50Hz sync in WinUAE

[Mark Wright]

Forgive my ignorance, but for years I've dreamed of proper smooth horizontal scrolling with sound in WinUAE. I've never achieved it without switching the off sound - EXCEPT UNTIL TONIGHT.

I was playing around with the options and, for the first time ever, decided to run WinUAE with a 60Hz refresh rate and checked the 'sync' box in "Display". And d'you know what? Scrollers scrolled smoothly and sound ran without hiccups, jumps and stutters. It was almost like perfection... almost like a real Amiga...

...almost perfection personified...

...and perhaps, if I'd been in America, it would've been like a utopian paradise BUT ON EARTH. Except, of course, running WinUAE at 60Hz here in the cold ol' UK made everything scurry around too fast, leading to ludicrously tempo'd music and unreadable, yet smooth, scrolltexts.

It was like using NTSC instead of PAL, basically.

Now, not being an expert on these sorts of things, I fear that my monitor will explode, taking out my face, if I try running WinUAE at 50Hz (which is listed in brackets in the refresh options). Yet, I suspect, if I were able to run it at 50Hz all would be rosy in the garden of content. But I daren't. Dare I...?

So, yeah, two questions then:

Do *any* of you have a lovely silky smooth WinUAE running games and demos as they were intended - with sound - without horizontal scrolling looking like two little men are dragging the display along themselves? I mean, is it possible to get it looking *perfect* at all? Recommend video cards! Maybe it's my P3-933/VIA mb/ATI Rage Fury Pro/SB Live! combo at fault.

and...

Should I attempt the 50Hz test? Is it as obvious as it sounds?

Any help will be rewarded with a 1,000 piece jigsaw of Kylie's arse. (Subject to availability.)

[Kintaro]

Hi

My computer (AMD 1700 Mhz, Winodws XP, 256 MB RAM, Geforce2 MX400) can run WinUAE smooth at 50 Hz. (Vsync on)
Almost all games/demos run smooth like intended. Performance is better at 16 bit screens than 32 bit screens. OpenGL has no impact in performance (on my computer) but looks much better, because of the bilineair filter! (Graphics don't look pixelised)

But to get WinUAE running at 50 Hz, I needed a tool, called "PowerStrip" (Shareware)
With this tool it's possible to create custom screenmodes, because windows doesn't support 50Hz natively (at least not with my config)
This tool is (IMHO) quite difficult to configure. Don't give up though, it's worth it. (SMOOTH!)

I recently read in my monitor manual (online) that it supports 50Hz screens. I think it's important to check wheter your monitor support such low frequencies, otherwise it might get damaged...

Another option which WinUAE currently lacks, is a priority tweak. It might be a good idea to have an option to increase WinUAE's priority to above normal or even high. This might increase the smoothness to near perfect...
(Now, if windows XP decides that other tasks need the CPU, it will halt WinUAE for a while, which gives a short break in smooth scrolling. This might be less prominent if the priority is upped)

I've just posted something similar...

well, at 60hz vith vsync scrolling is very smooth, it ROCKS !

but at 50hz(monitor set at 100) i've still problems, scrolling is not smooth (orizontal or vertical one)

MY spec: win2000,XP1700@2400, cmedia audio onboard,512mb,GF4TI4400.
Speed should not be an issue... it's more like winuae is written "at 60Hz"

[Toni Wilen]

60Hz works because it is standard and always supported. 50Hz usually requires tweak-software (like Powerstrip) and depending in selected monitor drive, you may only get for example 85Hz even if you select 100Hz from WinUAE's display properties..

Always confirm the real refresh rate from monitor's onscreen display before reporting it as a bug

Kintaro: Try "Priority"-page..

[andreas]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

60Hz works because it is standard and always supported.

Define "it works".
"It works" means that scrolling is 100% perfect and sound plays at "correct" speed.
But in 60 Hz mode, sound plays too fast as mentioned.

