cross-cross-circle-blog

[cross-cross-circle-blog]

About 18 months after accepting I probably wouldn't be able to get PCSX2 working on my computer I decided it was time to have another look into it. Initially there was this annoying little thing that would happen in the majority of games I played - The game would start fine and run fine but every now and then it would slow down to a third of the speed, and this would happen no matter how I changed the settings. After a lot of searching and digging around, although I didn't find the answer outright I came to the conclusion it was something to do with my cpu which led me to think about overclocking it which in turn seems to have led to the actual answer - Disabling Cool 'n' Quiet & Turbo Boosts in BIOS. Which I will go into later. I don't know who this faux tutorial wrapped in a video description wrapped in an enigma is for but I'm assuming it's someone who's had at least some experience setting up an emulator before.

My Specs: OS: Windows 7 Professional (64-bit) CPU: AMD FX-8350 Eight-Core Processor Motherboard: MSI 760GMA-P34 (FX) Memory: 8GB (DDR3) Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 (2GB)

PCSX2: Version: v1.5.0-dev-2329-g2ad5db227

Emulation Settings: [DISCAIMER 1:] *These settings work for me. I am in no way suggesting they will work for everybody else. I'm certainly not suggesting these are "The Perfect Settings For PCSX2" and I'm not even suggesting that I will stick with these settings.* (ALL SETTINGS ARE THE SAME ONES USED FOR THIS VIDEO)

EE/IOP: Emotion Engine: Recompiler | IOP: Recompiler -----Round Mode: Chop/Zero | Clamping Mode: Normal

VUs: ---VU0: microVU Recompiler | VU1: microVU Recompiler -----Round Mode: Chop/Zero | Clamping Mode: Normal (Note: Previously VU0/VU1's Clamping Mode was set to None but I found out that was causing Burnout Revenge to freeze so I changed it back to normal)

GS: Default settings

GS Window: ------------------Aspect Ratio: Standard (4:3) (Personal preference - I tried it in 16:9 (and stretched via inis) but I didn't like it #NotMyBurnout3 ) --------------Hide window when paused: -Check- (Personal preference) --------Default to fullscreen on open: -Check- (Personal preference) -Double-click toggles fullscreen mode: -Check- (Personal preference) -----------Wait for Vsync on refresh: Disabled (Honestly I didn't see any difference whether in was on/off/adaptive)

Speedhacks: -----------EE Cyclerate: 2 | VU Cycle Stealing: 2 (Note: There seems to be a slight speed increase with these settings compared to when EE Cyclerate & VU Cycle Stealing are set to 0. Also when they were both set to 0 there seemed to be more instances of brief pauses - For example when it cuts from gameplay to a crash it might get stuck for a few miliseconds.) (Note: I tried EE Cyclerate & VU Cycle Stealing set to 2 with VU0/VU1's Clamping Mode set to None and the (internal) framerate seemed eratic.) -----------Enable INTC Spin Detection: -Check- -----------Enable Wait Loop Detection: -Check- ------------------------mVU Flag Hack: -Check- -------MTVU (Multi-Threaded microVU1): -Check- (Note: There seemed to be a noticable decrease in speed when MTVU was unchecked)

Game Fixes: Default settings (Unchecked)

Plugins: --GS: GSdx 20160105132032 (MSVC 19.00, AVX) 1.0.0 [gsdx32-avx] -PAD: --------------------LilyPad (20180313185630) 0.1.2.1 [LilyPad] SPU2: -----------------------SPU2-X 20180313185630 2.0.0 [Spu2-X] CDVD: ----------------------cdvdGigaherz 20180313185630 [cdvdGigaherz] -USB: ---------------USBnull Driver 20180313185630 0.7.0 [USBnull] --FW: -----------------FWnull Driver 20180313185630 0.7.0 [FWnull] DEV9: -------------DEV9null Driver 20180313185630 0.5.0 [DEV9null]

Video (GS) >> Plugin Settings: -------------Adapter: Default Hardware Device ------------Renderer: Direct3D11 (Hardware) ---------Interlacing: Blend bff (slight blur, 1/2 fps) -Internal Resolution: 3x Native ---Texture Filtering: Bilinear (PS2) Anistropic Filtering: 16x ------CRC Hack Level: Full -----Enable HW Hacks: ------------------Check- -----Configure Hacks: Skipdraw: 1 Shader Configuration: >> -----------Configure: >> ---------Enable FXAA: --------------------Check- --Enable Shade Boost: ------------------Check- ----------Saturation: 65 ----------Brightness: 55 ------------Contrast: 50

