Not getting performance I wanted on new 'rig ... Improving performance on GM?

[Spicules]

I recently built a new rig solely to put in my arcade cab.- i3 2120, 4gb ram, xp64, Radeon 4890.     I wanted to be rid of all slowdown in my 2d games and play 3D games like Tekken Tag, Carnevil, Time Crisis in their original resolutions at full speed.

Unfortunately, all the 3D games - Tekken Tag, Time Crisis, Carnevil - are all still unplayably slow in GM.  I understand that these games are demanding and that so is GM, but I figured that this rig would be enough.   Am I just wrong?  Is it maybe just my setup?   I've run all those at 100% on my i7 rig (no crt emu drivers / GM there - Mameui64), but that is an obviously faster PC. 

I am using the following performance-related options:

 - triplebuffer
 - soundsync
 - autoframeskip 0
 - frameskip 0
 - multithreading 1
 - hwstretch 0
 - waitvsync 1

[bulbousbeard]

This might be a dumb question, but are you using a 64bit version of Groovymame? The 64bit version of MAME runs quite a bit faster than the 32bit version.

[cools]

I'd be interested in this as well. There's something weird with interlaced games and speed on my setup, not figured out how to fix it yet.

[adder]

try turning off multithreading, i've read in a few places that the multithreading option isnt particularly stable in mame (causes some games to have issues). i'd be interested in others opinions about this.

ps. unrelated but cools one of your posts in a different thread helped me solve a problem which i didnt think there was an easy way out of, so thankyou very much sir! 

[cools]

 

Care to elaborate?

[adder]

Care to elaborate?

yes sir, happy to explain

the problem i was having was using mameuifx, outputting to a pal scart tv (which also handles ntsc). i am forced to use direct3d not directx (for reasons i wont go into, it will make this post even longer!). as you know already, when using direct3d with standard build mame versions, unlike directdraw mode, direct3d always applies vertical stretching if you try to run a game where the native game resolution and the output screen resolution do not match exactly.

the problem i was having:  i was trying to create a low res resolution of 512x288 so i could run games like galaga and pacman etc on my horizontal mounted tv. the problem, when i tried to get my tv to display a 288 lines high resolution, the tv switched into PAL mode (no doubt it decides between pal/ntsc mode depending on the amount of vertical lines). i then discovered that the tv would stay in ntsc mode as long as i didnt go above 286 lines. but of course, then if i tried to run galaga (288 lines) on the 286 lines mode, directd3d applies stretching of a few lines (which IS visible as a couple of blurry lines)

i couldnt figure out a solution to the problem until i read one of your posts from a past thread on this forum which mentioned using the stretch options in the slider controls menu of mame. i did the math and saw that 288/286 = 1.007 so in the .cfg files for the 288 games like galaga, pacman i set hstretch=1.007000 and there we have it, no visible stretching anymore when running 288 games using my 286 screen resolution under direct3d (instead, a couple of lines are simply displayed off the screen)

so thanks again cools for giving me the idea to fix my problem

[Spicules]

try turning off multithreading, i've read in a few places that the multithreading option isnt particularly stable in mame (causes some games to have issues). i'd be interested in others opinions about this.

ps. unrelated but cools one of your posts in a different thread helped me solve a problem which i didnt think there was an easy way out of, so thankyou very much sir! 

64 bit vers - yes.

Turning off multithreading WORKED!!! .... for about 15 minutes    (it was a very happy 15 minutes tho)

I played through a level of Carnevil which played not perfect, but very good and playable at about 95% speed, dropping some frames here and there.... and then it went back to how it was before.  I cannot replicate the sudden burst of speed that seemed to last for 15 minutes after I turned off multi-threading.

I don't have anything running in the background - my startup is 100% clear of everything.  I only have troubleshooter running (prog that allows 2x aimtrak lightguns in pc games).  Turning that off on startup does not affect the speed.


Overclocking / turbo is also not being done, as my chip is a locked i3 2120. 

Anybody have any idea why this would work for only such a short while?

[Spicules]

NM - figured it out.  It was an overheating issue.  I think that reducing the multi-thread lowered the stress, but it would kick back up and then start overheating after a short while. 

I checked by CPU cooler and one of legs wasn't fully secured O_o

Putting it back lowered my idle temp from 65 to 35 ; stress from 100 to 65.

Multithreading WAS necessary to get 100% in carnevil, etc.

VERY happy to get this going though - thanks for everyone's help!

[adder]

that was interesting i didnt think of that; why after 15 minutes the performance would drop..
but of course when your cpu is getting too hot it reduces its 'top speed' so to speak, so you would see a drop in eg. mame performance for cpu intensive games.   cool  glad you fixed your problem

[rCadeGaming]

Don't use triple buffer, it will add a lot of input lag.