Well.This IS strange.......

james.miller · March 18th, 2003, 20:06

Ive recently changed my whole system.

i used to have:

athlon1800+ @1.80ghz
512mb ddr @ 150fsb
geforce4 440mx

now i currently have:

celly-T 1.2ghz @ 1.4ghz
320mb sd @118fsb
r9500 w/9800 softmod

to my utter astonishment, my current system is actually BETTER with N64 emulation than my old one was. which is a bonus. But now, PSX emulation is dreadful. i can no-longer play gt2 at full speed, whereas before i was topping 150fps+ with the limiter off.

Does this strike anybody else as a little weird? i have always said that anything above a tnt2 was overkill for PSX and n64 emulation, giving very little additional benifit. But this system i have now, totally contradicts what i (and others) have been saying for months.I cant imagine how fast it would be when i pair my r9500 with a new athlon system.

If only i could get EpsxE to run better.......

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**Kane** · March 18th, 2003, 20:09

Run in a lower rez, like 640x480 and then use FSAA

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Hanamichi · March 18th, 2003, 21:47

I was able to run epsxe on my new rig with a GF2MX at full speed with most settings maxed and without FSAA, but before it ran quite poorly on my P3/500 with the same video card. It would seem to me that epsxe is quite CPU bound.

Why did you change your system anyway? Cooler got off?

Particleman · March 18th, 2003, 21:50

The main factor in determining the performance in emulation is CPU speed. So considering your CPU has gotten slower, you should expect certain things to run slower.

james.miller · March 18th, 2003, 22:12

Quote:

Originally posted by Han
I was able to run epsxe on my new rig with a GF2MX at full speed with most settings maxed and without FSAA, but before it ran quite poorly on my P3/500 with the same video card. It would seem to me that epsxe is quite CPU bound.

Why did you change your system anyway? Cooler got off?

i chipped the core of my athlon. Now i have a keyring

it seems EXTREAMLY odd that PSX emulation is apparently more cpu bound than n64 emulation. i can now run 1964 or PJ64 at 1920x1440 w 4xFSAA with very little drop in performance. yet ePSXe isnt smooth even at 640x480 with no FSAA lol

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Lives for the chase.

March 18th, 2003, 22:29

Quote:

Originally posted by james.miller

i chipped the core of my athlon. Now i have a keyring it seems EXTREAMLY odd that PSX emulation is apparently more cpu bound than n64 emulation. i can now run 1964 or PJ64 at 1920x1440 w 4xFSAA with very little drop in performance. yet ePSXe isnt smooth even at 640x480 with no FSAA lol

Actually its not that strange, Since Nin64 supports many more of video card features.

Nin64 actually had some decent graphical capabilities. While the PSX is basically has no decent Graphical features, thus requiring more CPU to emulate

I remember playing Ultra HLE on my Cyrix M II 300 + Voodoo Banshee and Marion 64 and got very playable frame rates.

Violineb · March 18th, 2003, 22:34

Heh I got the opposite impression. N64 seemed more CPU bound to me before. Now nothing is bound heheh

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Macaijah · March 18th, 2003, 22:45

Don't you mean 9500 with 9700pro softmod? the 9800 uses the new r350 chip which the 9500 does not have. Any radeon 9xxx is many steps above a geforce4 mx to the point of no contest.

Also, It is my experience that n64 emulation is far less cpu bound than psx emulation. i would assume it has something to do with the hle. psx emulation still needs the bios whereas n64 does not... the beauty of hle. (correct me if i'm wrong).

March 18th, 2003, 22:47

heh

9500 card mods into a 9800 Pro. So do 9700 Pro cards.

They really arent 9800 Pros. But they are hacked so they can use the new AA/AF Driver optimisations.

This won't be neccasary when Cat 3.3 comes out. because they will make the 9800 optimised features (bandwith saving tech and AA/AF ect are being thrown into these drivers for the entire r300 series)

Macaijah · March 18th, 2003, 22:50

Even if the drivers say it is a 9800 pro, the hardware and performance says very differently. Again, the chip for all 9500s is the R300, whereas the new r350 is exclusively for the 9800 for now. I can re-do the firmware in all my devices on my system to make windows say whatever it wants, but that means diddly. the hardware is still the same.

james.miller · March 18th, 2003, 22:52

no their not really 9800's. At this moment in time, though, fooling the drivers into thinking its a 9800 DOES improve the performance (until the 3.3's come out).

