WinUae vs WinFellow

[FallenSeraphin]

Yeah, i know, the stupid thing is that it actually works for me, runs smooth as silk go figure...

[Chuckles]

I'm afraid it is you who doesn't get it. The sound emulation is not completely unrelated to other aspects of the emulation. If you treat it as if it is, you'll never get the sound right. If I play a game written for PAL in NTSC mode, the music goes too fast, and if I do the opposite, it goes too slow. If I set up any aspect of my config in a manner sufficient to send CPU usage over 100%, my sound can easily become badly distorted and sound nothing like it is supposed to. I can fiddle with anything else as much as I want, and I'll still never get the sound right unless I bring CPU usage back below 100%. If you try running in a windowed mode so that the CPU usage is displayed and you ever see it top 100%, well there you go Sherlock. It wouldn't surprise me one little bit if that wasn't happening on your system, but you haven't supplied any actual useful information such as that which could be used to diagnose your problem. Bitch and moan all you like, but if you supply no more useful information than "my sound sucks", nobody will give you any better answers than "buy a faster machine". If everybody else can get it to work right, then it isn't going to be considered "broken" until you can supply enough info to someone to support that assertion. Listing your hardware components, driver versions, etc. doesn't help much. What is Toni going to do with that, go buy all the same components and build a machine just like yours in the hope that he can duplicate your problem, narrow it down to a bug in his code (and not something you've done wrong) and then fix it? As near as I can tell, you're the only person who has posted in this thread that thinks this must be a WinUAE bug. The rest of us think it works fine if you have sufficiently powerful hardware and you set it up right. If you're right and your hardware is up to the task, that only leaves your configuration as a suspect then. Capiche?

Why don't you attach a copy of the WinUAE config file that you're running with to your next post, and give us something to base any suggestions on? If you try those and it still doesn't fix your problem, at least it eliminates some potential causes and gets you that much closer to the point where someone even might conclude that the problems might be bug related. Otherwise, complaining isn't going to get you anywhere.

[FallenSeraphin]

I just did, look up the thread... this is the only Config that Celtic Legends works for me in WinUAE

Quite frankly it doesnt matter anyway, got it working perfectly in WinFellow with EmuChicken's help so im a happy camper

[Chuckles]

You posted while I was typing in my last post. I'll take a look at it when I'm home as soon as I can, and let you know any suggestions I'd make. That might come in handy when you're trying to get other games working, as WinFellow still can't run as many titles as WinUAE can. I can tell you right now though based on the few comments about your config that KG made above, setting up WinUAE to emulate an 040 with 8MB of ram won't help performance, but it might hurt. I suspect that there are other such things that could be tweaked to make it better too, but until I've had the chance to look at it more closely, that's just a guess.

[FallenSeraphin]

Hey, any news is good news hum... just remembered the flik Robin hood - Men In Tights... shoot me please...

Although this is a horrible configuration I couldn't create the same results on my hardware. The game just works fine without sound problems but that's me and you should really set the emulator up properly. As a start I suggest using the quickstart tab and choosing a 0.5chip/0.5fast ram a500 configuration with best compatibility. You don't need neither 040 nor JIT for this game! Also your ram settings are completely without purpose. This is a 1 mb game if I recall correctly but can even be 512k. Quickstart is there for easy setting up, what else can Toni do?

[FallenSeraphin]

Doesnt work on that config, have to speed up the cpu to fastest possible with at least 2mb or it starts slowing down... reminds me of DosBox actually...

I just tried it because I like this game and this was a good excuse to play it again. Works %100 with just this :

If you don't like the speed, go on, add things one by one but know what each steps does to the compatilibity.

[MSC]

I can also confirm that by using the standard quickstart config (A500/A2000), in latest winuae, the game runs perfectly.

Also be aware that config files can and do become corrupt, and are not strictly version to version compatible. Try using a quickstart config, or setup A500 config from scratch.

Hope you get it sorted.

Sorry, was typing as you posted.

