PPSSPP: Preliminary report on games with Multithreaded enabled. (a.k.a the return of GE Timing issues with MT on)

[solarmystic]

I haven't seen a catch-all issue report opened yet to discuss the effects of enabling the brand new and experimental Multithreaded (MT) function implemented by @unknownbrackets, so I've decided to take the initiative and report my findings here.

This issue report can be used by others to share their own reports about their own games with MT enabled too.

All settings used are default, with the exception of enabling the Multithreading option, 3x Rendering Resolution and the Speed/VPS display (modified to display actual VPS numbers)

UPDATE:-

In case scrolling through raw data and screenshots are a hassle, here're the results tabulated without the fluff. (updated to reflect the latest [Unknown] fix https://github.com/hrydgard/ppsspp/issues/3127):-

Raw data used to make table:-

Monhun Freedom Unite:-

Internal FPS during FMVs drops ridiculously.(to as low as 9-10FPS)

Internal FPS during gameplay drops from 30 to 20

Monhun 3rd Portable HD:- just hangs after the CAPCOM title screen. Unplayable with MT on.

Tekken 5 DR:- Internal FPS drops from 60 to 20 FPS during gameplay.

Tekken 6 :- Internal FPS drops from 60 to 20 during FMVs and gameplay.

FF VII Crisis Core:-

Playable, and FMVs function at the right speed.. Seems to be one of the few without any issues with MT enabled. Turbo can be enabled without any issues.

Gundam v Gundam Next Plus:-

Internal FPS slowdown during FMVs and title screens from 60 to a ridiculous number (similar symptoms to MHFU)

Internal FPS drops from 60 to 20 FPS.

DO NOT turbo this game in MT mode, it will hang.

The 3rd Birthday:-

Playable as it was before. No regressions, FMVs and gameplay internal FPS are sustained at 30.

As an added bonus, the flickering elements of the HUD and dialog are now fixed(?) when MT is turned on, although there seems to be an added graphical filter applied to the image with MT on.

MT OFF:-

MT ON:-

Final Fantasy Type 0:- Playable just like before, but with a strange white filter at the extremities of the screen.

MT OFF:-

MT ON:-

(I seem to be noticing a trend here)

Danganronpa:-

Internal FPS at the main menu drops below 60 to a variable number (50-60)

Actual gameplay is unaffected, and using Read Framebuffers to Memory to enable object detection for Investigation mode works as expected. Internal FPS during gameplay remains steady at 30 FPS.

Gods Eater Burst:-

Internal FPS during title screens plummets to below 30. Intro FMV Playback is also slowed down to 20 FPS at times.

Internal FPS during gameplay drops from 30 to 20 FPS.

Legends of Heroes Trails in the Sky:-

Title Screen FPS drops from 30 FPS to 0 FPS (!)

Game effectively hangs after, since you can't select any of the options.

If you're fast enough, you can skip the title screens and load your savegame, but then realise that the ingame internal FPS has dropped from 30 FPS to 17-20 FPS.

Weirdest thing is that the music seems to be playing smoothly as usual with the lower internal FPS.

Ys Seven:- Title screen slowdown from 30 to 20 FPS. Internal FPS during Gameplay drops from 30 to 17-20 FPS.

Black Rock Shooter:- Title screen and gameplay FPS drops from 30 to 20 FPS.

Hatsune Miku Project Diva 2nd:-

Severe internal FPS slowdown during the main menu featuring your character from 30 FPS to 13 FPS. Eventually drops to 0 VPS if left without input (or turboing), so the game effectively hangs after a short while.

If you somehow manage to get through and play a song, notice that the internal FPS during gameplay has also dropped from 30 to sub 20 FPS, rendering this highly timing sensitive game unplayable.

Tactics Ogre:- Fluctuating internal FPS in the title screens from 60 FPS to the 50s. Internal FPS at the world map drops from 60 FPS to 30 FPS. Internal FPS during gameplay drops from 60 FPS to 30 FPS.

Soul Calibur:- Probably one of the few native 60 FPS game I tested which managed to retain almost 60 FPS in all aspects with MT ON; FMVs, title screens and gameplay. No regressions here.

Persona 3 Portable:- Internal FPS slowdown during gameplay from 30 FPS to 20 FPS outside and inside Tartarus.

Untold Legends Brotherhood of the Blade:- Internal FPS during gameplay reduced from 60 FPS to 30 FPS.

MT ON:-

MT OFF:-

Kingdom Hearts BBS:- Another rarity. The internal FPS holds steady at 30 FPS during gameplay, title screens and the FMV cutscenes. Using the cheatcode to increase the internal FPS to 60 does not work anymore during gameplay however, and the FPS just holds steady at 30 FPS.

FF 1:- The Opening FMV does not play back smoothly, and looks like its running in slow motion. Internal FPS has lowered from 60 to the 30s.

Internal FPS during gameplay has also dropped from 60 to the upper 40s/lower 50s. One thing to note is that BGM playback is unaffected by the internal FPS drops.

FF 2:- FMV playback is unaffected. Internal FPS during gameplay drops from 60 to 30 FPS however.

FF 3:- FMV playback is unaffected and holds steady at 30 internal FPS. Internal FPS during gameplay holds steady at 30 FPS, as it was before.

Conclusion:-

It seems to me that a vast majority of the 60 FPS games, and a big number the 30 FPS games I tested have GE Timing issues again once Mutlthreaded is enabled. A minority of them do not however, but those are the exceptions.

The only 60 FPS game that does not have GE Timing issues again from my list is Soul Calibur.

Feel free to add any other games which haven't been covered by this list.

