WinUAE 2.3.3 beta series

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by rare_j

The new v-sync method seems to be working for me, if I select no v-sync I see lots of screen tearing, but if I select v-sync (new) I see no screen tearing.
I used 'no buffering' and A500 quickstart.
Graphics chip is "Mobile Intel(R) 915GM/GMS,910GML Express Chipset Family" which claims to be running in 50hz mode.
I thought it might be interesting to see results for such an old chipset.

Great. Technically "all" display adapters should work in DirectDraw mode. DD rarely has any driver issues because it is so basic today (nothing is really accelerated).

D3D may have issues with older adapters.

[lordofchaos]

Hi Tony, I`ve been testing the new beta along with the new V-Sync and have had mixed results, initially everything is great, smooth scrolling and very responsive however about 10 minutes into a game (Turrican) a slight wobble/jitter develops at the top part of the screen, it happens for a short period and then disappears, but then another 5 minutes pass and it happens again...apart from that seems to be working great. I have my display running on a HDTV through HDMI at 50herzt at 720x576, I do not have buffering ticked and have tried both DD and D3D...Also I have played around with the sound mixing rates/buffer settings to see if this could remedy the issue but to no avail. I have enclosed log file and save state if required. Thank you

Additional: I always use D3D as a rule but if I use DD in conjunction with null filter a small part of the top portion of the screen seems to scroll out of sync with the rest of the screen, this occurs the moment I start playing and stays that way. So I either continue to use D3D with new V-sync and see the jitter/wobble occur some of the time for brief periods or use the DD with the more persistent and visible jitter.

Additional+1: Using DD without any filter and having line mode set to double so that the picture isn’t squashed I get the same issue from my default D3D setup, smooth scrolling with the intermittent jitter/wobble.

Aspire Laptop
Dual Core T4300
Windows 7
3 Gig Ram

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by lordofchaos

intermittent jitter/wobble.

Does the exact same happen in fullscreen and fullwindow modes? Also same in 60Hz and 50Hz modes? (if you can test both)

Does it disappear if you set double buffering? (Which of course increases lag by 16/20ms). If yes, then most likely it is display driver that for some reason has small blitting delay (my laptop has similar problem, previous to new frame "transition" is visible in top of screen) Maybe this requires manual adjustment (instead of waiting for line 0, winuae would wait for last line - 50 or so..)

Not sure about periodic problem. Does SND% show same values when the problem happens? Does it change if you adjust priority? (try both below normal and above normal)

[Dr.Venom]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

This needs some re-design.. (This was also in private version)

OK.

Would it work in the re-design to have "RTG" added to the list of parameters for displaydata (Parameters: pal,ntsc,lace,nlace,lof (long frame), shf (short frame), vsync, nvsync, RTG). So that it truly makes all combinations possible?

EDIT: In other words, it only worked accidentally.

I don't think it worked accidentally (or I must have been extremely lucky, as it worked all the time I used it). My reasoning for it is as follows. Basicly because of having LOF native mode matched (gfx_display 2), then any other mode that was not matched would follow the generic displaydata_pal=pal line, i.e. switch to monitor 1.

displaydata=49.917971,t=LOF,pal,nlace,lof,gfx_width_fullscreen=742,gfx_height_fullscreen=287,gfx_display=2
displaydata_pal=50.000000,pal,gfx_width_fullscreen=1920,gfx_height_fullscreen=1080,gfx_display=1
displaydata_ntsc=60.000000,ntsc,gfx_width_fullscreen=1920,gfx_height_fullscreen=1080,gfx_display=1

[lordofchaos]

Ok so I ran these set of conditions and have reported the following results with the save state.
1. Direct Draw / Double buffer/ Line mode normal/ null filter / full screen 50hz
Result: No screen jitter. Slight intermittent sound wobble

2. Direct Draw/ No buffer/ Line mode normal/ null filter/ full screen 50hz
Result: Small top portion of screen stays out of sync with the rest of display, intermittent but slight sound wobble remains.

3. Direct 3D/ No buffer/ Line mode normal/ null filter/ full screen 50hz
Result: intermittent screen jitter, intermittent sound wobbles.

Also if I set the buffering to double on test 3 and 2 it eradicates the screen jitter. Changing between 50/60 Hz appears to have no notable effect on all 3 tests.

[Retro-Nerd]

I have my display running on a HDTV through HDMI at 50herzt at 720x576

But this is not your native display resolution. Try it with the native HDTV resolution (720p/1080p) and it should work permanently smooth without buffers.

[lordofchaos]

Originally Posted by Retro-Nerd

But this is not your native display resolution. Try it with the native HDTV resolution (720p/1080p) and it should work permanently smooth without buffers.

Yes that was my first assertion but the native resolutions don`t give me those results, bizarre yes but I found that when running WinUAE in 1280x720 I am unable to get a 50hz display even though the TV supports it? I am however able to use 1920x1080 and get 50hz but this causes performance/display issues...must be something to do with my crappy on board graphics adapter?! The adapter does list 1280x720 as a supported resolution but not in 50 Hz...

[Retro-Nerd]

Well, then you probably have a Full HD display -> you should only use 1920x1080. Both HD-Ready (720p) und Full HD (1080p) gives you exact 50.00/60.00Hz. Yeah, maybe a graphics card/drivers problem.

