100hz screen with vsync
 

Hi,

I've tried 100hz screenmode in winuae and ticked "vsync", the result is that sidewayes scrolling games (like Jim Power) or fast scrolltexts from demos's still "jitter", so that it doesn't look very smooth. If I select a 50hz screenmode and tick vsync then everything scrolls really smooth, i.e. like the real thing.

Now I've once seen Tony comment in a forum that the 100hz was meant for people with big monitors, that they wouldn't have to suffer the flickering of 50hz. Does that mean that fast sideways scrolling in 100hz with vsync should be as smooth as 50hz, or equally as smooth as the real thing?? Because with me the 100hz mode isn't as smooth as 50hz!

Question: Have people here run their winuae in 100hz with vsync ticked and do fast sideways scrollers look completely smooth?

Thanks, because I really like to get the 100hz screens to work properly!

Thanks for any help,

At a guess, I'd bet your desktop refresh rate is under 100hz. Check it first.

WinUAE tries to set the refresh rate to 100Hz. If the driver reports that this isn't possible for the display mode (for me 74Hz is the max for my preferred display mode), it will set this value which results in jerky scrolling again. Two solutions:

- Set to 50 Hz and live with the flickering
- Buy a monitor which handles 100Hz at your desired resolution (most new ones do)

Thx LordBug and Bobbin for the reply :)

Now I know that the 100hz IS supposed to result in completely smooth scrolling, so I have to investigate further what the problem with my display exactly is... I'll try both your suggestions, but I'm having a hunch that it's my monitor which doesn't support 100hz properly at 800x600 (it's an IBM 17 inch from 5 years ago)... I'll see ;)

Thanks for the suggestions!

Have you ever considered that this vsync thing currently will only work in FULL-SCREEN mode?

That's very important to know. Windowed-mode vsync support is planned, but not yet done.
Besides, I've just tested Jim Power (thanks for pointing me to this *highly* complex game which really is a challenge for the emulator unlike many others :)) and it works real great.
800x600x16, 100 Hz, OpenGL off, neither H- nor V-centering and full-screen checkbox ticked.
By the way, I also got such an IBM thing here: a P72.

[EDIT] Yes, now I can confirm jittery horizontal scrolling in the Jim Power intro screen with all those layers scrolling horizontally, if and only if I enable OpenGL mode! Non-OpenGL mode works like a charm.
I set sound to "Disabled" because it was too choppy with a frame-skip ratio of 1/1 (i. e. refresh every frame) (this is normal on my system, though :p).

In case you want to test yourself:
With latest (public) builds, it's possible to change from OpenGL to Non-Open-GL on the fly with the emulation running! So you can witness the difference in a blink of an eye. Great, huh? ;)

I would have thought forcing a 50hz display mode might damage your monitor. Most don't like going below 60.

To be honest, I've never altered the refresh. The emulation is far from smooth anyway, doubt I'd notice a difference.


Sorry to deviate from the topic in hand, but does anyone have any tips to getting the emulation smoother?

For example, Shadow of the Beast 1's intro has awful choppy sound. And this is at a point where it's only displaying static intro pictures!

(Hardware chosen: A500 timings, OCS, 1mb chip, 68000.

PC hardware: Athlon Thunderbird 1400mhz, 512MB, Geforce 3, Win 2k.)


I still have my real A1200, so it's not a critical issue. But as I'm a big fan of emulation, I certainly would like to get it running better on the PC too.

@Echo
Modify Display settings by changing the frame-skip ratio from 'Every frame' to 'Every second frame'. This may help. Or crank up the sound buffer slider a bit more.

I did try that mate, up to maximum skipping just to see if the sound would be perfect. But it didn't help much at all.

As for playing the game, it just wouldn't be the same on a frameskip of even 2. What made Amiga games so great was the perfect scrolling.

Most 2ghz PCs can't achieve it in games today, although I'm talking 3D games, where the graphics card often isn't powerful enough to sustain 60fps synced.

Does disabling sound help? (also make sure primary sound buffer checkbox is NOT ticked. It was accidentally left enabled in default configuration in recent WinUAE versions)

Make sure Cycle-exact isn't enabled (you need faster cpu and higher memory bandwidth to have smooth ce-emulation)

Doh, I assumed I had a recent version. It turns out they've added a load of stuff since the version I have. Sound is fine now! And fps is locked at 50. Quality :)

OH NO!

And I was thinking all the time that you were using the LATEST version :lol

Please people, do tell us such "unimportant details" like that. :p