[VIRGINKLM]

Android : HTC EVO 3D MSM8260 1.5GHz Adreno 220 320MHz - ICS 4.0.3

PPSSPP v0.8.1 r1283 Tekken 6 - MT ON: 12% - 60FPS MT OFF: 13% - 60FPS Tekken Dark Resurrection - MT ON: 28% - 60FPS MT OFF: 30% - 60FPS Where Is My Heart? - MT ON: 57% - 53FPS MT OFF: 37% - 53FPS Ultimate Ghosts n Goblins - MT ON: 102% - 52FPS MT OFF: 98% - 52FPS Patapon - MT ON: 189% - 52FPS MT OFF: 225% - 52FPS

All experienced some screen flashing and all seemed to not refresh the screen while you are on Turbo Mode (the last frame would remain onscreen). Also Ultimate Ghosts n Goblins has some graphical garbage here and there with MT ON.

[vsub]

Single code P4 2.8GHz with Hyper Treading:

0.8.1-1372 x86 Gods Eater Burst - 30fps everywhere with and without MT. Legends of Heroes Trails in the Sky - 30fps everywhere with and without MT and the game work fine YS 7 - Same as above Project Diva Extended - flickers on a lot more places with MT enabled in non buffered mode and the fps is between 20 - 25 and sometimes freeze...work fine with MT off Persona 3 - Work fine...30fps everywhere

I think all games are getting +30% to the Speed: percentage counter.

[hrydgard]

On a hyperthreaded P4, a 30% speed boost is pretty damn good actually.

I'm seeing bigger speed boosts in some games but I have an Ivy Bridge so it's a little different :)

[solarmystic]

The distinction has to be made between % Speed boosts from the Speed % indicator, or the actual % increase in the VPS numbers.

I'll give an example.

For Danganronpa, in build 0.8.1-1395 x64

MT OFF :- 390 VPS (650% Speed) MT ON :- 478 VPS (~797% Speed)

If you consider the VPS % increase from 390 to 478, that's only a 22.5% increase in actual terms.

However, if you consider the +% to the speed counter itself from 650% to 797% Speed, that's an increase of 147% Speed.

Thus, it is vital when reporting increase percentages to indicate whether you're considering actual VPS numbers or the Speed percentage increases.

[vsub]

What I mean was for example if I get 250% and I enable MT,I'll get 280%

...it's really better to have vps numbers than percentage,it's much more informative Currently(0.8.1-1397)to set a correct speed limit(for example +50% the normal speed),you have to divide the game internal speed by 2 so if the internal is 20,you must set the limiter to 30 to make it run at 150%

[solarmystic]

@vsub

Ah okay then.

About the the speed limiter issue, an issue report has already been opened on the github by @ShadowLady https://github.com/hrydgard/ppsspp/issues/3145

[unknownbrackets]

Ah, so that's a 12% boost. I also thought 30% was too good to be true on a hyperthreaded P4.

-[Unknown]

[vsub]

Can we consider this a bug? You can enable\disable MT while ingame from the screen menus which lead to weird FPS rates

Start a game with MT enabled and then disable it from the screen menus. On Fate Unlimited Codes,when I disable it like that,the FPS goes below 20 and is constantly changing to different number

[hrydgard]

Yeah I need to fix that. It shouldn't be possible.

[thedax]

Kingdom Hearts BBS: Final Mix seems to hang during one of the beginning in-game sequences where you wake up after having that dream when MT is on. While it's off, it has no issues, in -1686-g9e53f2a. I'm unsure at this very moment if it has worked thus far with MT. I'll check shortly.

Edit: I went back to -1269-g7ba54b5 and it doesn't work there, either. It's probably safe to say it's never worked correctly with MT on.

[prateem]

Can confirm that BBS: Final Mix shows hangs with MT on, and works perfectly fine with MT off. Several cutscenes in the game actually trigger the MT failing (the cutscene of the Mark of Mastery trials, for example, and also when Terra opens the glowing purple door in Enchanted Dominion, as another one).

[unknownbrackets]

Hmm, this happens right after a pause signal. So pause signals probably don't work right, and that's probably why this happens.

It looks very likely to have something to do with that.

-[Unknown]

[unknownbrackets]

So, if I understand correctly, this issue remains only in Outrun 2006 and Project Diva, right? Any other games with issues?

If no, I think we should close this and open an issue for that more narrow thing, since this is long and covers many other problems. I think Outrun already has an issue but it seems to not be very specific either.

-[Unknown]

[unknownbrackets]

Anyway, #5987 makes one of the Diva demos run at ~27 fps on my computer. At the expense of performance, it could be improved to 28-29. Not sure what it actually runs at on a PSP, maybe not exactly 30?

Anyway, the problem is that he cpu is getting too far ahead of the gpu, because the gpu is doing slow things. The problem is, this is the entire goal of multithreaded - to allow it to go ahead.

These lines will mostly "fix" it (~29):

const int geIntervalUs = 1000000 / (60 * 10);
const int geBehindThresholdUs = 1000000 / (60 * 10);

However, they will also reduce e.g. Gods Eater Burst's speed by ~30% (in fact it will barely if at all be faster than multithreaded off.)

Personally I think 27 is good enough.

-[Unknown]

[hrydgard]

There can visually be a big difference between 30fps and 27 fps - the former will have uniform motion while the latter may stutter slightly 3 times per second. But maybe that's happening on the real PSP.

Either way there's indeed no reason to keep this mega-issue open any more, we should open new issues as necessary.

[dbz400]

@unknownbrackets , Yes , outrun 2006 still running abnormal FPS with multithread on .