[Chuckles]

Ok, I've now had a chance to look at your Celtic Legends config and compare it to mine, which works great with no sound problems. There are quite a few settings that simply don't make much sense, and could be causing your problems.

Here is a summary of the changes I would suggest you make to your config:

CPU tab:
Advanced JIT settings:
Move Cache size slider to 0 MB
Uncheck "Hard Flush"
Uncheck "Force Settings"
Select "Direct"
CPU Emulation Speed:
Move CPU Idle setting all the way to the left
Select "Match A500 speed"
CPU Type:
Uncheck the JIT checkbox
Select the 68000 CPU type

Chipset tab:
Chipset type:
Select "ECS Agnus"
Collision level:
Select "Sprites and Sprites vs. Playfield"
Misc chipset options:
Uncheck "Immediate Blitter"

RAM tab:
Chip: 1 MB
Fast: 2 MB should be more than enough, and probably don't need any
Slow: 0 MB
Z3-Fast: 0 MB
RTG: 0 MB

Misc tab:
Uncheck "BSDsocket.library emulation"
Uncheck "Syncronize clock"

Some of the changes I'm suggesting (such as the 2 on the misc tab) are being suggested simply because they do nothing they do nothing to in any way help you play the game, but they do add a bit to the work that WinUAE has to do. If you're playing a game, whether the emulated Amiga's clock is in sync with the PC's clock is irrelevant, right?

Other changes are being suggested because they could either directly or indirectly be causing a slowdown that affects the sound. For example, you allocated about 50 MB of ram to WinUAE's use, between the nearly 42 MB on the RAM tab and another 8 MB of JIT cache. Given that the game will probably run fine on a real A500 with 1 MB of chip ram, that's an awful lot of wasted ram.

You may be asking what difference that might make, but you have to remember that although you're running WinUAE and not paying attention to anything else, Win XP is still doing work in the background. If you've taken away 50 MB of ram that it might need for various reasons, that can cause it to be short on resources, and that can cause slowdowns that affect you while you're running WinUAE. Your best bet is to always set up your configs so they don't use up any more resources than you really need.

As for turning off JIT, selecting A500 speed, etc., those changes should make the game behave more like it would on the real target platform. If you tell it to run as fast as it can and it can exceed A500 speed, it's just not going to feel right.

Try those settings and see how it works then. If that clears up the problems then you might try the same thing with your config for Space Marines. It just might make a lot of difference.

[FallenSeraphin]

Sound completly lagged, slow as for the ram, i have 256 at work and winxp only uses about 160 on average, so i have to spare... even if that runs out i have a fixed swapfile of 381mb that it RARELY uses (ive tracked it with Cacheman), the exceptions being when i start playing Unreal Tournament on-line... even then is a minimal amount, 30mb-40mb tops. Like i said, i have the pc optimized for raw speed, not multi-tasking, so i take care on whats running on background. Usually only AntiVir Personal Edition 6, wich is the most lightweight AV ive ever seen... plus i turn it off when using emulators (i also use SNES emus, i love final fantasy).

BTW, wich version of WinUAE are you using ? i dont remember seing that CPU/Chipset speed setting... im using the latest, 0.9.92...

[Sune Salminen]

Set Sound Device to 'Primary Sound Driver'.
Set sound emulation to 'emulated' instead of 100% accurate.
Disable Interpolation.
Disable Disk Drive sound emulation
Lower the sample-rate
Set a larger sound buffer and use the calibration button to automatically set the best latency value.

In the display configuration menu, disable Vsync and set it to refresh every second frame.

make sure that there are no other applications running while you are running WinUAE, especially ones that would try to play sounds.

Reinstall DirectX and see if there are new drivers for your sound card.

[FallenSeraphin]

Where to start ?

