Would a gpu help

Libretro Lakka
#1

I’ve built my dedicated lakka pc around an a1 5350 apu. It (after some tweaking) plays decently well. I was wondering if adding a simple gpu would help in the resolution department. With the focus on psx games. I’ve noticed it plays very badly when i go from 1x to 2x… more then that and my system freezes very badly. I’ve tried psx emulation on my phone and that’s better… even with a galaxy s2. I’ve seen the change in appearence… and would be happy with 2x if it were possible.

And what about other emulators… n64 and psp. Do they gain from a gpu? It’s strange because my psp emulation is better then psx. I’ve only tried kingdom hearts up till now. But i could up the resolution with the igpu of the 5350 without losing the smoothness

#2

A dGPU does help yes but, from what I understand, emulators seem to rely heavily on CPU calculations. I could try and run a couple of tests the following week on my A10-7870K (+ R7 250) system, both with and without the dGPU.

Either way, thanks for reporting back on 5350 performance. Most useful.

#3

Thanks, would help quite a bit. I was under the impression that the cpu does the emulating… and the gpu does upscaling. Atleast I hope so, perhaps it’s different for every emulator.

The 5350 has been pretty good… apart from not being able to up the res and slowdowns with mario tennis whenever hitting the ball.

#4

Yes, that’s correct, but a weak CPU might very well be the cause of the performance dips you’re seeing with PS1 emulation, in which case a GPU upgrade is not the solution – On a side note: the most powerful AM1 processor AMD has to offer is the 5370. As you’ve pointed out, maybe resource allocation is different for every emulator, which would explain PSP emulation running smoother than PS1, I reckon. Though I’m sure the Lakka devs have more interesting and accurate insights to share on this matter.

Now, It goes without saying that the 7870K and R7 250 are both much more powerful GPUs than the 5350 and J1900’s integrated solutions, and given the fact that 5350 general performance seems to be in the same ballpark as my Bay Trail J1900 (Game Debate says the latter is 17% proportionately worse than the former, based on the specs), I feel like my tests with the 7870K + R7 250 is like comparing apples to oranges.

That being said, both the 7870K and the R7 250 were able to run PS1 (Crash 3 & SH) as well as N64 emulation (Nightmare Creatures) on 2x resolution at a smooth and mostly consistent 60fps. Upping the resolution to 4x gives me the slowdowns and severe stuttering I’m seeing with 2x on Bay Trail.

For now, I would argue that a GPU upgrade might indeed give you the resolution and performance boost you’re looking for. Tomorrow I’ll go crazy and use my workstation’s GTX 760 with the 7870K, just to see how far I can push the resolution.

Do you happen to have a more powerful system with which you might be able to try Lakka live?

#5

I do have a similar system to yours… only mine got an a10 7800. It’s my work pc and i really can’t mess with the windows install on it. I’ve read that the psx emulator mednafen or whatever its called is based on cpu power… including the resolution upscaling and suffers high losses in framerates in any system. Though that was from text a while ago things might have changed. The guy had an i5 or i7 coupled with a 970 and still couldn’t get up to 4x. I’m happy with it as it is, but if something as easy as a low power gpu would add nicer graphics and fewer glitches i’d be willing to invest. Would love to hear developers thoughts on this.

Oh misread… i could try lakka live on it. See if it still has slowdowns with a beefier apu without a gpu. If it’s the same a gpu might help… if it’s better it must be the lack of cpu power on my 5350.

#6

Aye, no need to mess with your Windows install. Just unplug the power to those drives and run Lakka live from USB. I think the a10-7800 will run things a bit smoother.

Strange that even a i5/i7 & 970 combo couldn’t handle 4x.

#7

I’ve had some dialogue with a dude on youtube who’s using an am1 system as well. He has the lesser sempron… but added a gpu. He stated that his performance improved allot by adding a gpu. I think it was a r7 240 or something. So I’ve ordered a similar card… a gt 730. He said he could have up to dreamcast running at full speed. Hope it’ll work

His user is ETA PRIME. Makes video’s on emulation… lakka and such. Pretty cool

#8

Ah yes, been subbed to his channel for a while now. Haven’t been able to test Dreamcast emulation yet though. Do report back once you’ve got the GT730 all set up.

#9

Well colour me surprised. You’re right, rokompol. Much like your 5350 setup, my J1900 system handles most(!) PSP games just fine. So I take it PS1 & N64 emulation need more CPU resources than PSP emulation? I feel the need to redo some PSP emulation testing on my A10-7870K system…

Now I’m curious to see how Lakka handles DC/PS2/GC emulation… I know, I know: Lakka doesn’t support PS2 & GC emulation (yet) but I’m just curious to see what our low-budget systems can handle.

