Is there a favoured WinUAE for an Atom pc?

[ElectroBlaster]

I am running XP SP2, 2gb memory and a 1.6ghz Atom - Nvidia ION Chipset and the latest WinUAE.

I have Protracker 3.11 on an A1200 config with K3.1, 2mb chip and 64mb fast, 68030. Sound is choppy and a bit laggy. Stuck with on-board realtek sound. I have tried loads of things from changing the buffer, lowering the quality. But it still stutters alot...

I have turned VSync off after reading a thread on here about it. I shall try some older WinuUAE's and see what works. Any tips? I will not be changing the board yet... unless I find something that is more powerfull but lack of funds means that wont happen yet!

[s2325]

My netbook have same main CPU and there was no problem with Protracker, just use WinUAE 1.6.0 If I remember correctly some older versions always crashed when playing music module.

[Toni Wilen]

Why 1.6.0? No one has _ever_ shown any real speed difference proof. (Always different configs etc..)

First test some simple game using standard A500 mode (do not use cycle-exact). Protrackers may have issues with too fast CPUs.

What does CPU% and SND% show?

[ElectroBlaster]

I will let you know Toni! 1.6.0 seems to run a tad smoother, still a bit of dropout and lag. I shall downgrade the spec a bit and go for an a500 config with ECS and have another bash. Will try and post some logs and watch the cpu% and snd%.

[fishyfish]

I tried playing with 1.6 on my atom netbook after reading many times that its faster than newer versons, but there seemed to be little to no difference.
If you want to use amiga emulation on an atom go for Winfellow. Its not nearly as feature rich or as accurate, but its significantly faster on lower spec gear.

Alternatively (and/or additionally) if you know what you're doing try something like setfsb. The difference 2ghz and the default 1.66ghz of my atom netbook is quite noticable when it comes to amiga emulation.

[ElectroBlaster]

Overclocking, cut my teeth on Slot A thlons back in the old days and worked my way into Coppermine Celeron's, Socket A stuff etc. I tend to not bother at all these days but now thinking about it, this nvidia atom board I have, it has alot of bios features for tweaking.

I shall try winfellow aswell

[amilo3438]

I am running XP SP3, 1gb memory and a 1.6ghz OC@2.13ghz - Nvidia 6800 laptop and the latest WinUAE 2.6.1.

I also still have an working A500, but found it run on my laptop via WinUAE more practical.

As with those new WinUAE releases I found my laptop become too slow for default WinUAE settings, so I decided to experiment with other configuration setting options until I found one that work the best for me. So here is the changes in default WinUAE settings I made to run it a lot faster on my laptop and decided to share this changes with you:

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Run a fresh WinUAE 2.6.1 installation, press F12 key and follow the changes on Menu left side according to below steps:


1st step - Quickstart

Go for A500 configuration, you can choose also A1200 if you want a fast A1200 setting. But also note that A1200 setting will be still slower and less compatible with A500 software.

Note: Uncheck "Start in Quick start mode" and press "Set configuration" tab before next step !


2nd step - Display

Screen: Windowed 752x576, No buffering
Settings: Resolution autoswitch checked


3rd step - Miscellaneous

Graphics API: Direct3D

Note: You can also experiment with the default DirectDraw Graphics API in case if it works better on your laptop.


4th step - Filter

Filter Settings: none, Horiz. size FS, Vert.size FS, No scalling - for Direct3D / (Fullscreen (Max) - for DirectDraw)
Extra settings: Point/Bilinear 1 (move slider to right) - optional for Direct3D to soft pixels

5th step - Chipset (more speed vs compatibility)

By default there will be Cycle-exact box checked for best compatibility.
But in case you need more speed with less compatibility, just uncheck the Cycle-exact box. Also remember to re-chech this box again if you notice any compatibility problem. Your choice - more speed vs compatibility. But for a 90% of stuff there should be of no problem if this stay unchecked.


At the end the most important thing !!!
Do not forget to save your new configuration now - go to Configuration, choose a new name and SAVE it, so you can LOAD it when you will need it without going on steps above again.

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p.s.
I have an Pentium M 725 processor in my laptop, so according to Wikipedia one with an Intel Atom will have the half of performance at the same clock rate.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Atom

A good news is that with above mentioned settings my laptop runs mostly below 50% of CPU time and with Cycle-exact unchecked below 20% of CPU time.

Would be also good to hear does the above settings makes a difference in WinUAE speed on your laptop too and how much.
And if you have any better idea or suggestion how to improve the WinUAE speed a little bit more but without changes in HW.

Topic continue on below link:
http://eab.abime.net/support-winuae/...w-systems.html

[amilo3438]

In addition to above post, and because I have an Nvidia 6800 laptop, I noticed when closing an existing nvsvs32.exe process in Windows Task-Manager the sound becomes less choppy and generally WinUAE is more speedy. I am not tested this on other laptops but it is worth to experiment if you have an Nvidia laptop. Also this probably have nothing with WinUAE, but with windows itself as eating a lot of memory during a time.

Generally till now I closed this process in Task-Manager all the time before running WinUAE on my Nvidia laptop. Didnt noticed so far any problem with other things too. So it looks as that process is not so important and will going to turn it off for good.