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Main => Main Forum => Topic started by: frl on January 30, 2012, 03:19:17 am

Title: GPU impact on MAME speed - confused
Post by: frl on January 30, 2012, 03:19:17 am

Good morning all,

I wonder if anyone can help me with something that has me scratching my head a bit.  It's more of a curiosity than anything else but I'm still interested!

I've just upgraded the PC hardware in my cabinet with an i5 2500k CPU.  I know it's massive overkill for most things but it seemed sensible at the time ;D 

I saw this http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=72776.0 (http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=72776.0) thread and thought I'd see how my new setup got along, and to my surprise there is quite a big difference between using the i5's integrated graphics and my ArcadeVGA3000 (at least on System 22 games which is most of what I've tested).  Time Crisis for example runs at 180% on the i5's GPU but only 150% on the AVGA. The AVGA actually drops below 100% at a couple of points, but only very briefly.  I'm curious as to the difference - is this to be expected?  I thought that MAME was almost completely tied to CPU with GPU power almost irrelevant.

The command I've been using is below, running .144 64-bit, compiled with Core2 optimisation using MameCompiler64 on XP64.

mame64.exe -noautoframeskip -frameskip 0 -seconds_to_run 240 -nothrottle -nosleep -video ddraw -skip_gameinfo -effect none -nowaitvsync -noreadconfig -mt timecris

Thanks for any thoughts!
Chris

Title: Re: GPU impact on MAME speed - confused
Post by: Gray_Area on January 31, 2012, 01:37:39 am

A question better asked at MAMEWORLD, but essentially there are two or three things that use GPU: artwork (like in-game bezel display), HLSL effects (in your case, your integrated hardware may have better DirectX driver support...except that you're running native, right?), as well as some later (3D) games (ditto the last, though native display may not be a factor).

Title: Re: GPU impact on MAME speed - confused
Post by: frl on January 31, 2012, 03:12:46 am

Thanks Gray_Area - I will have a look on MameWorld as you suggested and also check to make sure there are no artwork options enabled. 

Just one question, what do you mean by "running native"?  If you mean directdraw with nohwstretch, rather than d3d then yes, you're right (although I see nohwstretch isn't specified on my cmd line so I will check that too...)

Thanks!
Chris

Title: Re: GPU impact on MAME speed - confused
Post by: Gray_Area on February 03, 2012, 09:41:19 pm

Quote from: frl on January 31, 2012, 03:12:46 am

Just one question, what do you mean by "running native"?  If you mean directdraw with nohwstretch, rather than d3d then yes, you're right (although I see nohwstretch isn't specified on my cmd line so I will check that too...)

Thanks!
Chris

Native display, via the ArcadeVGA. Yeah, nohwstretch should be in there. Or, in your mame ini, hwstretch should be '0' .