Sound glitches with CPU Idle(?)

[hexaae]

Won't crash using g-sync + full-window (no screen switching with F12, no crash or freeze). Mmmh
But games have fps drops (49-48 fps, not solid 50) and small lags, compared to real fullscreen.

[Toni Wilen]

Borderless fullscreen should have same latency (at least since Windows 8.1 when using D3D11).

Do you mean RTG screen games or native mode? 49Hz is normal for native mode PAL (actually 49.9Hz) unless mode is interlaced.

[hexaae]

Native modes. I can notice it (and see Steam or GeForce Experience FPS counter fluctuating) in games like James Pond 2 Robocod AGA (PAL) and others: 50fps stable in fullscreen, and 48-49-50 with full-window with a slightly sound slowdown.

EDIT: did some more accurate tests and I can say also fullscreen has some small slowdowns with 4.0.0b9, so ignore my previous assumption: there is no big difference between fullscreen and full-window indeed. Both are not running smoothly.
When I'll have more spare time I'll test when it started, because old 2.5.1 runs very fast and smooth in comparison.

[hexaae]

Hi Toni,
found the time to check all previous WinUAE versions I could find:
08/06/2018 21:54 4.143.654 WinUAE2600.zip
08/06/2018 21:55 4.154.055 WinUAE2610.zip
08/06/2018 21:55 4.425.383 WinUAE2700.zip
24/10/2017 15:33 4.495.685 WinUAE2800.zip
08/06/2018 21:56 4.508.896 WinUAE2810.zip
08/06/2018 21:56 4.832.277 WinUAE3000.zip
08/06/2018 21:57 4.926.832 WinUAE3100.zip
08/06/2018 21:58 5.434.938 WinUAE3200.zip
08/06/2018 21:58 5.347.982 WinUAE3220.zip
08/06/2018 21:58 5.409.484 WinUAE3300.zip
08/06/2018 21:59 5.488.827 WinUAE3400.zip
08/06/2018 21:59 5.557.537 WinUAE3500.zip
08/06/2018 21:59 6.252.568 WinUAE3600.zip
08/06/2018 22:00 6.269.131 WinUAE3610.zip

The problem with visible lags and sound slowdowns, using this cfg: https://nofile.io/f/2qha5b6OJV2/Hexa...l+Overscan.uae , started with WinUAE 3.4.0 and the introduction of 'Hardware info' node.
First of all to be able to boot and skip a black screen freeze on WB loading (probably a BlitzKick incompatibility) I have to move "Z3 Fast Ram" up from bottom when loading the linked cfg above:



at this point WB can boot but is a bit laggy and with very laggy sound and crackles…
Up to WinUAE 3.3.0 instead I could load my cfg above and just start the emulation, with no lags.

[Toni Wilen]

Attach log using 3.3 and 3.4, thanks. (to debug the black screen)

CPU Idle problem is most likely by design because 3.4b3 changed it to really simple logic (from overly complex that had all kinds of other issues) which has only 2 states: fastest possible or approximate CPU speeds depending on load.

There is also portaudio related change in b5/b7.

3.4 betas are still available for download if you want to confirm.

[hexaae]

Where can I dload 3.4 betas?
Is there a secret option to force one of the 2 states for testing?

EDIT: never mind, found the 3.4 betas http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?...+series&page=3

[hexaae]

Black screen seems due to BlitzKick because it works when disabled. I use these strings in my SSeq:

; $VER: Startup-Sequence_HardDrive for WinUAE 49.67 (19.03.17)
; Startup-Sequence for hard drive systems

;Set Echo ON
;FailAt 100
S:BatchFiles/RestoreWUAE
C:SetMan >NIL:

 ;SYS:MuTools/MuMove4k PREPAREEMUL NOREBOOT
 ;C:morelibspace
 ;; for real Amiga boot -> C:BK devs:kickstarts/kick44001.A1200 MODULE LocalFast DEVS:scsi.device PatchMath020 SpeedyIDE SpeedyChip FusionReserve DosResetCard NoClick PowerWindows RebootFix NewAlert FileSystem.resource L:FastFileSystem bootmenu console.device shell ram-h
andler RomFixes EXTRESBUF=118000 QUIET
C:BK * MODULE exec.library.1200 romupdate.idtag bootmenu DEVS:scsi.device L:FastFileSystem FileSystem.resource ram-handler_realsize ramlibstack console.device shell IntAckFix rangermem ROMFixes EXTRESBUF=140000 QUIET

C:SetPatch QUIET NONSD NOROMUPDATE
...

3.3.0 logs https://nofile.io/f/vgvuyDfnXbF/winuaebootlog_3.3.0.zip
3.4.0 logs https://nofile.io/f/Tvfb34W6XkG/winu..._blitzkick.zip

[hexaae]

Just tested 3.4.0b1 and b2.
Big lags and sound crackles started with 3.4.0b2, b1 was still "almost" fine (I can hear some rare crackles with WormsDC AGA WHDLoad game, intro music).

