Slight sound stuttering with Mappy and Championship sprint? Worth update?

[emuola]

Cab is nearing perfection now I  noticed that Mappy has a weird problem with audio, it kinda stutters. Championshiop sprint has a similar sounding problem. I'm running the latest live-cd version (64-bit, GroovyMAME/UME v0.148u1.014).

I remember there were some audio related problems back in the day with the 64-bit version, but I was wondering if it's reasonable to update to the latest GroovyMame. Sorry, I'm always a little afraid of updating when everything (almost perfectly) works.

Any known problems with audio in 64-bit version or any significant reasons to update?

[haynor666]

I had similiar problems on windows xp x64. In my case this was resolution 288x240 with freq 60,54 instead 60,606. I simply changed monitor parameter from generenic_15 to arcade_15 and groovymame this time generates 288x240@60,606.

However that's strange bacause it should sync audio to 60,54 means lower pitch a bit instead skips some samples.

[Calamity]

However that's strange bacause it should sync audio to 60,54 means lower pitch a bit instead skips some samples.

That's odd, it should be synchronizing audio unless you've enabled -frame_delay.

[emuola]

I had similiar problems on windows xp x64. In my case this was resolution 288x240 with freq 60,54 instead 60,606. I simply changed monitor parameter from generenic_15 to arcade_15 and groovymame this time generates 288x240@60,606.

However that's strange bacause it should sync audio to 60,54 means lower pitch a bit instead skips some samples.

It shows 288 x 224 @ 60.606061 for Mappy. Weird thing is, there are tens of games that run without problems.

[haynor666]

Calamity, I've skipped this option generally. I'm not fantastic player so this 3 or 4 frames delay does not worries me.

Only for games that works with 30 Hz I was forced frame_delay 5 to get 100% of game for example all games from drivers cischeat, mcr, mcr3, mcd68 and Iron Horse.

[Calamity]

Cab is nearing perfection now I  noticed that Mappy has a weird problem with audio, it kinda stutters. Championshiop sprint has a similar sounding problem. I'm running the latest live-cd version (64-bit, GroovyMAME/UME v0.148u1.014).

Hi emuola,

Do you have a vertical cabinet? How are you playing Mappy? Does it show a speed percentage of 100%?

[emuola]

Cab is nearing perfection now I  noticed that Mappy has a weird problem with audio, it kinda stutters. Championshiop sprint has a similar sounding problem. I'm running the latest live-cd version (64-bit, GroovyMAME/UME v0.148u1.014).

Hi emuola,

Do you have a vertical cabinet? How are you playing Mappy? Does it show a speed percentage of 100%?

I have a horiz M3129 cab. Mappy has sound problems, but for example Bomb Jack works great What do you mean by "how do you play Mappy"? Btw, I noticed that switchres shows this resolution on the info screen "608 x 288p 53.055 Hz 16500 KHz" and the original is shown as " 288 x 224 @ 60.606061 Hz"

I'll have to hook up a keyboard to be able to see the fps. I'll post the fps after lunch

[Calamity]

I have a horiz M3129 cab. Mappy has sound problems, but for example Bomb Jack works great What do you mean by "how do you play Mappy"? Btw, I noticed that switchres shows this resolution on the info screen "608 x 288p 53.055 Hz 16500 KHz" and the original is shown as " 288 x 224 @ 60.606061 Hz"

I'll have to hook up a keyboard to be able to see the fps. I'll post the fps after lunch

Ok, that's fine. Regarding Mappy I meant if you're playing it rotated, as you've confirmed (288p@53Hz). You have two options:

- Enable -syncrefresh in a mappy.ini file. This will slow down the game forcing it to synchronize at 53 Hz. Sound pitch will be lower too, or
- Force 288p games to run at an interlaced resolution. You do this by creating a custom crt_range and setting ProgressiveLinesMax as 256 (or whatever value). The speed will be the original 60.606 Hz and the sound will be fine too.

Starting with Switchres 0.015c (GroovyMAME 0.155 & 0.156) there's a new implementation for Linux that allows running at a lower refresh while keeping the sound untouched (equivalent to the -triplebuffer option in Windows). So yes, there's a reason to update. However the new version is based on SDL2, so you'll need to update your system too to support this. Currently there's a beta live cd with SDL2 but because it's beta it's missing many things so I don't recommend you to install it. I'd say you should be able to use the newer builds in your system as long as you install the SDL2 libraries. Also, if you update GM make sure to create a fresh mame.ini using the new build because your current mame.ini won't work.