1 Set Sound Device to 'Primary Sound Driver'.
Default setting

2 Set sound emulation to 'emulated' instead of 100% accurate.
Didnt work

3 Disable Interpolation.
Default setting

4 Disable Disk Drive sound emulation
Default setting

5 Lower the sample-rate
Good point, didnt work

6 Set a larger sound buffer and use the calibration button to automatically set the best latency value.
? 4 sound buffers arent enough ? used calibration button stayed at 0.0%

7 In the display configuration menu, disable Vsync and set it to refresh every second frame.
Default setting

8 make sure that there are no other applications running while you are running WinUAE, especially ones that would try to play sounds.
Default setting

9 Reinstall DirectX and see if there are new drivers for your sound card.
My system is always updated, i make sure of that

Any more ideas ?

[Chuckles]

Well, even if XP only uses 160 MB ram on average, that IS an average and the margin between 256 MB and 160 MB is only 96 MB. Why give more than half of that ram to WinUAE if it can't make any productive use of it anyway?

Sune's other suggestions make sense to me in addition to the ones already suggested. And by all means it is important to make sure you have the latest drivers for your sound card, as that probably has been the root cause of more sound problems than any other single problem.

Sune's comment about making sure that you're not running other applications at the same time, especially any that would try to play sounds amused me. If it turns out that you're trying to play MP3's in the background using WinAmp at the same time you're playing around with WinUAE, the rest of us who have replied to this thread might just have to hunt you down and kill you.

[FallenSeraphin]

Originally Posted by Chuckles

Well, even if XP only uses 160 MB ram on average, that IS an average and the margin between 256 MB and 160 MB is only 96 MB. Why give more than half of that ram to WinUAE if it can't make any productive use of it anyway?

Sune's other suggestions make sense to me in addition to the ones already suggested. And by all means it is important to make sure you have the latest drivers for your sound card, as that probably has been the root cause of more sound problems than any other single problem.

Sune's comment about making sure that you're not running other applications at the same time, especially any that would try to play sounds amused me. If it turns out that you're trying to play MP3's in the background using WinAmp at the same time you're playing around with WinUAE, the rest of us who have replied to this thread might just have to hunt you down and kill you.

nice one, dont worry, i only use winamp when im browsing, not gaming i think my 1st assumption that my PII450 is fast enough was wrong but im still amazed that it only fizzes with these two games... besides the fps counter never drops below 49... good point on the ram issue; im so used to windows that i start putting extra ram to every aplication so it doesnt crash on me... so far worked fine

[Chuckles]

Originally Posted by FallenSeraphin

BTW, wich version of WinUAE are you using ? i dont remember seing that CPU/Chipset speed setting... im using the latest, 0.9.92...

I didn't mean to ignore the question, but I just now saw it. I'm using the latest beta version, but I loaded up your config using 0.0.92. None of the settings I referred to is anything new, and they're all in that version. My config for Celtic Legends runs great on 0.9.92 though, with no sound problems.

The only other thing that comes immediately to mind would be that you could possibly be running a different version of the game itself. I'm using the Skid Row crack, and it works fine. Is that the version you have?

[FallenSeraphin]

Its the only version on the net, sadly... the save game tab doesnt work, the 1 reason i started using WinUAE, the state saver... i think this one of the most underrated fantasy games out there... maybe the pc is just too slow for WinUAE... i read about that WinFellow is a lot better for slower systems ill try your cfg at home and tell you tomorrow if i can

[Aegothis]

On older PCs and OSs, it's good to try the directx debug applet.
http://www.migman.com/hw/utilities/zip/DXApplet.zip

Just turn the debug levels down if they are up. This helps alot on emulators. You might even go back to DX8 if you are using 9. I'm just going by memory of my old pc and what helped and that was a Celeron 400 system. Going back to old graphics drivers is helpful also if you use NVidia or ATI.

http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?id=10

[FallenSeraphin]

I have all the debug features turn down (or off, whatever the case), and since i have SP2, im running on DX9c... as for graphic drivers, im on starstorm 57.62 (forceware modified) that are a heck of a lot stabler and faster then the nvidia original ones, plus they dont "bug" my poor old Riva TNT2 M64 16mb


http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=767

[Eny-]

Hey. Nice to see a fellow country-man