The NEW Build Your Own Arcade Controls
Software Support => GroovyMAME => Topic started by: frankmonk on March 05, 2017, 03:39:54 pm
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Hi guys,
a lot of ppl are recommending the Intel G3258 overclocked for almost perfect cv1k emulation. is this still the way to go? how about the 3770k,4770k and 4790k`s ? would one of these cpus outperform the G3258 in any way? I am looking for arcade perfect emulation of those games and I do not care if these cpus are more expensive compared to the g3258.
thanks
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If it is it will be really expensive as G3258 clocked to 4,2 GHz can score 2500 points in passmark single core test.
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html (https://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html)
As You can see not too much processors can do better for single core on stock clock. There is right now quite cheap i3-7350K which might change situation finally but right now only 11 pcs has been tested.
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Thanks Haynor666
this 7350k is again "just" a dual core cpu. wont the cv1k driver benefit from a higher clocked quad core cpu? I have read somewhere that it acutally does support multi threading just fine
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I am looking for arcade perfect emulation of those games
The emulation is not perfect. With blitter delay set at 63% some titles are very close to perfect (Futari/DFKBL) but others are not (Ibara Stage 3).
G3258 overclocked to 4GHz is good enough.
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the G3258 might be good enough but will a better CPU do any better? :D
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At CV1000 emulation? No.
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Hi,
I recently upgraded my hardware to get better performances with cv1k games, comming from an Athlon x2 250@3.6Ghz to a core i3 6100@3.7ghz and I am very disappointing to see that my new cpu is still not strong enough ! I still see fps drops in DeathSmile for example (and strange slowdowns with pc engine emulation with groovymame too !). Is it really due to my cpu or can I play with some settings in Groovymame ?
If there is nothing to do but buying a stronger cpu, what about the core i5 7600k ?
Oh I am using Groovymame 0.183 under win10 64bits with crt emudrivers 2.0
I need advice before spending more money !!!
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you may try triplebuffer 1
in your cv1k.ini
I didn't see any major difference in rendering nor scrolling
except that there's no drop. ie on deathsml
I have 2 identical configurations, except the cpu.
one is i5, one is i3. I could tell exact reference if you want.
in groovymame I didn't notice any difference between them.
same drop if no triplebuffer, but I can deal with it.
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From my personal experience, I strongly suggest you to stay away from cv1k emulation as it's not only highly unoptimized, but it is still very, very far from being accurate and in a game where there are thousands bullets racing towards you and even the smallest slowdown counts, that makes the experience incredibly frustrating.
After toying with various settings I just gave up and bought a second hand xbox360 for ~30€ and got the CAVE games which are near arcade perfect ports.
I strongly suggest you to go this way as well. It will save headaches and time.
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from my point of view, 360 port are far away from arcade experience.
and is also a bit off topic here.
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Most of them aren't that far away, if you're talking about the actual ports and not the remakes. Try using 15-kHz RGB and de-interlace the signal to get a single scan of 240 lines.
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Thanks fo replies !
Well I am not ready to give up now but I will perhaps consider xbox 360 way if I can't find a solution ;-)
I made another tests with groovymame with deathsmiles and mushi mushi and I saw strange things : both run at an average speed between 99.46 and 99.86 %. It seems pretty good for me ! In game the speed goes from 95% to 106% and each time the speed change there are sound issues wich are very annoying.
Then I test same games with official mame (but in 0.182 version) and I didn't notice the same sound issues, the games run very well with smooth scrolling.....I am a bit confused now....any idea ?
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As I understand it, those sound wobbles are the key feature of groovymame. Video refresh is rarely an exact match with real hardware. In groovymame, audio speed is scaled to match the speed of the video, so when the emulation refresh rate is a constant 99.99% of an original game the sound will stay perfectly in sync and won't occasionally skip. However, this means that any tiny interruption in performance is extremely noticeable with a wobble in audio pitch. In standard mame synchronisation is looser and there are instead tiny video stutters, tearing or audio stutters which exist even when emulation is solid - so little drops in performance don't particularly stand out. Groovymame's perfect synchronisation needs perfect performance, nothing less.
