[monarchdodra]

I've been playing FFX for a good 10 hours with a solid 120Fps. I reached Mi'ihen Highroad, and my FPS just dropped like a brick to 25.

I had two guesses why this happened:
1-the grass.
2-the long view of the road.

By unsetting the options "allow 8 bit textures" and "logarithmic Z", I was able to solve the problem. I did not get any increase in performance anywhere else, but I did get a decrease of visual quality.

So here are my questions:
1- For the tech savvy, what exactly does "allow 8 bit textures" and "logarithmic Z" do? Can anybody explain it to me? This way, I won't be just checking boxes randomly.

2- What exactly is happening in Mi'ihen Highroad to cause this?

PS
CPU: phenom 9950 (quad, 3.0Ghz)
GPU: amd 4870 (950MhzGpu, 1050MhzMem)

 

[Princess Garnet]

This reminds me, I still need to start this game up again. I had lost my memory card file at the time (forgot to back it up during a Windows reinstall), and the only save state I could salvage was one of my earlier ones from right before Mi'ihen Highroad, so that's where I'm at now.

A drop at that spot (and when summoning Shiva) is indeed normal for all but the faster CPUs. For the most part, I'd say it's because of all the stuff going on.

Do you have v-sync on? That may explain the large drop.

8-Bit Textures is supposed to be faster and/or more accurate for the most part, but for some games, some spots, or some GPUs, it's slower, or something like that. Someone else can explain the exact details. I know it's usually slower for me too, so I have it off.

As for Logarithmic Z, I always have it on. I've never not been able to stay above full speed to need to try and disable things. I thought this was used to make geometry rendering more accurate, or something like that. In fact, I thought having it off broke the geometry in Final Fantasy X.

 

[monarchdodra]

This reminds me, I still need to start this game up again. I had lost my memory card file at the time (forgot to back it up during a Windows reinstall), and the only save state I could salvage was one of my earlier ones from right before Mi'ihen Highroad, so that's where I'm at now.

A drop at that spot (and when summoning Shiva) is indeed normal for all but the faster CPUs. For the most part, I'd say it's because of all the stuff going on.

Do you have v-sync on? That may explain the large drop.

8-Bit Textures is supposed to be faster and/or more accurate for the most part, but for some games, some spots, or some GPUs, it's slower, or something like that. Someone else can explain the exact details. I know it's usually slower for me too, so I have it off.

As for Logarithmic Z, I always have it on. I've never not been able to stay above full speed to need to try and disable things. I thought this was used to make geometry rendering more accurate, or something like that. In fact, I thought having it off broke the geometry in Final Fantasy X.

I don't have v-sync on, as I want to play the game at 2x speed.

What I find curious is that I know my GPU is not the bottle neck (I get the same frame rate are 320*240 or 3840*2400), yet fiddling with graphic settings speeds up the game.

When I look at my threads, the CPU thread for GSdx is at a full 25%(quad core) during mi'ihen high road.

My guess is that the CPU, is having problems mapping the grass to usable objects for the GPU.

I'll try running the game with logZ on, as I don't know which of the 2 settings gave me the speed up.

Sorry about your FFX game. I lost mine overwriting the save after defeating Penance. Having a great game is moot if you don't have great enemies to measure up to...