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Macaijah · March 18th, 2003, 22:55

The reason the performance increases is because of the enabling of the 4 disabled pipelines essentially making it a 9700, then with added overclocking a 9700 pro. I should know, I did this (the hardware soldering way). It is *not* a 9800! Again, the chip on the 9800 is different than the 9500 and 9700... r300 vs r350.

james.miller · March 18th, 2003, 22:59

jesus! i never said it was! the chips may well be different, but so are the drivers! the r350 drivers are optimised. SO why fool them into thinking you have a r350? to use the optimised drivers, thats why. IT DOES INCREASE THE PERFORMANCE!

it inceases the performance over the 9700 softmod (around 10% in my case). can you tell me why?

__________________
Lives for the chase.

Macaijah · March 18th, 2003, 23:04

Oops, I guess I misunderstood where you were coming from. Thought you were debating the hardware aspect of it. My bad :o But where did you get the 9800 drivers? I didn't see them on ati's site. ?

:update:
okay nevermind i found the appropriate links

Violineb · March 19th, 2003, 02:28

Hmm any suggestions about what I shall do with my 9700 non pro? Mod it into something? Also is modding a 9500 the same in pro and non pro? Because somewhere along the forum I remember someone mentioning that Pro versions are locked etc etc.

__________________
PC1: CPU: Pentium 4 3.06 ghz - GeForce 4200 ti - 2x 256MB PC 1066 RDRAM - 120+160GB Western Digital JB
PC2: Abit NF7-S -AMD Athlon XP 1700+- 2x 256MB PC2700 Kingston HyperX BH-5 chips!!!! Western Digital 120GB JB GeForce3
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Particleman · March 19th, 2003, 03:30

ChrisRay is right, the mod isn't really a mod, it's just hacking the drivers to enable some driver optimizations that ATi has been holding back to make the performance delta between the 9800 and 9700 appear bigger. Modifying the driver does not turn your 9500 or 9700 into a 9800, there are some slight differences in the silicon.

That said it doesn't hurt anyone who has a 9500 and up to do it, and the performance optimizations do help.

As for what you can do with your 9700 non-pro, you can do the driver path hack and you can try overclocking, that's about it. Some ATi cards come with their bios locked to prevent overclocking, to overcome this you need to flash to a unlocked bios. I think it's only the 9500 series that have them locked though, not sure.

March 18th, 2003, 20:06	#1
james.miller Mr. Stupendous Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Here, There and Everywhere. Posts: 1,138	Well.This IS strange....... Ive recently changed my whole system. i used to have: athlon1800+ @1.80ghz 512mb ddr @ 150fsb geforce4 440mx now i currently have: celly-T 1.2ghz @ 1.4ghz 320mb sd @118fsb r9500 w/9800 softmod to my utter astonishment, my current system is actually BETTER with N64 emulation than my old one was. which is a bonus. But now, PSX emulation is dreadful. i can no-longer play gt2 at full speed, whereas before i was topping 150fps+ with the limiter off. Does this strike anybody else as a little weird? i have always said that anything above a tnt2 was overkill for PSX and n64 emulation, giving very little additional benifit. But this system i have now, totally contradicts what i (and others) have been saying for months.I cant imagine how fast it would be when i pair my r9500 with a new athlon system. If only i could get EpsxE to run better....... __________________ Lives for the chase.

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March 18th, 2003, 20:09	#2
Kane 邪魔ゎ指せない Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Gosport, England Posts: 26,303	Run in a lower rez, like 640x480 and then use FSAA __________________ >Site Live< Pop over to my site for help with setting up PSX emulators. Help for the Final Fantasies and other RPGs avalaible Celes: (Desktop) Phenom II X4, 4Gb DDR2, GeForce 8800 GTS 320Mb, 32Gb OCZ Vertex SSD, 500Gb RAID HDD, Windows 7 Home Premium Erika: (MCPC) Revo3610, Windows 7 Home Premium Kimiko: (Craptop) HP Mini 210

March 18th, 2003, 21:47	#3
Hanamichi Crotally Tazy Join Date: Jun 2001 Location: Malaysia Posts: 4,580	I was able to run epsxe on my new rig with a GF2MX at full speed with most settings maxed and without FSAA, but before it ran quite poorly on my P3/500 with the same video card. It would seem to me that epsxe is quite CPU bound. Why did you change your system anyway? Cooler got off?

March 18th, 2003, 21:50	#4
Particleman Registered User Join Date: Apr 2001 Posts: 462	The main factor in determining the performance in emulation is CPU speed. So considering your CPU has gotten slower, you should expect certain things to run slower.

