Please Help - Slowness and sound problems in Shuffleshot and World Class Bowling

[cmoses]

I posted a thread in the main forum a little while back but have done some testing so wanted to post in here.  I am still having the problem when I run Shuffleshot and World Class Bowling.  The game launches and runs and then at some point, always different, the game slows down and I get sound stutters.  This lasts for anywhere between a few seconds and maybe 20 seconds at the most.  Then the game is back up to full speed and works, but then the problem returns.

I think that I have more than enough power to be running these games.  I think that maybe something is running and causing the slow down, but have not been able to determine what it is.

Computer Specs
Intel Pentium 4 D, 2.8 GHz
2 GB RAM
Nvidia 9400 GT video card with 512 MB RAM
ASUS Motherboard
Mini-PAC controller USB
(2) U360 joysticks USB
Electronic ICE trackball USB
HP Wireless keyboard and mouse USB

I am running MAMEUI .127 with MALA as my front end.  I also use CABVOL for controlling the volume.  I have turned off CABVOL and still have the same issue.  I have launched the games through MAMEUI directly to take MALA out of the picture and still have the same issue.  I tried a newer version of MAMEUI .130 and still have the issue.  I have tried playing with the video settings, D3D, DDRAW, Triple Buffer, turning down the sound quality, turning the sound off for the game, etc and nothing seems to change.  I have checked the task manager and usually have about 16 services running.   

I would think that this setup should be enough to play these games at 100%.  They are not CHD games and everything else I play runs without a hitch. 

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.  Let me know if you need any other information.  I would really like to be able to play these two games, especially for parties as they are very fun, but not when the game slows down and the audio is stuttering.

[9innail]

I am running Mame 0.131 and I have no problems with these games.It seems like your pc must be accessing the hard drive during these instances. My main pc acts like that when AVG is scanning..

[cmoses]

That is what is seems like, but I do not have any anti-virus software on the machine.

Is there anything that windows could be running that is doing it?  I think I have all the unnecessary services turned off.  Would doing a disk defragmenter help any?

[SGT]

During these slowdowns, run Windows task manager.  Go to the processes tab, and click the CPU heading once or twice so that the process that is using the most CPU is sorted to the top of the list.

[cmoses]

I have done this and it is always MAMEUI that is using the most.  CPU usage is usually around 60%.    I will get a complete list and see what else is there. 

[cmoses]

These are the services that I have running when I first start the computer and it boots up and launches MALA.  These are sorted by MEM usage.

mala.exe                     34424
explorer.exe                15284
svchost.exe                 14612
cabvol.exe                   10640
wmiprvse.exe                6452 - runs initially, but goes away pretty quickly
lsass.exe                       5048
svchost.exe                   4740
searchindexer.exe         4552
taskmgr.exe                  4288
svchost.exe                   4056
nvsvc32.exe                  3668
services.exe                  3192
ctfmon.exe                    3184
csrss.exe                      2924
winlogon.exe                 1632
smss.exe                        388
system                           236
System Idle Process         28

I don't think there is anything here that could be causing problems, but if there is please let me know.

[Hoopz]

Several things to try:

Stop using MameUI via Mala.  Try regular command line Mame.  Since MameUI is a front end, it's wasting CPU cycles running a FE in a FE.  I dont think that will solve it completely, but it may help.

Run the games via command line Mame and see if that helps.  Just strait Mame without a FE.

What kind of sound card do you have?  Onboard, PCI, etc?  Are your drivers up to date?  Have you tried different drivers?  I don't know if the slow down and sound stuttering is the cause or the effect of the problem, but it's something to look at.

[cmoses]

I do need using the command line MAME with MALA as well as alone without a FE and see if that makes a difference. 

I am using the on-board sound from my ASUS motherboard.  I will check the drivers and see if they are the most current.

[Hoopz]

I've ran several Asus mobos with onboard sound.  Some were better than others.   

[BASS!]

I don't even have explorer.exe load on my machines until you exit the frontend to windows. I would try adding that to the list. You may actually just be running into the limitation of the newest mame revision and your pc specs. I would possible go all the way back to the .110ish revisions as they really havent added much worth while other than things that slow down your machine.

[Hoopz]

You sent me a PM, but I wanted to ask here, is this a copy of Mame that you've compiled yourself or just regular Mame?  If it's compiled, that could be a part of the issue.  I'm not saying it is, but I thought I'd ask so others that know about that stuff could possibly help.

[cmoses]

Hoopz,

It is a copy that I compiled myself.  I used HeadKaze's Mame64 Compiler and added the updates and hi score patch.  The only option I used was Dual because it is a Pentium D.  It loaded all the patches correctly and compiled without any errors. 

BASS!,

I would consider going to an older version of MAME, but it seems difficult to find the older ROM sets.   

[Hoopz]

You may go back to the last Mame version after the roms in question changed.  You can run different versions of Mame for different games.  Using one version for these two particular games and the same version you already have for everything else, may be one route to go.