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Setting up Windows version: Difference between revisions

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Revision as of 19:15, 4 February 2015

93 bytes removed ,  4 February 2015
→‎Speed Hacks
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==Speed Hacks==
==Speed Hacks==
Speed hacks are various techniques used to speed up emulation at the cost of emulating accuracy. All of these options '''can cause severe bugs, crashes and other abnormal behavior''' so use them with caution! Some games may benefit from these settings immensely while others can be slowed down or broken. Read the on-screen hints and messages to get more information (especially if you're new to this) they will help you not to break anything.<br />
Speed hacks are various techniques used to speed up emulation at the cost of emulating accuracy. All of these options '''can cause severe bugs, crashes and other abnormal behavior''' so use them with caution! Some games may benefit from these settings immensely while others can be slowed down or broken. Read the on-screen hints and messages to get more information (especially if you're new to this) they will help you not to break anything.<br />
If your system is powerful enough to emulate your game ''you do not need to enable anything here'' because none of these options can improve compatibility.
If your system is powerful enough to emulate your game in full speed ''you do not need to enable anything here'' because none of these options can improve compatibility.
[[image:Speedhacks.png|300px|thumb|right]]
[[image:Speedhacks.png|300px|thumb|right]]


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#''Slider Level 3'': Reduces the EE cycle rate by 50%. Big speed increase for some games and moderate compatibility hit. ''This setting can also cause stuttering audio in game videos''.
#''Slider Level 3'': Reduces the EE cycle rate by 50%. Big speed increase for some games and moderate compatibility hit. ''This setting can also cause stuttering audio in game videos''.


*''VU Cycle Stealing'': This hack specifies the number of cycles the ''[[#VUs|Vector Units]]'' steal from the ''[[#EE/IOP|Emotion Engine]]''. This option is somewhat resembling the previous although the donated CPU power will go directly to two VUs (not ''[[#GS|GS]]'' emulation or other PCSX2 needs). As ''VUs'' tend to need more power than ''EE'' in many PS2 games this hack will exploit this fact by overclocking VUs in the cost of reducing EE clock speed. Please note that it can cause false FPS readings (especially in higher values), screen flashing, slowdowns and possibly more serious bugs for some games!
*''VU Cycle Stealing'': This hack specifies the number of cycles the ''[[#VUs|Vector Units]]'' steal from the ''[[#EE/IOP|Emotion Engine]]''. This option is somewhat resembling the previous although the donated CPU power will go directly to two VUs (not ''[[#GS|GS]]'' emulation or other PCSX2 needs). As ''VUs'' tend to need more power than ''EE'', the hack will exploit this fact by overclocking VUs in the cost of reducing EE clock speed. Please note that it can cause false FPS readings (especially in higher values), screen flashing, slowdowns and possibly more serious bugs for some games! Using the slider control you can select up to four levels of VU stealing starting with level 0 (no VU stealing) to level 3 (severely incompatible option that will cause flickering, slowdowns and graphical bugs for the majority of games). Level 1 is fairly compatible while level 2 is selectively compatible and should be used with a caution.
 
 


*''Other Hacks''
**''Enable INTC Spin detection'': This hack exploits the vsync technique used by some (mostly 2D) games. Vsync signal will be set immediately skipping the games' waiting cycle. The hack is set by default and is very compatible.
**''Enable Wait Loop detection'': PCSX2 will detect some idle cycles with this hack enabled. Some games used those cycles for various reasons (from synchronization to slowing down if the real PS2 speed was too high). If detected the cycle than will execute only once reducing the waiting time and moderately increasing emulation speed in game games. The hack is set by default and is very compatible.
**''Enable fast CDVD'': Reduces loading times by setting a faster disc access mode. Check the '''HDLoader''' [http://pcsx2.net/compatibility-list.html compatibility list] for games that will '''NOT''' work with this (usually marked as needing mode 1 or slow DVD). Not recommended since it can break many games.
*''microVU Hacks'': These hacks are only applied when microVU is selected as the VUs recompiler. If superVU is selected, these hacks does not apply.
**''mVU Flag Hack'': This hack will skip some VUs flag updates by detecting the program blocks that will not read VUs flags, saving CPU time. SuperVU recompiler is said to have this hack built-in by default. The hack is set by default and is very compatible (but still may cause bad graphics in case the detection algorithm fails).
**''MTVU (Multi-Threaded microVU1)'': This option will isolate [[#VUs|VU1]] emulation to a separate CPU thread, making it a huge speed up for CPUs with 3 or more cores. The option is highly compatible (except for some possible synchronization errors or timing issues that may cause problems in a handful of games). If you have a dual core CPU you may still want to try this option (there are some reports of speed increase even on these CPUs).


#''Slider Level 0'': This is not a hack, this will disable VU Cycle Stealing.
*''Restore defaults'': Click this to restore all settings to their default values.
#''Slider Level 1'': Small speed increase, small compatibility hit.
#''Slider Level 2'': Big speed increase, moderate compatibility hit.
#''Slider Level 3'': Small speed increase compared to level 2, huge compatibility hit. This level will not work properly for the majority of games causing flickering, slowdowns and graphical bugs while offering a marginal speed increase over level 2 when it works. Not recommended except for very few specific games that work well with it.
*''Other Hacks'': Various hacks with different usability.
**''Enable INTC Spin detection'': This hack takes a shortcut in a known situation PS2 games do when they idle, check the tooltip for a detailed explanation. Instead of doing the idle loop it just jumps to its end and continues from there. Can give big speed boosts but only in a few games. Very safe hack with almost no compatibility hit, '''recommended'''.
**''Enable Wait Loop detection'': Similar method to the above, check the tooltip for a detailed explanation. Moderate speed up with no known compatibility hit, '''recommended'''.
**''Enable fast CDVD'': Reduces loading times by setting a faster disc access mode. Check the '''HDLoader''' [http://pcsx2.net/compatibility-list.html compatibility list] for games that will '''NOT''' work with this (usually marked as needing mode 1 or slow DVD). Not recommended since it can break many games.
**''microVU Hacks'': These hacks are only applied when microVU is selected as the recompiler in the VU tab of Emulation settings. If superVU is selected, these hacks do nothing.
***''mVU Flag Hack'': Check the tooltip for a detailed description about how this works. Moderate speed increase with very high compatibility, '''recommended'''.
***''MTVU (Multi-Threaded microVU1)'': Check this to use a third core for emulating the ''VU1'' unit of the PS2. This speed hack provides a '''large''' speed boost for processors''' with 3 cores or more''', while having extremely high compatibility (causes problems only in a handful of games). Note that some games might not get a good speed increase (depends how much they use the VU1 unit). There are also reports of speed boosts even on dual core processors.
*''Restore defaults'': Click this to restore all settings to their default values (which actually disables all hacks in this tab).


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