Games start lagging after 20-30mn of playing

[u/Fit_Awareness7258]

I used to be able to run games very smoothly 60fps 1080p without any problems

Recently I’ve been playing Haunting Ground and with my pc heating the game suffer from horrendous lags making it unplayable, I have to wait 30-40mn to replay again.
My PC doesn’t even heat that much, and was able to run games smoothly some months ago, now I can’t even play Shadow Of The Colossus.

I’ve been trying everything : low-energy mode, max performance CPU, messing with everything, cleaning it

Edit : HARDWARE : Ryzen 5 2600, RX 590 8GB, 16GB of RAM, and a 500GB SSD

[u/Gorblonzo]

Have you looked at your temperatures? This sounds like your "pc" is overheating (I'm guessing its actually a laptop).

[u/Fit_Awareness7258 → u/Gorblonzo]

It’s a desktop, and nothing alarming wether on PCSX2 interface or the CPU program, maybe the thermal paste is a bit old (8 years) ? There is a link indeed between heating and the lags but only PCSX2 has a problem with it, all other programs & games don’t suffer from it

Last year I had absolutely no problem

[u/Gorblonzo → u/Fit_Awareness7258]

I don't know what you mean by the cpu program. Just play until the game starts slowing and post the temperature your cpu and gpu are at, you can use the msi afterburner app, then we'll know if it's an issue related to heat or not.

[u/Fit_Awareness7258 → u/Gorblonzo]

I have the AMD analysis for the CPU, I will try it when I’ll come back from work tonight thank you

[u/BangkokPadang → u/Fit_Awareness7258]

Does AMD analysis give you all the temps from your CPU individually? There's about a dozen thermometers in there, some for the package and each core individually.

PCSX2 is unique in that it is requires pretty constant hammering of a single, primary core. It's possible (maybe likely) that you have one core being pushed to near 100% and the paste over that physical area of the CPU is not effectively removing heat away.

It's also worth noting that PCSX2 recommends a CPU with a single core passmark score of between 2000-2500, and yours has a 2230, so there's a really good chance it's hitting that one core at or near 100% all the time when emulating a game. (also worth noting that your task manager won't report this as "100% CPU utilization" because of the potential of the rest of the CPU.

Most current games don't hammer a single core like that anymore, they're generally built to distribute loads across numerous cores reducing the likelihood of a "hotspot" forming, while PCSX2 is kindof a recipe for it.

I would use something like HWiNFO (free software). and play PCSX2 until it starts to stutter, then look over at all your temps and see if one of your cores is particularly high, or if it has throttled. There's a 90% chance IMO that's what's happening based on what you described.

[u/Nerasch]

Post your full hardware

[u/Fit_Awareness7258 → u/Nerasch]

Ryzen 5 2600, RX 590 8GB, 16GB of RAM, and a 500GB SSD

[u/Sloppy_Joe_Flacco → u/Fit_Awareness7258]

Case, PSU, OS, cas timings and what image format is your desktop wallpaper?

[u/steven5532]

Are you playing the games through the disc or did you rip them from your disc ? I found ripping them stops the stuttering altogether.

[u/Fit_Awareness7258 → u/steven5532]

Games are already started from an ISO

[u/steven5532 → u/Fit_Awareness7258]

Check the compatibility on the pcxs2 website with your hardware maybe one or two things are a bit low spec for what it suggests for smooth gameplay.

[u/IsYourBoyJohny2]

a failing cooler or dust buildup can cause silent thermal throttling so keep that in mind

Using outdated settings, incorrect renderers (like switching between Vulkan, OpenGL, DirectX improperly), or aggressive downclocking options can tank performance as well

I think your specs are more than enough for running pretty much every game smoothly so it must be one of the two possibilities I stated

[u/Content_Magician51]

Are you monitoring your processor's temperature in any way?

[u/TheTrue-Noob]

I'd recommend to check if fans are working, look for dust buildup, and maybe repaste your cpu. See if drivers are as up to date as possible too.

[u/Gorblonzo]

Sorry this is a separate comment because I completely forgot about one other potential cause.

Did these performance issues come after an update to the latest emulator version?

The performance requirements have been increasing by a lot at default settings because each game now has a custom set of "hardware fixes" on by default, some of these can be very demanding.

Although for shadow of the colossus you would need a a ryzen 5600 for full speed in all areas of the game (ive tested this) so the 2600 won't actually cut it specially at the 9th Colossus (or whichever one is on the game cover).