Possible NVIDIA PCSX2 bug - NVIDIA owners please look here

[RPGW1ZaRD]

If some feel like testing this one out I'd appriciate it.

Explanation: I noticed not that long ago that I got noticably worse performance than normal in several games in PCSX2 than what I was used to. Kingdom Hearts 1 opening video ran only at ~35 FPS as opposed to 105~120 FPS I remember getting earlier and also Final Fantasy XII when it had reached ingame the speed was even 50% slower, I usually get 51 FPS where the game starts off and now it was only ~25 FPS. Then after a lot of ruling out which would have caused it I finally figured out where the problem lies. It started with that I happened to go fullscreen and then go back to window mode while running the KH1 opening at the slow 35 FPS and then to my suprise it started running at the 105~120 fps rate I know I had gotten before. Then I tried doing same in FF12 but in FF12 I had to go even fullscreen and back to window mode twice before FPS rate went from 25 to 51 fps. So this made me suspicious about NVIDIA drivers and after lots of different drivers tested I finally found one that ran all the games at "normal" speeds and the difference between these drivers were that this one was using the old control panel. So then I tried another old driver with the old control panel and yes it was still fine and then I tried swapping back to a newer driver version that has got the new NVIDIA control panel and yes the speed became worse again in at least these 2 games (I didn't try that many games but I can say it didn't affect all games). So to get normal speed I had to do the fullscreen + window mode swapping again. And I enabled "Show Kernel Times" in task manager and checked the red graph in performance tab which is supposed to reveal graphics card load AFAIK. To my suprise the red graph clearly decreased to lower level after doing the fullscreen + back to window mode swap when speed became faster. So for some reason it seems with the NVIDIA drivers with the new control panel it puts some excess load on the gfx card in some games unless doing that fullscreen + window mode swap.

I don't know if this is only a problem for me or if others also have the same problem. So if you got an NVIDIA card that is a non 8800 series card (these are probably too powerful to see the difference anyways) then I would appriciate if you would be able to try this out if u suspect the speed is lower than it should be in some games or better yet if you happen to have either one of these games, Kingdom Hearts or Final Fantasy XII. Possibly only users with dual core CPUs running in MTGS and dual core mode may be effected by this bug too so single core users might not be affected, that I can't answer on really.

v94.20 and v86.63 (<- this driver is acutally from January this year despite it's old version number) for example are drivers I've now reverted back to which uses the old control panel and provides normal speeds. v94.24 is using the new control panel and AFAIK most if not all v1xx.xx are using the new control panel. I've tested 94.24, 162.01 and 162.18 for example which has the new control panel and they all suffered from the unusually low FPS rates in these games unless doing the fullscreen + window mode swapping.

EDIT: To avoid confusion this issue hasn't got to do with the new control panel, I later on discovered the problem lies in changes made to nv4_mini.sys file, I repeat it's not due to the new control panel.

EDIT2: Final solution discovered!

Drivers starting 163.44 had the issue fixed but I recommend grabbing 163.67, 163.69 or 163.71 for slight performance increase and for GF8 owners the texture managment issue looks to be gone:

163.71 Windows XP/2000 32-bit

163.71 Windows Server 2003 x64 Edition/Windows XP Professional x64 Edition

163.71 Windows Vista 32-bit

163.71 Windows Vista 64-bit

Tweaked Mobile XTreme-G 163.67 drivers available at:

http://tweakforce.com/

[CheatMaster]

Yes I had this problem too with the drivers that have the new style of control panel.I just update my drivers and one day I run PCSX2 and notice that the speed is half than the speed I have before(I try KH1).So I start to search what cost this and the only thing that I do from before when the emu runs at normal speed(for me) was that I update my drivers from 81.95 to 94.24.So I downgrate my driver and everything was back to normal

KH1 movies:
with 81.95 was 45-60
with 94.24 was 20-25

I didn't try full screen but the problem was the newest drivers

[RPGW1ZaRD]

Ahh good, so it's not only me then, well seems like the latest drivers that are working ok and I personally recommend are either Forceware v93.71 (official driver release from November 2nd 2006) or the modified laptop driver v86.63 from January 2007 which can be found with modified .inf file or v94.20 released on March 8th 2007.

However I might try and narrow down what's causing these newer drivers to give this slow performance in PCSX2 by comparing registry settings between 94.20 and 94.24 for example. Oh well it's getting late here now so I'll try that tomorrow but thanks for your reply, it confirmed it's not only a problem for me but any1 probably owning a Geforce7 or 6 series card or older.

[CheatMaster]

I think is something about the refresh rate or something more is working on those new drivers.I can't explain it but when I use the new drivers...something is not right even if I don't use PCSX2

[RPGW1ZaRD]

Unfortunately it doesn't seem like modifying registry settings alone will help.

If any1 has any ideas just post them here.