March 18th, 2003, 22:34	#7
Violineb Study>Bton/Live>Bmore Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Bloomington, IN/Baltimore MD Posts: 1,353	Heh I got the opposite impression. N64 seemed more CPU bound to me before. Now nothing is bound heheh __________________ PC1: CPU: Pentium 4 3.06 ghz - GeForce 4200 ti - 2x 256MB PC 1066 RDRAM - 120+160GB Western Digital JB PC2: Abit NF7-S -AMD Athlon XP 1700+- 2x 256MB PC2700 Kingston HyperX BH-5 chips!!!! Western Digital 120GB JB GeForce3 Laptop: Sony Vaio VGN-S360 :guitar: 3DFX Voodoo 5500 PCI-Sega Dreamcast May 1999

March 18th, 2003, 22:45	#8
Macaijah \| Join Date: Mar 2002 Posts: 160	Don't you mean 9500 with 9700pro softmod? the 9800 uses the new r350 chip which the 9500 does not have. Any radeon 9xxx is many steps above a geforce4 mx to the point of no contest. Also, It is my experience that n64 emulation is far less cpu bound than psx emulation. i would assume it has something to do with the hle. psx emulation still needs the bios whereas n64 does not... the beauty of hle. (correct me if i'm wrong).

March 18th, 2003, 22:47	#9
ChrisRay Guest Posts: n/a	heh 9500 card mods into a 9800 Pro. So do 9700 Pro cards. They really arent 9800 Pros. But they are hacked so they can use the new AA/AF Driver optimisations. This won't be neccasary when Cat 3.3 comes out. because they will make the 9800 optimised features (bandwith saving tech and AA/AF ect are being thrown into these drivers for the entire r300 series)

March 18th, 2003, 22:50	#10
Macaijah \| Join Date: Mar 2002 Posts: 160	Even if the drivers say it is a 9800 pro, the hardware and performance says very differently. Again, the chip for all 9500s is the R300, whereas the new r350 is exclusively for the 9800 for now. I can re-do the firmware in all my devices on my system to make windows say whatever it wants, but that means diddly. the hardware is still the same.

March 18th, 2003, 22:52	#11
james.miller Mr. Stupendous Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Here, There and Everywhere. Posts: 1,138	no their not really 9800's. At this moment in time, though, fooling the drivers into thinking its a 9800 DOES improve the performance (until the 3.3's come out). __________________ Lives for the chase.

March 18th, 2003, 22:55	#12
Macaijah \| Join Date: Mar 2002 Posts: 160	The reason the performance increases is because of the enabling of the 4 disabled pipelines essentially making it a 9700, then with added overclocking a 9700 pro. I should know, I did this (the hardware soldering way). It is not a 9800! Again, the chip on the 9800 is different than the 9500 and 9700... r300 vs r350.

March 18th, 2003, 22:59	#13
james.miller Mr. Stupendous Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Here, There and Everywhere. Posts: 1,138	jesus! i never said it was! the chips may well be different, but so are the drivers! the r350 drivers are optimised. SO why fool them into thinking you have a r350? to use the optimised drivers, thats why. IT DOES INCREASE THE PERFORMANCE! it inceases the performance over the 9700 softmod (around 10% in my case). can you tell me why? __________________ Lives for the chase.

March 18th, 2003, 23:04	#14
Macaijah \| Join Date: Mar 2002 Posts: 160	Oops, I guess I misunderstood where you were coming from. Thought you were debating the hardware aspect of it. My bad :o But where did you get the 9800 drivers? I didn't see them on ati's site. ? :update: okay nevermind i found the appropriate links

March 19th, 2003, 02:28	#15
Violineb Study>Bton/Live>Bmore Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Bloomington, IN/Baltimore MD Posts: 1,353	Hmm any suggestions about what I shall do with my 9700 non pro? Mod it into something? Also is modding a 9500 the same in pro and non pro? Because somewhere along the forum I remember someone mentioning that Pro versions are locked etc etc. __________________ PC1: CPU: Pentium 4 3.06 ghz - GeForce 4200 ti - 2x 256MB PC 1066 RDRAM - 120+160GB Western Digital JB PC2: Abit NF7-S -AMD Athlon XP 1700+- 2x 256MB PC2700 Kingston HyperX BH-5 chips!!!! Western Digital 120GB JB GeForce3 Laptop: Sony Vaio VGN-S360 :guitar: 3DFX Voodoo 5500 PCI-Sega Dreamcast May 1999

March 19th, 2003, 03:30	#16
Particleman Registered User Join Date: Apr 2001 Posts: 462	ChrisRay is right, the mod isn't really a mod, it's just hacking the drivers to enable some driver optimizations that ATi has been holding back to make the performance delta between the 9800 and 9700 appear bigger. Modifying the driver does not turn your 9500 or 9700 into a 9800, there are some slight differences in the silicon. That said it doesn't hurt anyone who has a 9500 and up to do it, and the performance optimizations do help. As for what you can do with your 9700 non-pro, you can do the driver path hack and you can try overclocking, that's about it. Some ATi cards come with their bios locked to prevent overclocking, to overcome this you need to flash to a unlocked bios. I think it's only the 9500 series that have them locked though, not sure.