Small bouts of slow performance

[siferion]

I have gave up trying to figure this one out myself, but well here it goes.

Occasionally when playing any game on ePSXe, the game will begin to run sluggish, drops from 59fps to 34fps for about 5 to 6 seconds then back to normal. There's absolutely no pattern to when these happen, and as far as I can tell are not a problem with plugins.

My system:
PSU: Thermaltake 500w with case fan adjuster knob (left at max during gaming)
CPU: P4 HT 3.06ghz
Mainboard: PCCHIPS P25G
Memory: 1.5GB Corsair DDR2 400mhz
Video: BFG Geforce 7800GT
Sound: Integrated Realtech AC97
Hard Disk: Seagate 160GB SATA @ 1.5gb/s, Western Digital 80GB PATA
Gamepad: Logitech Dual Action
I hacked the BIOS a tad bit to disable thermal throttling and speedstep since the factory BIOS nor any of it's updates allowed those options to be changed.
Video card is set for Dual View with no forced 3d options, Primary monitor is set at 1600x1200 (connected with DVI-VGA adapter), secondary at 800x600 (the only supported resolution for it, very old).
Think it's to note I had the same problem with my 6800GT before I sent it in for repair and got the 7800GT back in it's place.

The configuration in ePSXe varies, this has happened to me on several games each with their own unique blend of plugins, memory cards, and settings on the plugins. Some games played from CD others from ISO images, makes no difference other than CD games tend to have longer load times at pre-rendered video sequences. Even tried without using the fps limiter, still dips down to 34fps every time.

Graphic plugins used:
Pete's/Peops Direct 3D
Pete's/Peops OpenGL
Pete's/Peops OpenGL2 (sometimes with my own personal shaders loaded)

Sound plugins used:
Eternal SPU
Eternal SPU Lite
Peops Direct Sound

CDR plugins used:
Internal Iso loader
Mooby's CDR
and two others I can't remember off the top of my head

BIOS used:
SCPH1001
and the one from the slim white playstation durings it's first month of sale in the US which I ripped myself

I've had the same problem on the previous version of ePSXe and the newer 1.7 version. Tried forcing the affinity through a couple of methods: task manager, the microsoft tool, and WinLauncherXp; even tried just leaving the affinity alone.

I have all the latest drivers for my system, and the latest version of direct x, though the problems been around through several drivers and direct x versions. Every time I update a driver I make sure to go in and clean up any files left behind after uninstalling the old driver. The system is defragmented once a month via Diskeeper, and I run chkdsk across each partition to ensure there's no errors after defragmentation. Background programs are a sheer minimum with the exception of the software for my Logitech G15 keyboard which is loaded with clock, fraps, task manager, temperature monitor, and echovoice.

The strange part is when the slowdowns happen, CPU usage doesn't change much more than the ordinary fluctuations, same with GPU usage and video memory. Temperatures in the PC stay steady well under the acceptable ranges.

I've tried to keep OllyDbg running on ePSXe while it happens but the log files get to large to fast to really keep it up long enough to capture the slowdowns.

I've tried all the games that did this in pSX and they run fine, but well that emulator looks so ugly without all the advanced features the graphic plugins for ePSXe offer. No pc games suffer from the problem, nor any software on my pc, or even any video players I use.

The games I've had it manifest in:
Final Fantasy 7, 8, 9, Tactics (CDs exept Disc 3 of FF7)
Tales of Destiny 1, 2 (CDs)
Star Ocean 2 (Disk 1 CD, Disk 2 ISO)
Beyond the Beyond (ISO)
Threads of Fate (CD)
Chrono Cross (Disk 1 ISO, Disk 2 CD)
Grandia (CD)
Xenogears (Disk 1 CD, Disk 2 ISO)
Vagrant Story (CD)

The only game I haven't had it manifest in is: Blast Chamber

Star Ocean 2 it tends to happen much more often in than any other game, but there's still no pattern to it, no matter how much or how little is on the screen, still happens at random.

Thanks in advanced if you can shed some light on what's causing this, it's getting annoying.

[KrossX]

Did you try disabling HT from your BIOS? (for testing purposes)

When the sluggishness happens, does any other application increase its CPU/memory usage?

Does this happen with another application, or another task like viewing a DVD movie?

Did you try increasing the process priority of ePSXe a bit? (just a bit, like simply "above normal")

[karas81]

You need first to confirm that its not a BUG withing ePSXe or its plugins, try this plugins, and see what happens, they're ideal stuff (faster&reliable) :

For GPU use : Pete's D3D plugin v1.76 :

http://forums.ngemu.com/attachments/epsxe-discussion/163733d1214621637-need-help-video-metal-gear-solid-mgs_gpu.gif

For Sound : Eternal SPU plugin v1.41 :

http://forums.ngemu.com/attachments/psxeven-discussion/163341d1213998836-psxeven-legend-dragoon-black-screen-eternal_sound-plugin1.41.gif

For CDR plugin use the convenient one for your games.

