[PCGAMER] Dolphin Emulator adds DX12 Support

[Headfoot]

Link: http://www.pcgamer.com/dolphin-emulator-sees-big-speed-improvements-with-directx-12-support/

Definitely seems like a prime use case for DX12 since the target of the emulation had an explicit and lower level API.

 

[dark zero]

Seems that AMD is loved in DX12. Now waiting the support for Vulkan

 

[poofyhairguy]

Interesting, I didn't know the OpenGL path was that bad off. That sucks, all the good shaders are OpenGL.

 

[crisium]

Oh, I need to check this out sometime. I just can't keep Super Mario Galaxy at consistently 60fps, maybe this will help. I fear it is CPU bound though.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Oh, I need to check this out sometime. I just can't keep Super Mario Galaxy at consistently 60fps, maybe this will help. I fear it is CPU bound though.

That CPU in your sig at 4.4GHz should be enough for SMG. Try turning off HT.

 

[el etro]

AMD DX11 driver has a bug that cripples performance on Dolphin, and their OpenGL driver is slow(but more compatible in most games). DX12 driver seems to work well on dolphin.


DX9 also worked very well on Dolphin, but newer builds don't offer more the DX9 rendering path.

 

[Gundark]

AMD DX11 driver has a bug that cripples performance on Dolphin, and their OpenGL driver is slow(but more compatible in most games). DX12 driver seems to work well on dolphin.


DX9 also worked very well on Dolphin, but newer builds don't offer more the DX9 rendering path.

Are you sure? To my knowledge, AMD is great in Dolphin on dx11, and nVidia is the one with the bug.

 

[el etro]

Are you sure? To my knowledge, AMD is great in Dolphin on dx11, and nVidia is the one with the bug.

I'm sure because i am a AMD user, and played with a GTX 670 too.

Next hours i'm will drop a benchmark of the three APIs here.

 

[el etro]

Tried some benchmarks with the APIs, but Render Log is crazy on both DX backends. Also both DXs modes suffer stutter spikes(that are even bigger on DX12 mode). Strangely it does not happen when you uncap the framerate... Someone should tell this to AMD driver feedback.

The performance situation is something like:

OGL - ~28 FPS;
DX11 - ~44 FPS;
DX12 - ~57 FPS(is so fast that is very hard to bench);

Game tested is Resident Evil 4, mercenaries mode, Lion at Village stage. Using the shotgun to control lots of zombies.


Dolphin last 4.0-8961 release:
Non-default settings:
- Enable Dual Core, Enable Idle Skipping;
- DX11/DX12/OGL, Show FPS, Render to Main Window;
- Resolution native, no MSAA(MSAA breaks DX12 mode), 4x AF, Scaled EFB Copy, Per-Pixel Lightning;
- Skip CPU EFB Access, Ignore Format Changes, Store EFB copies to RAM and Textures, Texture Cache Fast, XFB disable, Fast Depth Calculation, Disable Bounding Box.




System is Core i3 2310, 2 x 2 GB DDR3 1333Mhz, Radeon HD 7950Boost.


If AMD solves the DX stutter problem on Dolphin, performance is a blast.

 

[Madpacket]

Anyone know how well Dolphin runs with a 7850K or 7870K series APU?

This old video of SSB looks decent but I'm wondering now with DX12 render path how games would run.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aC38AZOsHTg

 

[poofyhairguy]

Anyone know how well Dolphin runs with a 7850K or 7870K series APU?

More than anything else Dolphin hits CPU bottlenecks (mostly IPC bottlenecks) so AMD CPUs in general don't work very well for it no matter the backend used. I mean, realistically you could run the games at 1x and not ever hit a GPU bottleneck even on Intel GPUs.

But don't take my word for it, here are the results for the Wind Waker benchmark:

https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=DA2FE7FDA6EB085E!107&app=Excel&authkey=!ALQ0-tZv6Pc_h84

 

[tential]

Tried some benchmarks with the APIs, but Render Log is crazy on both DX backends. Also both DXs modes suffer stutter spikes(that are even bigger on DX12 mode). Strangely it does not happen when you uncap the framerate... Someone should tell this to AMD driver feedback.

The performance situation is something like:

OGL - ~28 FPS;
DX11 - ~44 FPS;
DX12 - ~57 FPS(is so fast that is very hard to bench);

Game tested is Resident Evil 4, mercenaries mode, Lion at Village stage. Using the shotgun to control lots of zombies.


Dolphin last 4.0-8961 release:
Non-default settings:
- Enable Dual Core, Enable Idle Skipping;
- DX11/DX12/OGL, Show FPS, Render to Main Window;
- Resolution native, no MSAA(MSAA breaks DX12 mode), 4x AF, Scaled EFB Copy, Per-Pixel Lightning;
- Skip CPU EFB Access, Ignore Format Changes, Store EFB copies to RAM and Textures, Texture Cache Fast, XFB disable, Fast Depth Calculation, Disable Bounding Box.




System is Core i3 2310, 2 x 2 GB DDR3 1333Mhz, Radeon HD 7950Boost.


If AMD solves the DX stutter problem on Dolphin, performance is a blast.

I want to make it abundantly clear that with the HD7950 boost I played most games at 6x internal resolution.

Having such low fps at native resolution isn't normal. Go to their forums or it is game specific.

Why I use such high resolution? Why not.....

This is in gpu intensive games like super Mario Galaxy.

I think I upped the internal resolution for fun when I got the 290.

 

[el etro]

I want to make it abundantly clear that with the HD7950 boost I played most games at 6x internal resolution.

Having such low fps at native resolution isn't normal. Go to their forums or it is game specific.

Why I use such high resolution? Why not.....

This is in gpu intensive games like super Mario Galaxy.

I think I upped the internal resolution for fun when I got the 290.

I don't think is a lack of firepower problem, i know i can play the game at 4K.

Test it for us with your 290! RE4 Mercenaries and SMG, only DX11 versus DX12.


And for me is stuttering very much(every time a new effect or just new things are being rendered to the screen), just made me never more want to play a GC game.

 

[tential]

I don't think is a lack of firepower problem, i know i can play the game at 4K.

Test it for us with your 290! RE4 Mercenaries and SMG, only DX11 versus DX12.


And for me is stuttering very much(every time a new effect or just new things are being rendered to the screen), just made me never more want to play a GC game.

Check the game thread. Dolphin is a great emulator now although you can find posts of me saying otherwise before.

I dunno what benefits this can bring a 4770k r9 290 user. I don't see stutters or have issues.

Last time I had a stutter I was at 8x internal resolution.

 

[Red Hawk]

I was expecting this sooner or later. This seems like pretty basic support right now, hopefully CPU optimizations that make use of DX12 will be implemented later on. The closer-to-the-metal programming of DX12 is a godsend to projects like Dolphin, which can't exactly rely on IHVs to provide driver optimizations. Pretty cool stuff.