Got rid of some Winuae slowdown

[rsn8887]

I just did some testing using latest WinUAE Beta, all using low latency Vsync. I got rid of some slowdowns that bugged me, and I thought these findings might be of help to someone else.

In Lionheart, I was getting slowdown in first level (fps drops to 48 sometimes, and at the same time sound stutters and is at -99). Usually, I would switch from no buffering to double buffering to get rid of slowdowns.

To my surprise, in Directdraw mode, switching from no buffering to double or triple buffering did not help with the Lionheart slowdowns as expected. However, in Direct3D mode, it did!

So basically I saw this:
Directdraw
slowdowns regardless of buffering (no, double, triple)
Direct3D
slowdowns with "no buffering," but NO slowdowns in double buffering!

I still cannot just only use Direct3D, because the Direct3D no buffering mode gives me more screentearing and more slowdowns than the Directdraw no buffering mode. For example with Direct3D no buffering, I get screentearing and slowdowns in Turrican 2 when I first approach the waterfalls. This does not happen with Directdraw no buffering.

So, at least on my system, I will use Directdraw llvsync no buffering and if there are any slowdowns in the game, I will switch to Direct3d double buffering, and everything should be perfect.

I also found out that I can get rid of the slowdowns in Lionheart if I turn off line doubling and use "vertical*2" scaling in the filter menu instead. However, this type of scaling is bilinear (e.g. ugly) on my machine in Directdraw mode. In addition, turnign off line doubling makes the Lionheart start menu options look flickery and pixely, so I chose not to go this route.

EDIT: I really like that WinUAE has so many config options, because it means there's almost always a way to make game x work on it perfectly!

EDIT2: How fricking hard is Lionheart by the way? I almost threw my Joystick at the wall.

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by rsn8887

However, this type of scaling is bilinear (e.g. ugly) on my machine in Directdraw mode.

Yeah, for some stupid reason DirectDraw scaling is always filtered and there is no way to disable it.

Direct3D can be quite mysterious, adjusting display driver control panel options also can help, for example nvidia adaptive power saving seems to get confused in vsync modes and will cause slowdowns.

[Retro-Nerd]

Yeah, for some stupid reason DirectDraw scaling is always filtered and there is no way to disable it.

Really? If you use SystemRam in the misc tab for DirectDraw there is no bilinear filter enabled, even with one of the scaling options.

[Toni Wilen]

I don't think it works with all drivers or windows versions.

[Retro-Nerd]

Interesting, didn't knew that. Well it worked for me in WinXP+nVidia card and all drivers back than. Now in Windows 7+ATI 5570HD it works too. Just tried it with a "Fullscreen (TV)" scaling. At least rsn8887 could try it.

[Retro-Nerd]

I haven't switched to Line Mode "Double" since ages. Now i noticed the same slowdowns (unstable FPS/Sound stutter) in Direct3D+llvsync+double buffering and heavy tearing with no buffering.

I've switched back to DirectDraw for now, since it works perfectly for me with Line Mode Double+llvsync+double buffering. Plus the scanlines automatically disappear in Interlace mode, which looks pretty good in Line Mode Double. Though i can't stand the look of the normal dark scanlines with 100% opacity. I wish it would work with 50% too, because the 100% destroys the color brilliance a bit.

[rsn8887]

Ok I did a bit more digging and found some other "strange" behaviour, which might just be a driver issue:

On my netbook, when I use DirectDraw + "no filter" + legacy Vsync + double buffer, I see a flickering screen and a lot of artifacts, e.g. if I move the mouse pointer, it leaves behind a trail of flickering double images. When I use "Null Filter" the artifacts and flickering go away, but this is at the expense of WinUAE being slower (any filter that is not "no filter" makes it slower).

When I use Direct3D + "no filter" + legacy Vsync + double buffer, this problem does not happen and the display looks just fine. Again "no filter" is noticable faster than "null filter".

Is this a driver bug? After all it is a netbook with Windows 7 starter and some strange Intel GM GFX chip.

But I thought just maybe this is in some weird way related to my earlier finding on my desktop computer that double buffer does not speed UAE up in llvsync directdraw (compared to no buffer), but double buffer does speed it up in llvsync direct3d (compared to no buffer)???

Btw: In both DirectDraw and Direct3D, "No buffer" gives screen tearing, and llvsync is unusably slow on this little machine regardless of buffer mode. But that is probably just because it is not very powerful (Intel Atom, etc.) AND limited to only 60 Hz screenmodes.

EDIT: Incidentally, on my netbook I can switch to Low res and set scaling to 2*horizontal, 2*vertical and there is no blurry effect, regardless of Direct3D or DirectDraw. However, any filter I apply DOES make WinUAE noticably slower, in fact it is faster using hi-res and line doubling with "no filter" on this computer.

EDIT2: Again I can only commend WinUAE for having so many options, because fiddling with the various display settings, it allowed me to get it to run smoothly even on my netbook (!)

[rsn8887]

Sorry for double posting, but I just figured out that on my desktop, the option "no filter" doesn't seem to "stick". E.g. I set filter to "none" and save config, then reload config and it reverts to "null filter". Is this a bug?

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by rsn8887

Sorry for double posting, but I just figured out that on my desktop, the option "no filter" doesn't seem to "stick". E.g. I set filter to "none" and save config, then reload config and it reverts to "null filter". Is this a bug?

"no filter" is only possible in DirectDraw mode. D3D always requires at least "null filter".

Hardware specs? AFAIK some older Intel GMA versions are quite bad.

[rsn8887]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

"no filter" is only possible in DirectDraw mode. D3D always requires at least "null filter".

Hardware specs? AFAIK some older Intel GMA versions are quite bad.

On the netbook where I had screen flickering issues with directdraw+legacy vsync+no filter+double buffering the chipset is Intel GMA 3600 (Atom N2600), it does behave very fine apart from this one issue.

I think some of my initial confusion regarding emulation slow down in directdraw might have been due to this filter setting reverting itself to "null filter." I did some more testing on this config issue, all using directdraw:
- if I load my usual (old) A500 config I have used since day one and re-save it, the filter setting "no filter" or "Null filter" ALWAYS resets to null filter after loading.
- if I load the same config, save it under a different name, reload it, change the filter setting, save it, reload it, the filter setting is again ALWAYS reset to null filter.

However
- if boot winUAE, and save a fresh new config under some name ("test3"), the filter setting is correctly saved and reloaded afterwards, both as "null filter" and "none"!

Both config files are attached. "A500.cfg" is the one where the setting always reverts to NULL filter, and "test3.cfg" is the one where it correctly reflects any changes made.

EDIT: tested using 2.5.0 release

[Toni Wilen]

There are 3 options (I forgot about last two..) that forces null filter:
- direct3d
- a2024/graffiti emulation
- low latency vsync