.6ghz P4 (I think you are comparing the 1800XP to the 1.6ghz P4).
Click to expand...

I haven't tested it, but (maybe I am wrong) I've read something about that intel-processors are faster with emulation.
 
T

Trotterwatch

New member
Jabos Plugin I believe have quite a lot of support for SSE1 instructions in them (the P3 had them, the P4 has them... the Athlon XP also has them). So on that score the Athlon pulled out in the lead again.

A P3 versus a normal K7 at the same speed will probably just beat it though in PJ64(AFAIK).
 
Last edited:
Tagrineth

Tagrineth

Dragony thingy
Trotterwatch said:
Close but not quite. The 1.8ghz Athlon would be faster than the 1.6ghz P4 (I think you are comparing the 1800XP to the 1.6ghz P4). I think the Athlon again edges it in that respect.
Click to expand...

Disagree, if a programme is coded for SSE2 properly, P4 performance is unbelievable. i.e. clock-for-clock better than AthXP.

That's rare, though, and doesn't always work...
 
T

Trotterwatch

New member
Disagree, if a programme is coded for SSE2 properly, P4 performance is unbelievable. i.e. clock-for-clock better than AthXP.
Click to expand...

Disagree I was talking with relation to PJ64 which doesn't have SSE2 optimisations, which makes your point irrelevant. If it did, then obviously my answer would have thus been different.
 
james.miller

james.miller

HELL YES. IT'S ME!
from what i understood, 3dNow! is amds version of sse. AFAIK the athlonxp dont have sse, they are sse compatable - just like a geforce4 440mx is dx 8.1 compatible, but not compliant. (its only a dx 7 card - no pixel shaders)

i remember a few weeks ago on another forum, people started to notice that sse was turned off on t/bred XP's when used on the k7s5a motherboard (the one i have). Now, if i remember correctly, both ECS an AMD were E-Mailed about this, and both said that sse was no longer supported, because it had 3dnow! (which is basically the same thing)

now as for running certian games faster (especially goldeneye and perfect dark) try 1964 instead - its a lot faster with these two games).

i really cant believe that a p4 would be faster clock-for-clock in anything.
 
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