So the only way out *IS* to use PowerStrip.
Unless you can live with sound in incorrect speed (I think some ppl can )

[Jope]

An NTSC Amiga would look and sound the same, so yes, it works. :-)

>Always confirm the real refresh rate from monitor's onscreen display before reporting >it as a bug

I wan't to go blind, so i own a Brilliance 107P, it supports r.r. up to 144hz, so 100hz (50*2) is really not a problem (my desktop is 1024x768x24bx100hz right now, and if i launch winuae in fullscreen osd says 100hz; also when i select the mode i read 100Hz PAL and NOT [100hz]PAL ), still seems to be a problem for winuae... but nobody seems to know WHY !?!?

Please note... enabling vsync make no change... scrolling at 100...ehm 50hz is not 100% perfect, and sadly i'm not so good to play 20% faster

[Calgor]

Does anyone care to share their powerstrip settings used for 50Hz? I can't get powerstrip set to exactly 50Hz, and then also display in the winuae droplist.

I have been able to get 49.9xxx which appears it may be a little smoother than 50 fps at 60Hz, but not like NTSC 60fps 60Hz from the WinUAE droplist which is quite smooth.

[laser]

I don't know why you guys are worried about the way to get 50hz using powerstrip or another hack

the best screen for winuae on pal mode is 100hz ..that's simple....no flicker no blink..perfect scroll

for ntsc the best is 120hz....no flicker no blink


I don't understand all this dilemma

[rsn8887]

Originally Posted by laser

I don't know why you guys are worried about the way to get 50hz using powerstrip or another hack

the best screen for winuae on pal mode is 100hz ..that's simple....no flicker no blink..perfect scroll

for ntsc the best is 120hz....no flicker no blink


I don't understand all this dilemma

Not quite. I agree that 100 Hz is not bad at all. I use 100 Hz here by default.

However it is _not_ perfect when compared to 50 Hz. In 100 Hz every frame is displayed twice. Your eyes _will_ notice that especially at fast scroll speeds. You will see a "double image" or a shadow image of the scrolling screen. It is hard for me to explain, but there _is_ a noticeable difference.

So, if you have the hardware to go to 50 Hz (I don't), then by all means do so. You will get the more authentic experience. If you are picky enough, that is

[laser]

Originally Posted by rsn8887

Not quite. I agree that 100 Hz is not bad at all. I use 100 Hz here by default.

However it is _not_ perfect when compared to 50 Hz. In 100 Hz every frame is displayed twice. Your eyes _will_ notice that especially at fast scroll speeds. You will see a "double image" or a shadow image of the scrolling screen. It is hard for me to explain, but there _is_ a noticeable difference.

So, if you have the hardware to go to 50 Hz (I don't), then by all means do so. You will get the more authentic experience. If you are picky enough, that is

sincerely...never tryed 50hz.....but I imagine that the screen will blink...so I believe it's prefereble a solid screen instead a perfect scroll

a few days ago another associate ...I believe was retronerd...refer about that strange issue...but he can't explain well like you ...why kind of effect produces a 100hz screen...so I still don't understand

I will try later that 50hz hack...I will post results

bye

[Retro-Nerd]

WinUAE output 50/60 FPS, the monitor 100/120 FPS. Check this:

http://www.100fps.com/how_many_frame...humans_see.htm

[turrican3]

for both ntsc and pal i always used 120 hz and i think it's perfect, but i change monitor and can't reach 120 hz anymore then i cameback to 60 hz, too bad.

[Retro-Nerd]

Originally Posted by turrican3

for both ntsc and pal i always used 120 hz and i think it's perfect, but i change monitor and can't reach 120 hz anymore then i cameback to 60 hz, too bad.

Only NTSC games in 60Hz Vsync ( i meant CRT) are perfectly smooth in motion. PAL 50Hz is flicking as hell, so this is not really an option for CRT monitors and you have to use 100Hz.

btw: This has nothing to do with WinUAE. It's the same for all emulators/2D scrolling games.