[lordofchaos]

Ok so I just tried another test with different resolution and the results are thus.
Direct 3D/ No buffer/ line mode normal/ null filter/ 1920x1080 50 Hz full screen
Result: Worse screen tear/jitter than previous tests and is located further down screen, nearer the middle.
However if I enable double buffer the screen tear/jitter goes away.

Additional. Jitter/woblle remains in Full window mode in both 50/60Hz

[gimbal]

Originally Posted by lordofchaos

However if I enable double buffer the screen tear/jitter goes away.

Isn't the whole purpose behind double buffering to help minimize/prevent screen tearing?

[lordofchaos]

Originally Posted by gimbal

Isn't the whole purpose behind double buffering to help minimize/prevent screen tearing?

Yes, if I was using the old v-sync mode...the new v-sync however works better without the buffering...

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by gimbal

Isn't the whole purpose behind double buffering to help minimize/prevent screen tearing?

Yes but you also "gain" 20ms+ of extra latency.

New vsync mode can reduce input lag by about 40-60ms when using "no buffering" without causing tearing (usually). 40-60ms is very noticeable in fast games like Digital Illusions' pinball games. (They are finally playable, previously input lag was very annoying)

I think remaining tearing problem is caused by display card/driver not generating new frame fast enough (Takes more time than vertical blanking interval). I am not sure if this can solved without re-introducing some latency..

[lordofchaos]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

I think remaining tearing problem is caused by display card/driver not generating new frame fast enough (Takes more time than vertical blanking interval). I am not sure if this can solved without re-introducing some latency..

Ahhh well not the end of the world I suppose, my laptop onboard gfx card is just far too simple. I can live with double buffering here`s hoping there is a solution in the future (buying a desktop perhaps)

[rare_j]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

Great. Technically "all" display adapters should work in DirectDraw mode. DD rarely has any driver issues because it is so basic today (nothing is really accelerated).

D3D may have issues with older adapters.

Further testing reveals a mixed bag of results.
DirectDraw works, only if filter is set to 'none'.
If i enable a filter, there is 1 permanent tear that stays in 1 position on the display.

D3D in windowed mode appears ok, but when I switch to fullscreen I see the 1 tear effect, and in full-window I see occasional tears.

This 1 tear in 1 place effect is is different to what happens if I disable v-sync. Then there are massive tears everywhere.

Logs again, maybe this is of some interest, maybe not.

PS. remember this is a really old crappy mobile chipset

[gimbal]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

New vsync mode can reduce input lag by about 40-60ms when using "no buffering" without causing tearing (usually). 40-60ms is very noticeable in fast games like Digital Illusions' pinball games. (They are finally playable, previously input lag was very annoying)

Damn, that is pretty epic! But does that only count for windowed mode? In fullscreen page flipping should be used so there should be no added latency right?

(Seriously, I studied this stuff for years and I feel like I'm back in school).

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by gimbal

Damn, that is pretty epic! But does that only count for windowed mode? In fullscreen page flipping should be used so there should be no added latency right?

Fullscreen too. Problem with fullscreen page flipping is that normal vsync page flipping is "fire and forget", it flips the page when next vblank comes without emulation knowing when it actually happens and emulation can't do anything until page flip request has finished. This makes normal vsync quite bad for low latency purposes.

(I have an idea how to fix the tearing without introducing any extra latency)

[lordofchaos]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

(I have an idea how to fix the tearing without introducing any extra latency)

Cool, that`s great news and very encouraging to hear!

[Dr.Venom]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

Beta 2:

http://www.winuae.net/files/b/winuae_2330b2.zip

- experimental joystick raw input support, enable using -rawhid command line parameter.

Hi Toni,

I've encountered an issue with using -rawhid in combination with RTG: configured joystick is lost after workbench switching to RTG. When workbench is set to native mode it always works fine.

Further info: I've setup a single display (LED only) config, with '-rawhid' enabled, that loads workbench from HD. If I have my workbench set to RTG mode (1920x1080) and start a whdload game from WB then the joystick doesn't work. Sometimes the gui doesn't even show the joystick in the listing anymore and at other times when it does, I have to first set joystick to '<none>' -> OK -> go into gui -> select joystick again and then it works.

With the exact same winuae config, but with the workbench configured to run in native mode (pal-laced), then the joystick is always working fine. In all other cases (like plain A500 config etc) the joystick is also always available and works fine. So it seems to purely have to do with RTG mode.

I have attached three logs:
- winuaebootlog.txt
- winuaelog-WB-native.txt // amiga side / workbench is running in native mode --> joystick works
- winuae-WB-RTG(rawhid-lost).txt // joystick is lost after RTG screen is opened

Hope you can replicate/fix this.

[Toni Wilen]

http://www.winuae.net/files/b/winuae_2330b3.zip

Beta 3:

- tearing in new vsync modes should be completely gone, without introducing any extra latency
- Display panel buffering option now does nothing in new vsync modes

[lordofchaos]

Latest Beta (2330b3) seems to be working like a charm for me, one hour of playing Turrican and not a single tear or jitter, fantastic work Toni! Oh and still just as responsive as before :-) Ooops!

UPDATE: Having downloaded the latest beta I failed to unpack in the WinUAE drawer and had been testing 2.3.2 version with old configs...

Bad news is that the tear/jitter still happens in this new beta in both DD and D3D with the new v-sync (top portion of the screen effected), I`m using fullscreen 50Hz...very intermittent and not very frequent. I`ll keep testing with other settings/options and report back.