Direct3D11 (Software): (Note: It might be worth mentioning Software Mode because personally I have the Burnout games on Software Mode by default, then I switch to Hardware Mode (F9) as soon as a Race, Roadrage or whatever event begins. It fixes the sky texture bug present in all the games. I don't know about Revenge or Dominator, but in Takedown you only have to switch when you are loading a new/different event. Meaning if you retry the event you've just finished you don't need to switch to SW then back to HW.) ----------Mipmapping: ---------------------Check- ---Rendering Threads: 7 More about switching between Hardware & Software Mode: (Note: I have [F9] bound to the guide/help button of my 360 controller using button_on_guide2, which can be found here

You also have to disable the help pop-up so it doesn't appear every time you press the button, but it's easy enough to do. Just find msconfig in the start menu, open it, go to the startup tab and untick Microsoft Xbox 360 Accessories (XboxStat.exe,) then restart. Or you could always just use Xpadder or Joy2Key to bind [F9] or whatever to another unused button (like R3.))

Audio (SPU2) >> Plugin Settings: ----Interpolation: 1 - Linear -----------Module: XAudio 2.7 (XAudio seems noticably better quality than DirectSound, Especially when it comes to the sound of the car engines in BO3) Sychronizing Mode: Async Mix (It comes with a warning that it "Breaks some games" but the majority of games I've used it for are fine. Plus using Async makes any potential slowdown barely noticable.)

Things that (may have) helped with performance:

Disabling Cool 'n' Quiet & Turbo Boosts in BIOS: (As mentioned here) [DISCAIMER 2:] *I wouldn't recommend messing around in your BIOS Unless you know what you're doing. I do believe disabling the aforementioned features had a positive effect on PCSX2's performance so I'm going to tell you what I did and how I did it, but I would encourage anyone who's not sure what they're doing to do some research on the subject or at the very least don't change anything if you don't know what it does. When all's said and done you can do whatever you want with your own computer but if you fuck shit up - Thats on you.* The initial plan was to turn these features off in preparation for overclocking. Once I'd turned them off I decided it was about time to actually play a game since I'd been messing around with stuff and reading threads all day. Imagine my shock (not even being sarcastic) when I played Burnout 3 and didn't get one of those annoying little slowdowns that I'd been getting. I was like "This must be what it feels like to get exactly what you want for Christmas." Anyway... First I opened my BIOS by holding down [delete] at startup (It's sometimes a different key like [F8] or something. I think it depends on the manufacturer of your motherboard.) When the BIOS screen came up I selected Cell Menu (I had to use the arrow keys and enter because my mouse doesn't work in BIOS.) I found the two features and one by one pressed enter on each of them and a dropdown appeared allowing me to choose to disable them. I then pressed escape to return to the main menu and selected "Save Settings & Exit."

Unparking Cores: [DISCAIMER 3:] *I wouldn't recommend messing around with core parking. I'm not even convinced unparking my cores had any effect on PCSX2's performance. I'm still going to say a few words about it but I would encourage anyone who's not sure what they're doing to do some reading up on things before they even think of fucking around with shit. You can do whatever you want with your own computer but if you fuck shit up - Again, thats on you.* To see if your cores are parked go to: Task Manager >> Performance >> Resource Monitor. If you don't see the graphical represensation of your core activity on the right of the window click the little circled arrow on the top right corner. If any of your cores are parked it will say so next to the CPU#. There are utilities you can use to unpark cores but it's not recommended The two utilities I know of are called unparkcpu and CoreParkingManager. I wouldn't necessarily recommend taking that route either, but if you want to they're easily Googled I much prefer the regedit method which I found here. If you decide to use the regedit method, Firstly (I probably don't need to say this, but) back shit up before you go changing it; Secondly, If you're having trouble finding the key mentioned in the thread, poster #14 writes out the location. I'll also write some basic instructions: Go to Start menu, Type regedit, click on it when it appears. When it opens go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE >> SYSTEM >> CurrentControlSet >> Control >> Power >> PowerSettings >> 54533251-82be-4824-96c1-47b60b740d00... then click on the folder icon of 0cc5b647-c1df-4637-891a-dec35c318583 and you should see ValueMin and ValueMax in the main window. If you doubleclick on the ValueMax text a little dialogue box should pop up and you can change the value. Changing the value from 64 to 0 will mean the potential percentage of cores that can be parked will be 0%. If the value is already at 0... well done you just wasted a load of time. I'm probably oversimplifying this so I would suggest reading the thread so you can understand things for yourself.

*DON'T FORGET TO BACKUP EVERYTHING BEFORE YOU MAKE ANY CHANGES AND RESTART AFTER MAKING CHANGES OR YOU MAY NOT SEE THE CHANGES TAKE EFFECT, AND SERIOUSLY IF YOU'RE REALLY NOT SURE WHAT YOU'RE DOING... DON'T DO IT.*

[DISCAIMER 4:] *I have nothing to do with the threads I have linked, I just want the credit to go where it is due.*