What would you do to speed up a 3D game?

[duhman]

A few 3D games I play (Dead or Alive, Toshinden) seem to be slow once in a while. Obviously, removing Frame Limit is a bad idea cause that makes the game go overdrive, so there's go to be a better way.

Without going into details about my PC and the plugging I use, what would you do yourself to fix this?

[Paratech]

It would be better if you did discuss your specs, it's hard to determine what your system is capable of doing without a frame of reference.

[duhman]

Originally Posted by Paratech

It would be better if you did discuss your specs, it's hard to determine what your system is capable of doing without a frame of reference.

Reason I didn't want to post my specs was because I know that it won't make a difference. The hardware is more than capable of running PSX emulation, but if you insist, here are the specs of my living room PC.

T-Bird: 1.3 GHz
512 MB SDRAM
WinXP SP2
ATI 9550

[hushypushy]

Are you playing off CD? For best results, I suggest you make an ISO.

[duhman]

Originally Posted by hushypushy

Are you playing off CD? For best results, I suggest you make an ISO.

ISO, I never use the CDs. These are collector's item (mostly Japanese ones) and it's pointless to use them since it's more convenient to load the ISOs.

[hushypushy]

What settings and plugins are you using? Are you using updated drivers for your graphics card?

Clearly, your specs are enough to play the games you want to play. Beyond some sort of thing like old/bad drivers, extra processes running in the background, and the basic troubleshooting steps...I would venture a guess to say that some sort of settings are just off, i.e. offscreen drawing and/or the framebuffer effects are set too high.

Have you tried another emulator?

[duhman]

Originally Posted by hushypushy

What settings and plugins are you using? Are you using updated drivers for your graphics card?

Clearly, your specs are enough to play the games you want to play. Beyond some sort of thing like old/bad drivers, extra processes running in the background, and the basic troubleshooting steps...I would venture a guess to say that some sort of settings are just off, i.e. offscreen drawing and/or the framebuffer effects are set too high.

Have you tried another emulator?

Here's my GPU Settings:

Plugin: Pete's D3D Driver 1.1.75
Author: Pete Bernert
GFX card: RADEON 9550

Resolution/Color:
- 800x600 Fullscreen - [16 Bit]

Textures:
- R8G8A8A8
- Filtering: 5
- Hi-Res textures: 0
- VRam size: 0 MBytes

Framerate:
- FPS limit: on
- Frame skipping: off
- FPS limit: Auto

Compatibility:
- Offscreen drawing: 3
- Framebuffer texture: 1
- Framebuffer access: 0
- Alpha multipass: on
- Mask bit: off
- Advanced blending: hardware

Misc:
- Scanlines: off [0]
- Unfiltered FB: off
- Dithering: off
- Screen smoothing: off
- Full vram: off
- Game fixes: off [00000000]

[hushypushy]

You may want to change filtering to something else. Try the OpenGL plugin.

[duhman]

Originally Posted by hushypushy

You may want to change filtering to something else. Try the OpenGL plugin.

Changing the filtering didn't change anything and neither switching to the OpenGL plugin (which is good because I do not like it).

The slow downs happen only in certain stages, so this it telling me that the backgrounds are responsible. Zack's stage in DOA doesn't give me any problems but Hayabusa's stage does.

This could very well be a limitation of the emulator.

[hushypushy]

Well then, have you tried a different emulator? If you want to keep using HW plugins I'd suggest PSXeven, SSSPSX, or PCSX...your games will be smooth in pSX but it will be software rendered, if you want to go down that path.

[duhman]

Originally Posted by hushypushy

Well then, have you tried a different emulator? If you want to keep using HW plugins I'd suggest PSXeven, SSSPSX, or PCSX...your games will be smooth in pSX but it will be software rendered, if you want to go down that path.

No, I prefer sticking with ePSXe. A friend of mine did a Frontend and for PSX games, it requires the shortcut link files created by ePSXeCutor.

[Shendo]

Try to enable "Use PC FPS Calculation" special game fix.

[duhman]

Originally Posted by Shendo

Try to enable "Use PC FPS Calculation" special game fix.

Nope and I'm still pretty sure that it's because of the 2D background that the slowdowns occur.

[RedLion]

Try to decrease the filtering then.

[hushypushy]

To 0, I'd say.

[duhman]

Originally Posted by RedLion

Try to decrease the filtering then.

Originally Posted by hushypushy

To 0, I'd say.

Already tried that before.

[RedLion]

Are you sure you don't want to try other emulators?

[duhman]

Originally Posted by RedLion

Are you sure you don't want to try other emulators?

Pretty sure. The bad part about console emulation of 32bits and over is that they tend to require different configuration for different games. It's kind of inconvenient to have to change your setting every time. That's where ePSXCutor comes in handy by allowing you to have different settings for different games.

[Shendo]

If that is the only thing that is bothering you then there is nothing to worry about.
There is plenty of frontends for other emulators out there.

I have wrote on too, it's called Emu-Raptor (check the sig)
and supports configs for ePSXe, PCSX, PSXeven and SSSPSX emulators.

[duhman]

Originally Posted by Shendo

If that is the only thing that is bothering you then there is nothing to worry about.
There is plenty of frontends for other emulators out there.

I have wrote on too, it's called Emu-Raptor (check the sig)
and supports configs for ePSXe, PCSX, PSXeven and SSSPSX emulators.

Does it allow to create shortcut desktop links like ePSXeCutor?