Why so slow?

[lodoss118]

will there ever be a better language than c++ and more efficient?, i heard vs 2005 brings alot of new advance features to c++ even an optimizing code tool thing.

 

[Clements]

Hand-optimised Assembly would be more efficient, but is incredibly difficult to write and maintain. Of course, this whould not improve the framerate all that much, and hinder progress.

 

[redbone]

I'm sure this has been mentioned a multitude of times and I've just missed it... but what is the basic reason that framerate is so piss poor?

 

[Alex The Great]

Some say it's the emulator core that causes these low framerate, some say that computers aren't as powerful as the Gamecube. Once the core is fully optimised, speed will increase, but the newer Dolphin versions are getting slower and slower.

EDIT:

The main processor of the Gamecube is a PowerPC derivative
running at 485MHz with some additional SIMD instructions.
It is extremely time consuming to emulate and is the main
bottleneck of Dolphin.

The Gamecube "Art-X" graphics chip is probably the most
complex ever seen in a console, except maybe the NV20+ in
the XBox. Unlike the NV20 the Art-X is very different from
PC hardware, so it requires a lot of computer power to
emulate, and it may not be possible to support all features.
It can do some very weird stuff like having two alpha
compare operations that can in turn be xored, anded or
whatever, and has performance counters that are impossible
to emulate properly that may be used/abused for purposes
like occlusion culling, as has been seen already (the
weird boxes in Mario Sunshine). Coverage queries may
possibly be used on hardware that supports them to fake
this feature reasonably.

Also its texturing abilities are extremely advanced, right
up there with the XBox and in some areas even more
feature rich.

That is why Radeon 9500+ / Geforce FX is the minimum
specification for running Dolphin properly.

From the Dolphin readme. In English, it states that the processor and the video card are extremely difficult to emulate, since they are the most powerful ever seen in a console (until the XBox 360) and they are different from computer hardware. The processor is a Power PC, so it might be easier to emulate in a Mac.

 

[redbone]

wasn't the PS1 emulator pretty damn slow in the beginning? Due to the fact that changing resolutions seems to have no effect on frame rate, I wouldn't think a faster video card would be the answer. Not sure about CPU though. I'm currently running a 7800 gtx and a p4-2.6ghz and 2 gigs of ram. The couple of games I tried I got around 10-13fps in game fairly consistantly. I'd like to guess the slowdown being caused by the core of the emulator.

 

[B*A*G*G]

im suprised the emulation is running as fast as it is.
were talking about a blazing fast 485Mhz powerPC hybrid along with a gpu to boot.

i dont think speed is a priority at the moment.

 

[Alex The Great]

I have a question. How can a 485Mhz Power PC run faster than a 2Ghz PC Processor? And how does the Art-X compare to computer video cards?

 

[ChaosC0d3]

I have a question. How can a 485Mhz Power PC run faster than a 2Ghz PC Processor? And how does the Art-X compare to computer video cards?

Google is your friend. the seach button is your friend. staying on topic is your friend. if people dont start following the rules bans are going to be give out.

about why computers run gamecube games slower then a gamecube simple.

gamecube does not equal a PC.

PC must be recoded to talk like gamecube in the PC own language.

It may take 3 to 4 words to speak 1 gamecube word making it 3 to 4 time slower.

Now 3 to 4 is just a guess it could be in some cases 10 to 20.

I dont want anymore off topic crap in this thread.

 

[omnislash124]

As requested in another forum here is what SSBM looks like the in the new beta,
looks really nice but speed has taken a hit.

Very Nice Progress on the Dolphin. Yay! No more "black hole" ground! Though is the random teleporting fixed yet? Just Curious...

 

[Alex The Great]

Google is your friend. the seach button is your friend. staying on topic is your friend. if people dont start following the rules bans are going to be give out. about why computers run gamecube games slower then a gamecube simple.

gamecube does not equal a PC.

PC must be recoded to talk like gamecube in the PC own language.

It may take 3 to 4 words to speak 1 gamecube word making it 3 to 4 time slower.

Now 3 to 4 is just a guess it could be in some cases 10 to 20.

I dont want anymore off topic crap in this thread.

Chill out! I was just asking a question. And I was looking for a more accurate answer.

Anyway, I'm happy to see Dolphin is still in development, as long as we don't have to wait another year. The developers still need to improve the core, but I can wait a bit longer.

 

[liger301]

can anybody tell me if one piece runs fine on dolphin

 

[cooliscool]

Chill out! I was just asking a question. And I was looking for a more accurate answer.

Anyway, I'm happy to see Dolphin is still in development, as long as we don't have to wait another year. The developers still need to improve the core, but I can wait a bit longer.

The developers don't need to do anything.

ChaosCode was putting the truth of the matter in an easier to understand way, in reality it's much more complex than that. I think it made perfect sense, and it isn't rocket science.

 

[spotanjo3]

Alex The Great,

yes, we can wait another year or even in 5 years. It is matter of time and patiences. If you want to play it..go and get nintendo game cube console then. Dont tell them hopefully that they can do that in less than a year. Thats stupid, man. Give them more time.

 

[Shakey_Jake3]

It's disappointing how many people seem to be wanting to use an emulator as a replacement for the real console. That's not what this is about. Go get a GameCube for your birthday or something, they're cheap now. Can do without seeing an excellent achievement such as this emulator being used as a warez tool.

Great to see new progress on this emulator ^_^

 

[jih2000]

Wow, starting to look really nice :drool: thanks for sharing the screenshots with everyone

Would be cool if you could do something like the PJ64 team do with closed betas for contributers, if you had the dev time to do such a thing.

To devs: is the interface for the plugin specs nearing completion yet or still a way to go?

Thanks,

Marty

 

[FiRES]

Wow, starting to look really nice :drool: thanks for sharing the screenshots with everyone

Would be cool if you could do something like the PJ64 team do with closed betas for contributers, if you had the dev time to do such a thing.

To devs: is the interface for the plugin specs nearing completion yet or still a way to go?

Thanks,

Marty

The plugin specs havn't changed for ca. one year but they are mot really "nice"

cheers

 

[Tsury]

It looks beautiful, and way to go for a good job but...
Why is the speed decreasing?
I think that speed optimization should be top priority, now that everything looks great...
It doesn't help if the game looks flawless but plays on 0.8fps...
Why not focus EVERYTHING on speed optimization?

note: this is not a rant / whatever, I just can't understand why people are thrilled / want to get their hands on the new version, if all the games are way too slow..?

 

[Alex The Great]

It looks beautiful, and way to go for a good job but...
Why is the speed decreasing?
I think that speed optimization should be top priority, now that everything looks great...
It doesn't help if the game looks flawless but plays on 0.8fps...
Why not focus EVERYTHING on speed optimization?

That's what I ask myself, but emulating the Gamecube IS very hard to do. And the developers aren't warez scientists...

 

[liger301]

any body can tell me if one piece works on dolphin

 

[Alex The Great]

any body can tell me if one piece works on dolphin

I bet it can, but at a very low speed. Wait a year or two. Cheers!