Killer Instinct sound issues?

[lettuce]

Is there a way to stop the sound skipping that sometimes accures in killer instinct on mame?

[elvis]

Audio skipping in MAME occurs for one of two reasons:

1) Your audio buffer/delay isn't high enough.  This would cause sound skipping in ALL games.  or

2) Your computer isn't fast enough.  This would cause sound skipping in newer titles.

If your problem is (1) then the solution is documented in here:
http://www.mame.net/readmewin.html

(I'll let you read the docs for yourself and find the answer  - hint: search the document for "audio". ).

If your problem is (2), then it's time to upgrade your CPU, or use a different emulator.

[stevodevo]

I'd almost say if you can run KI in mame then your computer must be fairly decent.  I couldn't run it on my 1.6Ghz 640meg ram pc without slowdown.  I'm using another emu to run it called u64Emu - google it.  I'm running it in my cab via MameWah.  Works great.

[lettuce]

its an athlon 2400 cpu with 512 ram, so its on the top end for mame stuff

[elvis]

its an athlon 2400 cpu with 512 ram, so its on the top end for mame stuff

Can you benchmark KI and post the results here?

[motorfish]

I'm running an Athlon 3200 with a gig of RAM, and KI2 still slows down for me. I can almost run it at full speed, but not quite....

KI1, no problem.

- Dan

[motorfish]

Are you using an on-board sound card? If so, that might account for your problems, as on-board sound steals cycles from your processing time.

- Dan

[elvis]

Are you using an on-board sound card? If so, that might account for your problems, as on-board sound steals cycles from your processing time.

- Dan

Careful when making broad sweeping statements like that.  Modern AC'97 sound on Intel, Via and Nvidia boards do not "steal cycles" at a higher rate than any high-end plugin card you can consider.

Perhaps back 5 years ago when onboard sound first appeared it was the case, but things have changed a great deal since then.

[motorfish]

So noted.

[motorfish]

So I'm guessing that my compurter just isn't fast enough to run KI2 at full speed. I was sure an Athlon64 3200 would've chewed this game up, but no dice.

- Dan

[elvis]

Benchmarks from MAME32's author John V:

http://www.classicgaming.com/mame32qa/bench.htm
kinst2 running on MAME 0.94u5:
Athlon64 3200+ at 93 FPS
Athlon64 3700+ at 111 FPS

http://www.classicgaming.com/mame32qa/old_bench.htm
kinst2 running on MAME 0.83u3:
Athlon 64 3200+ at 94 FPS
Athlon 3000+ Barton 333FSB at 76 FPS
P4 3Ghz HT 533FSB at 109 FPS
P4 3.20Ghz HT 800FSB at 117 FPS

Looking at those benchmarks, I would interpolate that Killer Instinct 1 and 2 (the use identical hardware) runs best on Intel P4 architecture, and at roughly 2.8GHz minimum for half-decent play.  60FPS minimum is what you want, so a 60FPS "average" (which is what the MAME benchmarks show) isn't enough.  You need a bit more than that to cover your highs and lows.

its an athlon 2400 cpu with 512 ram, so its on the top end for mame stuff

No, it's not "top end for MAME stuff".  From the benchmarks above, it would be borderline acceptable for KI, and result in occasional sound skipping as the system tries to frameskip.  The same thing will happen when you try newer 3D games like Tekken, etc.

As mentioned, either upgrade your hardware, or change emulators.  Any of the Nintendo Ultra64 HLE-style emulators will perform well, and give near arcade perfect emulation.  And if "near" isn't good enough, then bite the bullet and spend some money on an upgrade.

Or conversely, crack open the MAME source and start optimizing.  That's the beauty of having the source-code available to you.

[motorfish]

My emulator may indeed be where I'm hitting my block. I'm using MAME32 v. 98 or .99

I'll attempt to roll back to an earlier version.

- Dan

[motorfish]

Nope, not working out. KI2 on my machine dips down to 48 fps once in-game. Weird...

I'm running:

Windows XP Pro Sp1
MB - K8N Neo 4
Processor - Athlon 64 3200+
1 gig ddr ram

What the hell is slowing me down?