How do different Intel/AMD CPU speeds affect WinUAE emulation?

[Foebane]

If a WinUAE user upgrades or replaces their PC to one with a faster (or for some reason slower) processor, then does the speed difference affect WinUAE emulation to the point of having to change configurations to compensate? And how does the difference manifest itself? A different number of frames per second, in certain cases like 3D rendering?

I was thinking of switching PCs within a year, but I wouldn't want all my configurations to stop working properly on the new PC if it were faster or slower, that's all.

I would imagine it doesn't make any difference and that WinUAE will compensate anyway, so which is it?

[Skumball404]

I would guess that if your system is above a minimum specification then it doesn't matter all that much. What that minimum is I don't know but something mid-tier bought in the last 5 years is probably more than enough. If you are talking about a bleeding edge PC and worried about emulation being too fast then I'm sure WinUAE has emulation timings that limit the maximum speed.

[Foebane]

My PC has an Intel Core i3-4150, so I'm guessing that's more than fast enough.

I also have my configs set to cycle-exact mostly all the way through, so there's the stability with that as well.

I guess I'm sorted.

[Toni Wilen]

You'll notice it very quickly if CPU is too slow: sound starts glitching. Sometimes sound issue is something else but if there is not enough CPU power to emulate everything in real time: sound starts repeating/cutting.

Faster CPU makes no difference in cycle-exact/approximate modes but naturally fastest possible mode gets faster which can break some programs. But that is normal..

[lesta_smsc]

Yes, seems like your specs are more than adequate.

I used WinUAE on Pentium 166MHz back in the day, although I did find DOSFellow was much faster, though issues with set up (as I was much less learned at the time with computers)

[AMIGASYSTEM]

Originally Posted by lesta_smsc

I used WinUAE on Pentium 166MHz back in the day, although I did find DOSFellow was much faster,

If you run an RTG system the difference is known, very long system startup times, same thing if you start some application or game of a certain graphic or sound complexity.

[chip]

I think there's no need to open another thread, since my question is strictly related to "which hardware configuration to use for WinUAE"

I'm a fanatic of the audio aspect, so i want to ask if there are particular hardware requirements to get the best audio emulation

At the moment i have a Realtek audio device and sincerely i have no problem at all

Just want to know if something better exist about audio devices to use with WinUAE

Thanks in advance, chip

[Toni Wilen]

Sound hardware does not matter much because it is only used to play single continuous audio stream. (EDIT: back in the day when DirectSound was best and latest API there was much larger difference and lots of drivers were quite bad..)

I guess only real difference is minimum latency which isn't that important perhaps except if you want really small sound latency in beam racing display mode.

[chip]

Thanks for reply Toni

[LongLifeA1200]

While WinUAE is running, open Task Manager, go to the "Details" tab, find "winuae.exe", right click it and change the "Set priority".

Otherwise, if you have a multi-core CPU, you can "Set affinity" and choose which CPU-core you want to dedicate to WinUAE.

Edit: Never mind. WinUAE already has the option to "Set priority" in the "Pri. & Extentions" section, which will override whatever you selected in Task Manager anyway.