Mushihimesama should work though. Double check your windows performance settings are at maximum (this recently caught me out), and either Overclock to 4ghz or turn triplebuffering on.
Otherwise, as an alternative to getting a 360: The Cave ports on Steam are great. They can run at 320x240 (change your desktop resolution before launching) and don't need much CPU power.
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Groovymame's perfect synchronisation needs perfect performance, nothing less.
That's it.
Additionally, running v-synced requires much more CPU power than just pushing frames at any old time. So a game that runs at 100% with mainline (assuming vsync off) may slow down dramatically when run v-synced (GM). V-sync requires that EVERY frame is emulated faster than on real hardware. Not only that: ideally, every frame should be emulated at a tiny fraction of the time it takes on real hardware in order to achieve next frame input response. This means 800-1000% unthrottled speed. If your CPU struggles to get a solid 100% speed even without v-sync then I wouldn't bother emulating that system.
(If you still want to lie to yourself, the -triplebuffer option in GM can give you the "performance" of vsync-off, without tearing and without sound wobbles)
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:D No one comes here for the triplebuffer.
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Thank you again for your time !
Yes, Perfect sync is why we are choosing Groovymame, I understand and that's the way I want to go :applaud:
Anyway, the triplebuffer option doesn't really work for me...I've still got sound issues with it enabled.
Next, I am very disappointed that my new i3 is not powerful enough. It seems that I need to return it to the seller and go for a new one !
There are not so many games that could'nt run at full speed but I simply can't give up, I want to play these shmups !
I am now looking at Core i5 7600k @3.8Ghz and easily overclokable to 4.5Ghz. Will it be enough ? Is it still the single core speed I must looking at ?
It's an expensive choice, I have to be sure !
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Anyway, the triplebuffer option doesn't really work for me...I've still got sound issues with it enabled.
You probably have -autosync enabled.
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:D No one comes here for the triplebuffer.
don't misunderstand me. I know GM isn't intended to run with triplebuffering :D
I only use it in last option.
His question was only if he could try something else on his setup.
And that's what I did.
Anyway, thank you all for your advices.
:applaud:
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I agree. If perfection fails it's not the worst option. Still a damn sight better than most official retro rereleases.
I was kind of thinking how Calamity's conditioned himself to be intolerant of it. :)
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Otherwise, as an alternative to getting a 360: The Cave ports on Steam are great. They can run at 320x240 (change your desktop resolution before launching) and don't need much CPU power.
I almost forgot about those and I even have them on my Steam library, lol.
They are definitely good (Mushihimesama, Deathsmiles and Daifukkatsu), they even run great on my Mac with Wineskin, great alternative to the x360 ports.
Anyway, not to derail this thread, but if you're looking for some serious shmup action there are other gems which run almost flawlessly in MAME... Progear, Dodonpachi, Battle Bakraid, are some which came to my mind, but there are literally a ton of great shmups out there.
I remember that with my G3258@4.7Ghz I still had to use triple buffering to have CV1K games run smoothly. Too bad the slowdown is pretty off and makes the game a bit frustrating to play, even with blitter delay.
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Well I am back with good news ! I took a look at my cpu usage and notice that it was never used at 100% and never stay at his top clock (3.7Ghz). After a litle research I found it is possible to use a profile in Windows to tell the cpu to stay always at full speed....and miracle...cv1k games at 100% constant speed !!!! and without triplebuffer on !
I am very happy and I finally understand all these speed throttling in game : my cpu was always changing its speed....I think it is a bit hard to keep sync for groovymame.
So it seems my core i3 is powerfull enough. I is night and day.
Anyway I will continue my tests a little just to be sure ;-)
Thank you guys and A big thank for all the magicians behind Groovymame :applaud:
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could you explain how you achieve this ?
