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Emulator Issues #12920

open

Densha de GO! Shinkansen EX: Gameplay drops to really slow frame rate

Added by tylau0 over 2 years ago. Updated about 2 years ago.

Status:
Questionable
Priority:
Normal
Assignee:
-
% Done:

0%

Operating system:
N/A
Issue type:
Bug
Milestone:
Regression:
No
Relates to usability:
No
Relates to performance:
Yes
Easy:
No
Relates to maintainability:
No
Regression start:
Fixed in:

Description

Game Name?

Let's go by train Shinkansen EX

Game ID? (right click the game in the game list, Properties, Info tab)

RG4JC0 (000100005247344a)

MD5 Hash? (right click the game in the game list, Properties, Verify tab, Verify Integrity button)

c484dc988a292c156ac90dabe225fcb8

What's the problem? Describe what went wrong.

The gameplay drops to too slow a frame rate (from normal 60fps to 30fps or even lower) to affect gaming experience in some train driving scenarios.

What steps will reproduce the problem?

It could be reproduced by getting into the game, select "Driving Mode" and then "route 05 - 100 kodama" under the default "digest - introduction" category. Once you are in the train driving mode, you will see the frame rate drops to 30fps and essentially the game runs half of the normal speed.

Here is a video showing how the problem could be reproduced using some other step: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybTmS1WRGd4]]

Is the issue present in the latest development version? For future reference, please also write down the version number of the latest development version.

Yes. It appears in the latest development version dolphin-master-5.0-16443-x64.

Is the issue present in the latest stable version?

Yes. It appears in the latest stable version 5.0.
There is a report online saying that Dolphin stable version 3.5 doesn't have such an issue. See the comment at [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybTmS1WRGd4&lc=Ugy8PI6cKO3NW2i8k7t4AaABAg.9Huiwexscyv9Iyb9c4zErV]]. I couldn't get the game started on my laptop with that 3.5 version (graphic driver issue - probably due to that my graphic card is too new for this old version to support) so I couldn't verify it myself. I did try stable version 4.0 and it has the issue.

If the issue isn't present in the latest stable version, which is the first broken version? (You can find the first broken version by bisecting. Windows users can use the tool https://forums.dolphin-emu.org/Thread-green-notice-development-thread-unofficial-dolphin-bisection-tool-for-finding-broken-builds and anyone who is building Dolphin on their own can use git bisect.)

N/A

If your issue is a graphical issue, please attach screenshots and record a three frame fifolog of the issue if possible. Screenshots showing what it is supposed to look like from either console or older builds of Dolphin will help too. For more information on how to use the fifoplayer, please check here: https://wiki.dolphin-emu.org/index.php?title=FifoPlayer

N/A

What are your PC specifications? (CPU, GPU, Operating System, more)

Model: MSI GF65 Thin 9SEXR
CPU: Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-9300H CPU @ 2.40GHz, 2401 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 8 Logical Processor(s)
GPU: Nvidia GeForce RTX2060
OS: Windows 11

Is there anything else that can help developers narrow down the issue? (e.g. logs, screenshots,
configuration files, savefiles, savestates)

I have tried both Direct3D and Vulkan and see the same issue.
Some people believe that the problem could be resolved by allowing constant bit rate. See https://forums.dolphin-emu.org/Thread-densha-de-go-ex-dolphin-master-5-0-12330-x64?highlight=densha.


Files

電車でGO.dff.xz (996 KB) 電車でGO.dff.xz TellowKrinkle, 07/15/2022 08:38 AM
Actions #1

Updated by JosJuice over 2 years ago

  • Relates to performance changed from No to Yes
Actions #2

Updated by TellowKrinkle over 2 years ago

The game alternates between rendering with depth write on and off, requiring a pipeline swap every time

In addition, the game uses 27MB of uniforms per frame, which isn't enough for the 32MB uniform buffer to process the next frame while the previous one is rendering. Increasing it to 64MB improves performance by a lot.

Actions #3

Updated by JMC4789 about 2 years ago

  • Status changed from New to Questionable

This is an incredibly demanding game, but it's no longer ridiculously demanding. It just hits full speed most of the time on my 5950x on single core. Should this still be considered for an issue report?

Actions #4

Updated by tylau0 about 2 years ago

JMC4789 wrote:

This is an incredibly demanding game, but it's no longer ridiculously demanding. It just hits full speed most of the time on my 5950x on single core. Should this still be considered for an issue report?

According to TellowKrinkle, it appears that one could raise some buffer to improve the performance without relying on powerful CPU. Could we consider implementing an option to allow the buffer to increase?

Actions #5

Updated by JMC4789 about 2 years ago

We have merged that change in order to improve performance in the latest development builds - please try them :)

Actions #6

Updated by tylau0 about 2 years ago

JMC4789 wrote:

We have merged that change in order to improve performance in the latest development builds - please try them :)

I just try. I do see an improvement of 10fps with the latest builds 17724 and 17725 in the reproducer I mentioned in the ticket. That's pretty cool! Thanks.

May I know which particular merge has the fix? And is there any room for further improvement? Thanks.

Actions #7

Updated by tylau0 about 2 years ago

I just find that if I set CPUThread = True instead of False, I could get another 10fps gain.
https://github.com/dolphin-emu/dolphin/blob/master/Data/Sys/GameSettings/RG4.ini

Actions #8

Updated by TellowKrinkle about 2 years ago

Indeed, however according to https://bugs.dolphin-emu.org/issues/7104 that causes render distance issues

Actions #9

Updated by JosJuice about 2 years ago

May I know which particular merge has the fix?

It was 5.0-17627: https://dolphin-emu.org/download/dev/9222956acdfb6a0526b6fdada4aeaa936de9fcd1/

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