Slowdowns in WinUAE 2.7.0
 

Heya guys,

All of a sudden I'm experiencing major slowdown in just about every game with v2.7.0. Can't seem to find out what's causing it. I used to have _perfect_ Amiga emulation with later versions.

My setup:

Intel Core i7-2600K @ 3.4GHz, 16GB 1600MHz DDR3 RAM, AMD Radeon R9 280x GPU.

Running WinUAE 2.7.0 on Win 8.1 Pro x64. My monitor is an Asus VG278Q, which syncs to 50hz natively (which is why I love this monitor).

Anyways. Even my benchmark game, Turrican, has slowdowns. Especially when there are lots of sprites on screen, which does not really make sense, as the game on an original A500 runs perfect.

My CPU usage is never above 60-70%.

I use Full-window with low latency VSync, at 50Hz PAL and a D3D CRT filter.

Don't know if you need more details, but I'll be happy to provide it.

Anyways, any tips on how to get my Miggy emulation back to flawless would be great. Thanks!

One question:
Does it happens on a official WinUAE 2.7.0 and also on latest test version -> http://www.winuae.net/files/b/winuae.zip

Official is compiled on VC10 and test version VC13 ... hope maybe this could help.

Yes, unfortunately I have tried both.

If suddenly means: no winuae version change and no config change, it is something else that changed, possibly drivers, possible some other automatic update.

Include both logs and config file. Also try normal debugging method, get rid of all extra settings in your config to see if anything changes.

btw, do you mean Turrican or Turrican II? At least II does have slowdowns on real A500 when there is lots of action.

It is also not whole emulation slowdown if sound stays glitch free.

Unfortunately, cant help too much as still running WinXP SP3 and all works fine ...
but does it behave same in Direct Draw and Direct 3D screen mode ?

It happened when I upgraded from Win 7 to Win 8 and from WinUAE 2.6.x (some beta) to 2.7.0. Been using the same config. By Turrican, I mean Turrican (1).

Will post logs tomorrow. Thanks for the help!

Well, that are now 2 variables ... Win versions and WinUAE versions !

Does the official 2.6.x. still work OK on Win 8 with same config file ?

(p.s. I always make a new config file from new emu version for new emu version.)

Try to disable both VSync and CRT filter ... does it behaves better ?

If yes than try to enable one of above disabled and than test again.

Ok, I just tried using my old 2.6.x release of WinUAE and I have the same slowdowns there. It looks to me as the emulated Amiga isn't powerful enough, sort of, if you know what I mean. I get perfectly smooth scrolling in cracktros etc and in Turrican/Robocod 2 when there are few sprites on screen, but as soon as there's multiple animations at once then it slows down and gets jerky.

I've also tried disabling vsync, going from windowed to full screen etc. Still the same.

Maybe my A500 setup is wrong? AFAIK for A500 OCS games I'd want to use 68000CPU (obviously) and OCS chipset (cycle-exact checked, right?), 1/2 meg chip, 1/2 meg slow.

Update: I tried unchecking Cycle-exact in "Hardware -> Chipset" and the stuttering disappeared, although I got noticable input lag instead. Weird..?

Attach your config file but first you should test if A500 Quickstart with compatibility slider fully left works.

Config file attached. Tried using A500 Quickstart with slider fully to the left, same problem. Thanks.

I quickly tested Turrican I (with a trainer) on my real A500 and it does not run at full 50Hz all the time, for example there is heavy slow down when falling down the big waterfall (Turrican II does the same), also boss immediately after first level slows down greatly when it blows up. I also noticed random slow downs during the second level too.

You either used too fast settings previously or much older WinUAE versions that weren't accurate enough. "Not accurate enough" generally always meant too fast emulation.

Yeah, there are some slowdowns on the original system indeed, but the Robocod slowdowns are more jerky, like stuttering. If you have the time, can you boot any version of James Pond 2: Robocod on your real A500 and see if there's any noticable slowdowns? E.g. in the first level/door, when the first moving platform is rendered on screen. I'm pretty sure I haven't noticed this occasional stutter before. Thanks in advance!

Yes, it starts skipping frames when platform is visible, can very clearly seen while jumping continuously at the same time.

A1000 tested, for some reason it refused to load on my real ECS A500, tried two different cracks, it loads and then gets stuck, just before title screen should appear. (Quickly checked with AR3 that it keeps waiting for disk block finished bit forever)

Aah, then this is sort of a stupid thread then. :) Thanks a lot for clearing that up. Oh well, I was sure that Robocod hardly ever skipped frames, but clearly I was wrong.

Thanks again! :)

For those of you who got staggering framerate from 30 to 50 FPS on fast PCs just by upgrading your WinUAE to 2.7.0., "resetting the display and filter settings" seems to be what fixed it. Make sure the Filters setting has not changed from "Null" to "none". Set it to Null filter and check that your framerate became good (49.9 to 50), then set the filter settings you want.

I manage to reach 50 FPS on my superfast PC with this setting, but boy, something is wrong. CPU numbers are hitting 25-50% on quad cores in XP and Win 7, used to get 999 fps in warp mode on my age old P4 laptop (with an old WinUAE) and now on this Win 7 machine that runs DX11 games with great performance I get ~200 fps in warp mode.

I don't know if it counts and sorry for no formal tests or configs, I just wanted to 'report results'. I certainly will try to go back in versions until I don't have to close apps to run WinUAE, that seems to be the only diff left to run. On my XP machine nothing re. hardware or drivers has changed, and the other PC is a freshly installed Win 7 machine.

No log and no config = ca't answer. (but one possibility is making sure triple buffering is not enabled)

I tried both with and without. I usually set double buffering and sound buffer 3 the first thing I do, to make configs responsive. I'll try to give you a log, downloading the 2.7.0. zip archive now so there's a fresh install. Why can't you select where WinUAE is installed in the new installer? <- is that also why it's now impossible to change to the EXE directory and press Rescan ROMs? It's reset to User Directory every time and isn't saved with the config. I remember mucking with this before. Anyway, it's a side issue, but the config is attached. First start after installation, then I changed to Exedir, relative paths, Rescan ROMs, save config.

Here is the config and logs, changed settings is in config name, except I also moved the compatibility slider to Best. I get 27% CPU usage running a standard demo, 21% when in CLI doing nothing.

Seems normal in max cycle-exact mode.