[laser]

Originally Posted by Retro-Nerd

WinUAE output 50/60 FPS, the monitor 100/120 FPS. Check this:

http://www.100fps.com/how_many_frame...humans_see.htm

Im starting to understand..thanks for the link Retronerd

btw, I noted scroll-issues only on a few game like Aladdin or supefrog or bubble and squeak....for ex....

on Aladdin for example is very noticeable....also on DOSBOX... on DOS BOX scroll issues are even ugly than on winuae

there's no option on DOSBOX to vsync ...at least I can't found it...if anyone can help

[Calgor]

Originally Posted by laser

I don't know why you guys are worried about the way to get 50hz using powerstrip or another hack

the best screen for winuae on pal mode is 100hz ..that's simple....no flicker no blink..perfect scroll

for ntsc the best is 120hz....no flicker no blink


I don't understand all this dilemma

Well, I do know about this 100Hz/120Hz, I use it for the PicassoIV on a CRT monitor. And it produces less flicker than 50/60Hz. Not any smoother, but less flicker to my eyes. btw, I find no noticeble difference smoothwise from the PicassoIV for 50Hz vs 100Hz. Can't say for winUAE. However one cannot use 100Hz on virtually all LCD monitors (including mine).

My question was, what are the settings for powerstrip that I can use to get exactly 50Hz, because I cannot seem to set it exactly?

[Retro-Nerd]

@Toni

Can you give me the technical answer why the refreshrate doubling causes the motion blur (scrolling games, CRT) in 100Hz for PAL games and 120Hz for NTSC games?

[gary]

I hate playing Amiga/C64 games that don't scroll smoothly so having the correct PAL 50hz screen refresh was important to me. After using the real thing and seeing pixels glide smoothly across the screen a jerky scrolling game kills the illusion of playing the 'real' game for me.

Here are/were my setups:

1. Monitor capable of 50hz refresh rate (very hard to find unfortunately) and a nVidia video card capable of 50hz output (I'm guessing most cards capable of PAL TV-Out can output a VGA signal at 50hz).

2. 50hz low res Arcade monitor (which is like a Commodore 1084 monitor) + an ArcadeVGA card (a hacked ATI card that outputs 15khz low res modes)

3. nVidia card with PAL TV-Out capability and a PAL TV set. For some reason I had to use a hacked version of WinVice and run it at 99% speed to get smooth scrolling but WinUAE seemed fine. This is probably the easiest way to get smooth scrolling but you may want to have a dedicated PC sitting near the TV set for emulation instead of using your main PC. I bought a small second hand PC for this purpose and emulate a variety of consoles C64/Atari VCS/5200/7800/Amiga/CD32/SNES/N64/PSX/MAME/dosbox and also lots of video files like a home theater PC (HTPC).

I was really disappointed to find that none of the LCD screens available locally were capable of a 50hz display. I guess it is just not in demand. Perhaps if you could find a PAL LCD television that also has VGA/HD input you could use that in combination with a 50hz capable video card to get C64/Amiga/PAL video game console smooth scrolling using emulation.

[ancalimon]

Originally Posted by gary

I was really disappointed to find that none of the LCD screens available locally were capable of a 50hz display. I guess it is just not in demand. Perhaps if you could find a PAL LCD television that also has VGA/HD input you could use that in combination with a 50hz capable video card to get C64/Amiga/PAL video game console smooth scrolling using emulation.

My LCD monitor doesn't support 50hz as well. But using Powerstrip and setting it to 50hz works. Samsung SyncMaster 206BW 2ms latency. Not perfect. But at least I have smooth scrolling.

[Supamax]

Perhaps this is slightly off-topic, but I remember that UAE on the XBOX (the old one) is smooth.
If I remember well and it has smooth scrolling indeed, then it's because:
- the XBOX and the TV (Standard Definition) are 50 Hz interlaced, like PAL Amigas
- the XBOX "OS" is fast and light (compared to Windows), so there are no micro-interruptions which could make the scrolling "jerky"

Well, to be precise my TV is 100Hz, not 50Hz. But it takes a 50Hz input and processes it (digital doubling) keeping it smooth.