Wii games run slow at 4K with shaders

RetroArch Windows devices
#1

I’m able to run GameCube games at 4K with CRT-Royale, but when I try to run a Wii game, it’s almost unplayable. I configured Dolphin to be as accurate as possible (within reason) while using the JIT recompiler, that is, enabling single core, LLE, MMU emulation, disabling all enhancements except arbitrary mipmaps, disabling all hacks, enabling crop and progressive scan, FPRF, and accurate NaNs. I have all of the proper files in the correct location, and I can boot into the Wii menu successfully, and launch channels, and both GameCube, and Wii games from their. The only thing that seems to provide a speed boost, is enabling HLE from within RetroArch, but it’s a very small speed boost at best.

My specs are a i7, and an Nvidia GTX 1050. Would upgrading my PC help, or perhaps just changing a specific setting to be a little less accurate . . . or should I just wait for the dolphin core to be updated over time?

#2

If you’re running the dolphin core at increased res, it’s multiplying the shader impact by that res multiplier, as well.

For most of the CRT shaders, you’ll want/need to reduce the res back down to 240p or 480p or so to be at all usable, not just for speed but for appearance. In the ‘presets’ subdirectory of the shaders, there should be a couple of presets that have “stock” in their name. These will take the increased res image and crunch it back down (resulting in a super-sampled image) that plays nicely with the CRT effects.

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#3

My mistake. I’m running dolphin at native resolution, but I’m using a 4K monitor. If I use a 1080p monitor, it plays fine, but than the shader isn’t as detailed. Do I use the 4K monitor, and add an additional shader pass under CRT-Royale?

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#4

If you’re running the core at native res and it’s not hitting full speed, that means your GPU just can’t keep up (pixel shaders run once per pixel, so 4K is 4 times as demanding as 1080p, from a shader’s perspective). You can set RetroArch to switch your display to 1080p when you enter fullscreen, but that’s about the best option, aside from switching to a lighter shader.

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#5

Thanks for clearing it up. I’ll use a lighter shader for now, and upgrade my GPU when I get a chance :+1:

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#6

I found an alternative solution that works really well. I just wanted to post this in case anyone else is having trouble running 480i/p games at 4K with heavy shaders. I set a custom resolution of 3584x2016. I honestly cannot tell the difference between the custom resolution of 3584x2016 and 4K, and so far everything is running smoothly.

It took a few tries to get it right, but the key was to change the display resolution to 3840x2160 after setting the custom resolution, than selecting the custom resolution under List All Modes. So it shows in Advanced display settings as Desktop resolution 3584x2016, Active signal resolution 3584x2016.

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