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Windows performance settings? Like I mentioned, I made that mistake recently.
By the way: cools, who's well experienced with CV1k original boards and Mame, is happy with these games with blitter delay set to 63%. Close to perfect except Ibara, Muchi Muchi Pork and Pink Sweets. Those three have problems.
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of course, funkycochise, I can explain :
under Windows 10 : configuration panel -> Hardware and Sound -> Power management -> select High performance or as I did, change normal mode in advance options -> cpu minimal state -> set it to 100% (mine was at 5%)
And that's it.
Is that what you told me, pubjoe ? I didn't understand, sorry !
Well, I didn't play much at those three games but they seems to run pretty good for me. I will try again after work.
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Yes, that's what I meant by performance settings. It's okay, it's easy to forget to do. When I unknowingly left it on Power Saving mode it scaled the CPU down to borderline speed and I was getting microstutters on any game, causing an occasional sound wobble in predictable places. It was driving me up the wall. :banghead:
I'm not good enough at those games to notice, but I think the three Yagawa games have more issues with incorrect slowdown making them even more difficult. They also seem more testing on the CPU.
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Oh yes it drove me crazy too :badmood:
I didn't understand why my new core i3 seems to run as bad as my old Athlon x2 250 !!!
I don't know if I can tell Windows to switch automatically to High Performance Settings when launching GM. I will try tonight.
And test Ibara and other games but I never played original games so I am not sure I will notice anything.
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If you have a chance, it'd be intersting to check if -priority 1 -nosleep has any effect at all on performance.
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OK Calamity, I will test these options. Do you want tests with windows performance settings back to normal ?
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OK Calamity, I will test these options. Do you want tests with windows performance settings back to normal ?
Well, yes, the idea is to check if those options actually force the CPU to work at full capacity so to avoid forcing windows performance settings... although I don't think they will make any difference.
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FWIW I don't recall forcing windows performance settings. I use the priority 1 and nosleep :)
I can't get to that cabinet at the moment to check though.
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If you have a chance, it'd be intersting to check if -priority 1 -nosleep has any effect at all on performance.
I can't test at the moment but I'm sure they made no difference to me when I was trying everything but Windows performance settings.
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So, Calamity, I tried nosleep and priority 1 options, it is better than without them but I still have fps drops. Cpu seems to not stay at its full speed.
When enabling high performance profile in Windows I reach an average speed of 99.99% in Ibara and I stop playing in the beginning of level 4. I didn't notice pb. I am very happy with it and I will keep this profile always active !
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Thank you guys for the major improvement.
I set the power management as kabuji74 explained and I removed
all the ini file where I put the triplebuffer 1, and you guess it : all runs at 100%
emulation speed.
As calamity asked I also tried the nosleep and priority 1 in normal power management.
Like kabuji74, I also noticed drops, less than without the switch, but nothing comparable
with the maximum performance settings.
Thank you so much for this information, I didn't even know windows could slow down
processor execution when processes ask for more power.
What a bright day :cheers:
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I am glad to have brought my modest contribution to the project even if I was not the one who found the tips ! Thank you pubjoe for that. Anyway I played again with ibara and punky sweets and yes both run at 100% !!!
Envoyé de mon ME302C en utilisant Tapatalk
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Well, yes, the idea is to check if those options actually force the CPU to work at full capacity so to avoid forcing windows performance settings... although I don't think they will make any difference.
Is this something that can be improved and maybe added to the GM patch? Or "-priority 1 -nosleep 1" is the only other alternative?
Like you mention it would be nice not having to force windows settings and have the cpu running 100% in frontends and other non-demanding emus. :)
edit:
btw the priority/sleep options are the ones in mame.ini right?
SLEEP 0
PRIORITY 1
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Sorry Calamity, I had trouble narrowing down the cause of my microstutters but now I don't think it was due to Windows default performance options. It looks more like it was a disk access issue - which the Windows maximum performance setting may have hidden.