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by hexaae

Black screen seems due to BlitzKick because it works when disabled.

This is normal and discussed many times. Blizkick chooses wrong type of memory (Z3 RAM disappears at reset like Z2 does. Z3 RAM was practically never used in real world until much later and it still is mostly useless because it is so slow). Later winuae versions made Z3 RAM (if "UAE" mode) not disappearing at reset again to work around this problem.

[Toni Wilen]

Does switching RAM panel Z3 mode change anything? (automatic/real). Check also if JIT direct gets switched off after booting.

[hexaae]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

Does switching RAM panel Z3 mode change anything? (automatic/real). Check also if JIT direct gets switched off after booting.

Do you mean for the lags or to workaround black screen?
No improvements for the lag issue with Z3 automatic (requires playing with "Z3 Fast Ram" sort order to pass the boot with BlitzKick). Yes JIT direct is on and everything set as max speed as usual after boot...

[hexaae]

So there's no hope and I'm stuck with pre 3.4.0 versions for good performance without micro-lags and sound crackles? Nothing else we can try?

[Toni Wilen]

It was b1 that changed the CPU idle logic. (not b3)

Does changing CPU Idle slider help? It now only selects the point where Amiga side CPU usage level selects between normal and "slow" mode.

I don't see any reasons to change it because no one else has reported anything similar. (Which usually means two possible things: no on uses it or your use case is different than others)

[hexaae]

Don't know why but 3.4.0b1 was still a bit better than b2, b3+, and closer to 3.3.0 and before.

No: unfortunately CPU Idle slider has no effect, tried all positions.

For me the 3.4.0+ passage is like switching to a Sempron mobile CPU (LOL), which is quite strange since my HW is still more than adequate and can still play even modern Steam games at 60fps (see signature).
3.3.0 and before still run MUCH better here with sync'ed sounds and no crackles in games and productivity mode while multitasking on my emulated, "modern" WB.

Would be possible to add a (secret) option to switch to old CPU/chipset logic or has it been completely removed with 3.4.0?

P.S.
I tried even on a basic WB39 installation env, and the slowdown is still visible/audible, so you can exclude a peculiar WB config issue.

[hexaae]

What's the fastest audio setting BTW? Have to test if this can improve the lags...
Windows (EX) WASAPI? And what's good in PortAudio (better buffering?)? Can you please list their respective strengths (very quickly of course)?

[Toni Wilen]

Do you mean even if CPU idle is off, newer version is still slower? Highest CPU slider position (don't remember if it was left or rightmost position) should mean almost no CPU idle unless nothing is happening. (Make sure to quit and rerun emulation between CPU Idle adjustments)

WASAPI EX has lowest lag (UAE writes sound to buffer that is directly read by sound hardware using PCI DMA), bypasses Windows mixer/resampler etc. But no other program can play sound at the same time.

Portaudio depends on used backend. Portaudio is only useful if you want to use ASIO and sound card has good ASIO implementation. ASIO has very low latency.

WASAPI (shared) is usually good enough except if you want lowest possible latency.

[hexaae]

Yes, up to 3.3.0 was ALWAYS much faster and lighter, with no noticeable audio artifacts…
With WinUAE 3.4.0+ up to today's 4.0 betas... emu is slower even if I set CPU Idle slider all to the left or to the right: even my NewIcons drawers open visibly a bit slower with 4.0 (faster when CPU Idle slider is on the left, but never on par with snappy <=3.3.0).

As for audio… The only solution for me is to set very big Sound Buffer Size under audio settings (8+) for a sound emu without crackles, but at this point the bad video/audio sync delay when playing games is unacceptable.

Can't find a good balance I had in pre 3.4.0...

[Toni Wilen]

So it has absolute nothing to do with CPU Idle..

Do you have some CPU monitoring program you can use to confirm it isn't thermal throttling for some reason (yes, it is gaming laptop so it shouldn't do that but you never know). Use windowed mode. Or some power saving option decides that WinUAE does not really need any CPU power (which has happened previously without any explanation when version changed).

[hexaae]

after launching Delitracker 2 and listening to some mods, running a few programs, Scout (monitoring tool on Aminet), then running Lionheart and quitting back to WB…
Maybe it's just the Realtek HD (ALC668) + crappy audio drivers

[hexaae]

Two questions about JIT Cache dir/indirect:
1) why sometimes I find it switched off after using WB/playing games/playing WHDLoad games? What's trigging it in? I use scripts like "uae-configuration cachesize 0..." but they shouldn't change direct/indirect mode AFAICU...
2) is there a way using uae-configuration wb tool to set direct/indirect mode, through Amiga shell?