[emuola]

I have a horiz M3129 cab. Mappy has sound problems, but for example Bomb Jack works great What do you mean by "how do you play Mappy"? Btw, I noticed that switchres shows this resolution on the info screen "608 x 288p 53.055 Hz 16500 KHz" and the original is shown as " 288 x 224 @ 60.606061 Hz"

I'll have to hook up a keyboard to be able to see the fps. I'll post the fps after lunch

Ok, that's fine. Regarding Mappy I meant if you're playing it rotated, as you've confirmed (288p@53Hz). You have two options:

- Enable -syncrefresh in a mappy.ini file. This will slow down the game forcing it to synchronize at 53 Hz. Sound pitch will be lower too, or
- Force 288p games to run at an interlaced resolution. You do this by creating a custom crt_range and setting ProgressiveLinesMax as 256 (or whatever value). The speed will be the original 60.606 Hz and the sound will be fine too.

Starting with Switchres 0.015c (GroovyMAME 0.155 & 0.156) there's a new implementation for Linux that allows running at a lower refresh while keeping the sound untouched (equivalent to the -triplebuffer option in Windows). So yes, there's a reason to update. However the new version is based on SDL2, so you'll need to update your system too to support this. Currently there's a beta live cd with SDL2 but because it's beta it's missing many things so I don't recommend you to install it. I'd say you should be able to use the newer builds in your system as long as you install the SDL2 libraries. Also, if you update GM make sure to create a fresh mame.ini using the new build because your current mame.ini won't work.

Ok, thanks again Calamity I tried to create mappy.ini in /home/arcade/ini and put "syncrefresh" on the first line (also tried "-syncrefresh"), but it does not seems to do anything :/ Wrong syntax or what?

I guess I'll hold on a little longer with the update, I'll have to make and image with Clonezilla first

[Calamity]

Create a blank .ini file and add:

syncrefresh 1

That's all.

[emuola]

Create a blank .ini file and add:

syncrefresh 1

That's all.

  Yes! Thank you. I don't mind the little drop in sound pitch as the game runs smoothly :)One more thing: Why does my mame.ini have "syncrefresh 1" in core options? Is that wrong (applies for mame in general??

[haynor666]

I use syncrefresh 1 in mame.ini and never bothered about this option in [game].ini or source/[driver].ini. Works great so far.

[adder]

generally speaking i think if you set syncrefresh, waitvsync and triplebuffer all to 0, then groovymame chooses the most suitable option for you. i had to do this as previously if i was using only syncrefresh set to 1 and the others set to 0, then the 30hz games like rampage were running at twice speed.

[haynor666]

I had the same problem with 30 Hz games. With these games I use frame_delay 4 or 5. If I had some sound problems then I disable syncrefresh.

[Calamity]

generally speaking i think if you set syncrefresh, waitvsync and triplebuffer all to 0, then groovymame chooses the most suitable option for you.

That's correct. In GroovyMAME, for these options, as well as for cleanstretch, "0" in mame.ini means automatic.

Switchres in GM sets options with higher priority than mame.ini, so if these options are "0" in mame.ini GM will be able to override them to make the best adjustment depending on the resulting refresh from the modeline generator (which is a function of your monitor configuration).

If you want to force a specific setting then you put it in an .ini file with higher priority than Switchres (all but mame.ini: game.ini, driver.ini, etc.)

You can see what settings are being applied by creating a log.

For -triplebuffer (Windows) to actually work as intended, -multithreading must be enabled first in mame.ini. This must be done manually as it is disabled by default for stability reasons (mainly because it caused issues for people using super invasive frontends that kill the emulator process by hooking the escape key and things like that).

For games that run at 30 Hz, in normal conditions (default options in mame.ini), -triplebuffer would be invoked by GM keeping the speed at 100% without requiring -frame_delay.

[emuola]

generally speaking i think if you set syncrefresh, waitvsync and triplebuffer all to 0, then groovymame chooses the most suitable option for you.