Any updates on the GT730 upgrade, mate?

#10

I changed my order to a 750ti… just, well incase ps2 and such get supported on lakka. Not sure when that happens… but i saw this dude on yt emulating ps2 with a pentium g3258 and a 750ti perfectly fine. Will probably get delivered next week. I’ve migrated the system already to a cooler master 110 instead of the antec isk mini case. So when it’s in it’s just a matter of dropping it in.

I tried messing with the res a bit and some settings. Throtteling setting… not sure what I did but the menu’s go real smooth now. I looked at the fps when i upp the resolution. It’s the same…internal resolution. Ff7 plays more or less the same… minor slowdowns, but full 3d games like crash team racing go slower, i sure hope it’s the gpu side. The menu fps. Is like 300 in menu and solid 60 ingame.

#11

Got the gpu installed, it seems it’s the same with or without. No sound as well. Is there some bios thing or setting I’m missing… if not I’m taking it out again and sending it back. It seems i need a stronger cpu. Which is a bit too much for my wallet. Plus with a 750ti and a stronger cpu I’m entering modern gaming specs.

If fm2 plus itx mobo’s weren’t so expensive it would’ve been an option.

Same performance in n64… weirdly faster menu’s but same lag in mario tennis whenever you hit the ball. Can’t comment on sound since I can’t change hdmi output… havent updated lakka yet. Bummer it didn’t work but still beats wondering if.

#12

Well that’s a major bummer… I’m scratching my head on how ETA Prime got a performance boost by using a Sempron AM1 processor with a less powerful GPU than yours?

FM2 does indeed offer more options (and better performance, looking at my tests) but at an understandably higher cost. Perhaps there are some interesting FM2 deals to be discovered on the used components market?

#13

I have no idea how he got better performance. No harm though, i’ll just send it back. Apart from shipping costs it’s not a big deal. Sadly the case was bought to accomadate the gpu. Kinda wastefull in hindsight. I do like it better then the antec isk though. And i can always turn it into a desktop. I’ll be on the lookout for a fm2 itx motherboard cpu and the like

#14

So I’ve removed the gpu… but now lakka won’t boot… or it will, there just is no video signal. I can see the mobo info when booting. All the way up to the black and white text before the lakka berry… after that it’s ‘no signal’. So I’m guessing lakka still thinks the gpu is connected. Is there a way around this. Or do I have to reinstall?

#15

That’s odd. Just to be sure: did you set your motherboard’s BIOS back to ‘Onboard Graphics’ instead of ‘PCIe’?

#16

I’ll try that… didn’t enter the bios at all to be honest.

#17

Changed it… it’s the same. Guess I’ll reinstall. Perhaps because I had to reset my pc the data has become unstable.

#18

Since the devs are releasing new nightlies regularly, you might be better off running Lakka live until you’re done fully testing your system(s).

My FM2 system is running PS1, N64 and PSP emulation so wonderfully at higher resolutions that I’m considering doing another full install to SSD again. Think I’ll use the J1900 system just for 16-bit and older.

By the by, which FM2 processor are you considering? Any particular motherboards that caught your eye?

#19

Ordered a Nuc with a celeron 3050, I wasn’t able to save my old athlon so i sold the parts. The nuc is a second hand one… hope it’ll work. These past few months I’ve been using an old android phone with bluetooth controller for emulation purposes. But I’d still prefer the couch experience with lakka. Saw that there was an update for the psx emulator on pc. The Nuc should work a bit better then my old system, but I’ve bought it second hand… so there could be problems. Does come with 120gb ssd and 4gigs of ram. For about 120 euro’s. Nice deal.

Ill probably install it but keep the roms on usb… the transfer time through ethernet is just too long

#20

It depends on what system you are emulating here is a table,and reasons for why.

NES,SNES,GB,GBC,GBA:NO (uses sprites) N64:YES (uses 3d polygon based gpu / direct N64 gpu to host gpu function mapping) NDS:NO (uses obscure 3d hardware) DOS:NO (all raw framebuffer blitting done by game) PS1:NO (only if using pxgp / ps1 has no 3d hardware(3d is done in software ps1 gpu only does blitting and 2d polygons)) PSP:DONT KNOW ANY 2D CONSOLE:NO (there all different,tile sprite or framebuffer based)