If the slow down keeps up then check your hardware for errors.

[siferion]

Yeah I've tried disabling HT in the BIOS, made everything run worse without it.
No other applications increase in CPU usage, that was my first thought.
No other applications do this sort of thing, that's including DVD playback.
Have tried increasing the priority, slowly notched it up until it caused stability problems with windows itself.

That sound plugin is the one I use for most of my games, the GPU plugin I use on FF9 with that sound plugin, same results.

I'm 100% certain it's not a plugin issue, as I said in my first post, it happens regardless of plugin configuration.
I'm also certain it isn't a problem with my PC itself, I spend a day of each month doing nothing but maintenance on the PC, even when it's running good, just to make sure no problems arise.

I didn't mention it before but I have two Windows Xp installations I use (each on their own physical drive). One is set up for nothing but developing software (specifically games), while the other is my normal usage. Both installations have different video drivers installed, the software development one is loaded with nvidia's performance analysis drivers, while the normal one is loaded with standard nvidia drivers. The problem manifest on both. The performance analysis drivers don't really pick up anything different going on when the problem occurs, so I don't think it's video related.

[jonc2006]

do you have any overclocking done on any components in your system?

[siferion]

Nope, CPU is plenty fast on it's own, and I'd rather not void the vid card's lifetime warranty.

[emurex]

try this app, called diskeeper Diskeeper - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diskeeper)
you use 20 percent of your hdd space as a fragshield.

for example you got a 80gb hdd, you can use 40 or depend our the maximum swap memory you us, my pc is kinda slow even if I got 1gb like your, your os can use 400mb or more. if it reach 700mb or more your pc will drop in perfomance drop.

you can set your os swap memory usage to use 1gb on your pc but it is best for the swap file to be in another hdd beside your hdd where your os is installed.

[siferion]

Said in my first post I use Diskeeper's full defrag once a month, even use the boot time quick defrag, fragmentation rarely gets very high.

Two of the partitions on my system are swap partitions, the windows install on my SATA drive is for my normal install of windows which has it's page file allocated to a 2gb partition on the PATA drive, and vice versa for the developer install of windows. All non essential services are disabled or set to manual, the registry on both installs has several windows xp optimizations set in it. Most the time the swap memory usage when not running games sits around 304mb.

I even open the pc up every few months to clean out the dust, use a dry soft brush since compressed air usually has moisture build-up in the can.

[jonc2006]

are you absolutely sure that all of the background apps you have running are genuine and not some sort of malware that disguises itself as something important (like one that is needed for your O/S to function correctly) that you would always want to have on?

[siferion]

Well I found the problem. The primary partition on the PIDE drive was damaged, no clue why diskeeper or check disk didn't pick it up. After a reformat of that partition and a reinstall of windows on it, it's working fine.

Noticed it last night when I went to start photoshop and nothing worked except filters, then when I started autodesk it was missing a lot of components, those are two programs I haven't used much lately, no wonder I didn't notice it sooner. Anyway when that happened I didn't want to reinstall them because I use a lot of plugins that have to be installed separate so I ran a deep scan using my old ubcd hoping to repair them but the damage was to bad. It truncated 400mb of disc space before I finally hit reset and popped in the windows disc.

[KrossX]

Eh~ So much for that maintenance of yours ;)

I'm also certain it isn't a problem with my PC itself, I spend a day of each month doing nothing but maintenance on the PC, even when it's running good, just to make sure no problems arise.

Sometimes, it's better to use "if it ain't broken, don't fix it". Anyway, this things happens even if having better tools/knowledge. Then, reinstalling windows might "solve" the issues. Uninstalling it and throwing it away, will surely solve it. =P

I had a similar issue to yours, noticed mostly during DVD playback, but it affected everything.
Issue: Something took 100% CPU usage for 1-2 seconds almost every hour.
Cause: Windows Update thingy, Solution: reinstall and disable updates.

Sometimes (if not most times), it's just windows itself.... that messes up windows.

Also, Windows XP+ uses the Diskeeper lite version... so it's logic that Diskeeper wouldn't detect a thing.

[Squall-Leonhart]

OpenGL + DualView = BAD.
OpenGL doesn't like dual view modes, so either disable dualview, or set multidisplay acceleratino to single display.

also make sure antialiasing is completely disabled.