That's correct. In GroovyMAME, for these options, as well as for cleanstretch, "0" in mame.ini means automatic.

Switchres in GM sets options with higher priority than mame.ini, so if these options are "0" in mame.ini GM will be able to override them to make the best adjustment depending on the resulting refresh from the modeline generator (which is a function of your monitor configuration).

If you want to force a specific setting then you put it in an .ini file with higher priority than Switchres (all but mame.ini: game.ini, driver.ini, etc.)

You can see what settings are being applied by creating a log.

For -triplebuffer (Windows) to actually work as intended, -multithreading must be enabled first in mame.ini. This must be done manually as it is disabled by default for stability reasons (mainly because it caused issues for people using super invasive frontends that kill the emulator process by hooking the escape key and things like that).

For games that run at 30 Hz, in normal conditions (default options in mame.ini), -triplebuffer would be invoked by GM keeping the speed at 100% without requiring -frame_delay.

Ok, as default I have all these set to "1", except triplebuffer, which does not exists at all in my mame.ini (linux). Why are these like that as default in GroovyArcade? I'd presume they would be "correct" at the first place?

Should I set these all to 0 then? Just wondering Great to have this kind of expertise in this forum guys 

[Calamity]

Why are these like that as default in GroovyArcade?

I'd say it was like that in older versions (yours is still based on Switchres 0.014).

[emuola]

Why are these like that as default in GroovyArcade?

I'd say it was like that in older versions (yours is still based on Switchres 0.014).

Ok, I have the first of 0.015-series. Should I change those then?

[Calamity]

Why are these like that as default in GroovyArcade?

I'd say it was like that in older versions (yours is still based on Switchres 0.014).

Ok, I have the first of 0.015-series. Should I change those then?

Then it is fine to leave -syncrefresh & -waitvsync as "0" in mame.ini.

I forgot to mention: there's a better way to enable -syncrefresh even in those cases where the refresh is off rather than creating individial .inis for the games affected. Use the -syncrefresh_tolerance option. By default it's set to 2.0 Hz. This means that -syncrefresh is used unless the refresh obtained is off by more than 2.0 Hz. Increase this value to allow more tolerance.

[emuola]

Why are these like that as default in GroovyArcade?

I'd say it was like that in older versions (yours is still based on Switchres 0.014).

Ok, I have the first of 0.015-series. Should I change those then?

Then it is fine to leave -syncrefresh & -waitvsync as "0" in mame.ini.

I forgot to mention: there's a better way to enable -syncrefresh even in those cases where the refresh is off rather than creating individial .inis for the games affected. Use the -syncrefresh_tolerance option. By default it's set to 2.0 Hz. This means that -syncrefresh is used unless the refresh obtained is off by more than 2.0 Hz. Increase this value to allow more tolerance.

Awesome Btw, when I run switchres from shell I prompts this:

Code: [Select]

SwitchRes version 1.50 by Chris Kennedy (C) 2010 - updated by Antonio Giner (C) 2012
General purpose modeline generator

Build Date:   vie feb 22 09:16:04 CET 2013
Compiler:     GCC 4.7.2
Build System: Linux Archlinux 3.7.9-1-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Mon Feb 18 02:13:30 EET 2013 x86_64 GNU/Linux


ver 1.5 is 0.015? 

Sorry to bother you Calamity.

[haynor666]

I've set sync tolerance to 4 at the beginning because of Denjin Makai works at 61 Hz which can't be generated for 320x256.

[Calamity]

ver 1.5 is 0.015? 

No, I mean the Switchres that's built in GroovyMAME, launch (groovymame -h).
It will be 0.014 for sure if you're still with GM 0.148 (very old btw).

[emuola]

ver 1.5 is 0.015? 

No, I mean the Switchres that's built in GroovyMAME, launch (groovymame -h).
It will be 0.014 for sure if you're still with GM 0.148 (very old btw).

Stupid me  Ok, yeah, it's 0.014. Ok, I'll update I just need some time to make it *100%* sure, it's gonna work. Thank you Calamity for your support. I own you (at least) 10 pints

[Calamity]

Ves is telling me that it may be difficult to get the SDL2 libraries for that old distribution, in case you wanted to update GM. So maybe you'll want to wait until a new live cd is released.

Beer... you know my weakness