Lag in different Windows versions

[Housemusic]

Hi all,

I'm running a GroovyMame 0.153 + Soft15kHz setup on Windows 8.1 x64. Works quite OK as I'm currently only use it for vertical PGM or PsikyoSH games which are 60Hz +/- 1 Hz. However, I'm wondering is there an input lag increase between the different Windows versions?
- WinXP x64
- Win7 x64
- Win8.1 x64

Does anybody know if Windows 7 or 8 itself introduced higher input or display lag independent from the used emulator?

Thanks
Mike

My Setup:
OS: Win8.1 x64
CPU: Core2Duo 2x2.67 GHz
GFX Card: Radeon HD 4350 / Catalyst 13.1 official
Display: NTSC TV
Input device: USB Controller
Mame: GroovyMame V0.153 / FE: Mala 1.74

[Calamity]

Hi Housemusic,

It's good to know that this works on Windows 8.1, at least to some extent.

Does anybody know if Windows 7 or 8 itself introduced higher input or display lag independent from the used emulator?

Provided you run your emulators in *full screen exclusive mode* (the typical situation with MAME when full screen is used) then there shouldn't be more lag than in XP.

However, Windows 7 and 8 use desktop compositing. In Windows 7 you can turn this off it by disabling "aero", but this is completely impossible in Windows 8. Desktop compositing does introduce input lag. But it only affects applications that run in windowed mode. Some emulators always run in windowed mode, even if they maximize the size of the window to cover the full screen. This used to be the case with BSNES, don't know what today's situation is. The only way to bypass desktop compositing is running in full screen exclusive mode.

Bear in mind I've only tested lag in Windows XP. This is because the setup you need to test lag "scientifically" is a bit cumbersome.

That said, I'm inclined to believe that Windows 7 & 8 might behave even better than XP regarding to input lag, with a proper configuration. At least it shoudn't be worse.

[Housemusic]

Thanks Calamity, sounds fine! I'm just using Mame full screen.

Once I get a better camera with 120 or at least 60fps HD video I'll take a closer look and try to measure real lag from button press on the USB controller to the movement on the screen.

[Elaphe]

I've updated from Windows XP 32 to Windows 7 64 and the same version of MAME with the same config has much much more lag in Windows 7 than in XP. Also, with my 120hz monitor in XP I had no problems running MAME and it ran games at 60 fps without problems. Now with Windows 7, games run at 200%. There's no way to avoid that, apart from using that patch than inserts black screens between frames, but it's useless because the screen darkens and the colors are washed out. I have to manually change the refresh rate to 60 hz to run the games, but with terrible lag.