[refraction]

install 94.20 (which were fast) take note of the file dates and sizes (or crc's if you wish) then install 94.24 and compare your notes with the new files, then try replacing each of the files one by one, starting with D3D (if that one changed)

[RPGW1ZaRD]

Well I'm pretty sure the only file that would make a difference would be the nv4_disp.dll file itself but this is the main file anyways so I guess using a old nv4_disp.dll file with a newer driver might cause probs or if it works fine then I wouldn't see the changes made in the newer releases. xD

list of important files that are used in nvidia drivers

nv4_mini.sys = 1
nvcod.dll = 1
nvsvc32.exe = 1
nv4_disp.dll = 1
nvhwvid.dll = 1
nvoglnt.dll = 1
nvcpl.dll = 1
nvmctray.dll = 1
nvcpl.hlp = 1
nvwddi.dll = 1
nvnt4cpl.dll = 1
nvwcplen.hlp = 1
nvmccs.dll = 1
nvdisps.dll = 1
nvdispsr.dll = 1
nvgames.dll = 1
nvgamesr.dll = 1
nvmccss.dll = 1
nvmccssr.dll = 1
nvmobls.dll = 1
nvmoblsr.dll = 1
nvvitvs.dll = 1
nvvitvsr.dll = 1
nvwss.dll = 1
nvwssr.dll = 1
nvapi.dll = 1

To me without even have tried it out I'd say only that file would make any difference, the others doesn't seem to relate to d3d and such and I know nv4_disp.dll are used with directx based games so. Well it could be worth a try I guess but the thing is what benefit would it give me using 94.20 nv4_disp.dll file with v162.18 driver release for example?

[UwoCheerJason]

are there 94.20 drivers for windows vista 64bit, i am having same problem as you guys with slower framerate with newer drivers

[RPGW1ZaRD]

v97.46 is one driver I'm pretty sure hasn't got the changes yet and comes both in Vista 64 and 32bit version. But I can't say which one is the last Vista driver that works correctly in PCSX2. But it has to be a driver with earlier release date than May 31, 2007 at the very least.

EDIT: v97.46 is rather old from like early January though so I'm sure there's newer out there that would also work. The 9x.xx Vista drivers didn't use same version numbers so you won't find any of those I meantioned above as Vista drivers. Only judging by release dates, the newest one with Vista x64 support that might still work fine in PCSX2 might be v101.09 as it's released on April 22th which is still earlier than 94.24 that is released on May 31st.

[NexXxus]

i also had this problem with newer drivers, but 93.71 is just fine.

[Hackers89cool]

ok.ok shut this ... just using ati cards..no problem like u talking about

[RPGW1ZaRD]

Yesterday I found out the problem lies in nv4_mini.sys file so if you want to use a later driver and still get normal speeds then overwrite the newer driver's nv4_mini.sy_ file with the file from v94.20, 93.71 or whatever before installing the driver and it should work. At least it does for me.

EDIT: OK it seems you can't mix this file up with all drivers, I can't get 3D acceleration and colors above 4 bit to work on v162.18. For it to work with this driver you'll also need to copy nv4_displ.dll and nv4_disp.inf from the older drivers and when it asks during setup to locate some dll files, browse to the 94.20 folder or 93.71 or whatever older driver you're using for those files in case you want nvidia control panel, but I've tested without installing them and it worked fine nonetheless as I prefer using Rivatuner to change the settings anyways. But this kind of makes this useless as you won't get the D3D settings changes made by NVIDIA in the later driver then so you might as well install the old driver then. But v94.24 driver for example works fine if you only replace nv4_mini.sys file.

Since this isn't a plugin specific problem like I initially thought and it's quite a major issue I'm moving it to PCSX2 forums.

[refraction]

Originally Posted by Hackers89cool

ok.ok shut this ... just using ati cards..no problem like u talking about

well that was a useful contribution to this thread. keep that up and you will find yourself recieving warnings.

[RPGW1ZaRD]

If any1 would be able to solve this problem how to use the newer drivers without having to swap from window mode to fullscreen back to window mode a couple of times to get full speed or a workaround for it not having to replace the display driver file itself (nv4_disp.dll) I'd be happy.

Hmm I wonder if this has any relation to the "8800 alt+tab bug".

[sparood15]

how can i solve this problem i got a 8800 gts and have amd 5200 + dual core :S

[RPGW1ZaRD]

Originally Posted by sparood15

how can i solve this problem i got a 8800 gts and have amd 5200 + dual core :S

I'm not even sure yet if it affects Geforce8 users or not. But if you want you can try that out. What games have you got that you are able to test? Honestly I have no ideas exactly which games are affected but it's not all games. RE4 for example despite being a very GPU depending game, it still wasn't affected by this bug it seems.

However if you suspect the game runs slower than normal (compare how your other games runs like) you can try and do the from window mode to fullscreen and back to window mode swapping to see if you get more FPS or not, if you get more FPS then it means you're affected by it and going back to an older driver would fix this. But for Geforce8 owners it's a bit trickier as I'm not sure if they work correctly with older drivers like 94.20. But it may well be the difference in the architecture how the cards are built like, that could possibly not cause this bug on these cards.

However NVIDA is working on a 8800 series texture management bug. Some users have found out that in some PC games, by alt+tab'ing and going back to the game again, provides a HUGE FPS increase and hopefully this is also related to the problem I'm experiencing in PCSX2 with the newer drivers. It sounds plausible at least.

[emwearz]

I'm currently using 94.24 and have the fullscreen bug. Never mentioned it (other than to ref once when comparing RE4 speeds) because I thought it was something shifty with my rig. I have started searching around to find a soloution but with no luck at the moment.

[RPGW1ZaRD]

Ahh well perhaps it affected RE4 after all... haven't really done a accurate testing on that since I would get cpu limited using 256 colors mode.

[NexXxus]

Originally Posted by emwearz

I'm currently using 94.24 and have the fullscreen bug. Never mentioned it (other than to ref once when comparing RE4 speeds) because I thought it was something shifty with my rig. I have started searching around to find a soloution but with no luck at the moment.

I didn't find a solution for this.
downgrade to 93.71 was the only possible solution