Fastest WinUAE for a AthlonXP 1ghz

[theelf_]

Hi! sorry my english

I read this forum for many time, but this is the first time I need some help

I have a Athlon XP 1ghz, WinXP and 256mb ram

I use winfellow 4.4 without any problems, and speed is very good. I played many games

Yesterday I wanna play Jim Powers, and sadly winfellow have problem

Then I tried winuae.. but is too slow

Guys, with version do you recommend for good speed on my computer?

I tried the new 2.6 too much slow, and a old 0.8.8 but was slow too..


Thanks

[Toni Wilen]

First try as lowest compatibility mode as possible to check if it is emulation or something else causing the slowdown.

Quickstart A500, most common, compatibility slider as far right as possible.
Display panel: Resolution -> Lores. Line Mode -> normal.
Miscellaneous panel: Graphics API -> DirectDraw
Sound: Disabled but emulated.

Still slow?

EDIT: Jim Power is quite custom chipset heavy game, it may not be possible to run it without more CPU power.

[amilo3438]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

First try as lowest compatibility mode as possible to check if it is emulation or something else causing the slowdown.

Quickstart A500, most common, compatibility slider as far right as possible.
Display panel: Resolution -> Lores. Line Mode -> normal.
Miscellaneous panel: Graphics API -> DirectDraw
Sound: Disabled but emulated.

Still slow?

EDIT: Jim Power is quite custom chipset heavy game, it may not be possible to run it without more CPU power.

In addition try also:

Display panel: Refresh: ... move slider one place to right side


Hope now this should be enough good for 1Ghz.

p.s.
You can try also to Enable sound now. It might work without problem, but dont know as I didnt try it how it works, just speak from previous experience on 800Mhz.
If you found some sound problem, just return it back on disabled but emulated again.

(After testing it now on 2.13Ghz with sound and proposed setting in WinUAE 2700b2b it runs on 35% CPU time, thus hope it should be OK also for 1Ghz.)

[theelf_]

Toni Wilen, thak you very much for the reply, and your helpI can see you are a developer of WinUAE, i wanna say, thank you and great work!

People like you, made our dream true



amilo3438, thank for the reply, and pictures


Finally I found a configuration and version to play Jim Power 100% speed, no slowdowns. I tried many versions, and options!

Yesterday I play Jim Powers for more than 3 hours, no slowdown, then I can say is perfect

I test more than 50 games, including my favorites, like Lotus 3 or Pinball Fantasies, and works perfect too!


I found version 0.8.27 the only that give me good speed, new ones, are very very slow


For sure new versions are really, more accurate, but the difference is too big,no?!! for example, in Jim powers with same config on new WinUAE, slow down to something like 460% CPU...

Or less intensive games, like Pinball Fatnasies, in 0.8.27, the CPU is like 65-100%, but in 2.6, from 160% to 300%, and the slowdown is massive

Anyways, I capture my config, if help someone in future, with a similar PC

[amilo3438]

Originally Posted by theelf_

I found version 0.8.27 the only that give me good speed, new ones, are very very slow

Well, that is true as this version is from 2004, so it has been 9 year old thus no surprise that is faster ... but it is still less compatible and without many later added great options during years what can be found on a newer versions.

But for an old PC and if only A500 configuration is all you need, it seems to be fair good enough to playing A500 games. It also seems that it could be possible running it on 500Mhz or even lower PC without many problems.

What is very interesting also, it seems to be still more compatible than a newer WinFellow ... have been testing it on Rink_a_Dink-REDUX_by_Lemon-Point demo and couldnt find any gfx glitches as found some on WinFellow. So, using of both should be the best solution for an old PC, if one emu fail other emu might work.


EDIT:
According to this http://eab.abime.net/900738-post8.html it looks you have some pretty unusual low spec PC configuration, so that might be a reason why you have had a such problem running a newer WinUAE version even with the given proposed settings.

[theelf_]

Hi amilo3438

I totally agree that more accurate emulation, need more powerful computer


I tested a lot of games since yesterday in 0.8.27, and all of them, works perfect, without glitches, or slowdowns

I was thinking, that maybe is not a bad idea, to have a option to chose a old "engine" in new versions of WinUAE


About my computer, is a little Thin Client, called Futro S400, have a Athlon XP 1ghz, 256mb ram, and CF like hard disk

Is amazing, not so much low spec, in fact, i have a lot of system emulated, like Megadrive, SNES, NES, CPS1, CPS2, CPS3, NeoGeo,PCengine, PS1, X68000, PC98, MSX, etc etc running perfect

Is a amazing little baby, less than 1kg, 0 noise, 8usb ports, VGA/DVI out, and all this emulators to play jeje


Greetings

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by theelf_

I was thinking, that maybe is not a bad idea, to have a option to chose a old "engine" in new versions of WinUAE

Worst idea ever.

Even the oldest and slowest Core 2 Duo based PC (which is 7 years old now!) would be at least 5 times faster in emulation. Very old PCs have slow memory, small caches and memory bandwidth is one of the most important part in emulation.

btw, it is quite unproductive to first ask better configuration, then just choose some random old version, without even replying if the config worked better. (Not necessarily perfect but better). I am still quite sure you still have bad config or some other incompatibity.

(For some reason these kinds of question always ends in two possibility: 1) someone else says "use version x". 2) "it didn't work, version "x" works". Neither actually helps to fix the problem, if there is one!)

btw2, make sure http://support.microsoft.com/kb/895980 is also enabled. WinUAE is guaranteed to work strangely if performancecounter is not stable.

[theelf_]

Well, I will not complain, is your emulator! jaja I still believe is not a bad idea, to support old computers, but of course, is easy just to download a old version

Of course I can buy a C2D... but... is fun? not for me, for me the fun is to take a old computer and crush every mhz !

The last week, I finish programming a assembler code for megadrive, Is about doing compression of tiles in real time. Was a pain, because the compression code slowdown all, it take me near 1 month of rewrite code over and over again, until I get good speed

I feel the same when I use a C2D machine.. like is everything too easy, not challenge !



Back to the topic..


Sorry, I did not reply, you r right, my fault

I tested all option you and amilo3438 give to me, but did not work, the speed is just similar, I can´t get new version of WinUAE to perform well in my computer whatever I do

After fight with 2.6 without luck, I start testing all versions, and when I just notice that every version from 0.8and up start going slow little by little
Then I think that for sure, is about new code, and I can´t solve the problem just with config...

Then on this point, I forget about new version


I don't test a random old version, like I say I download all version in website, and test one by one, until found 0.8.27 works the best of all. I even downloaded more old versions from other websites

btw, I check the performancecounter problem, but I don't suffer from this on my computer

[Toni Wilen]

In my opinion "modern old PCs" (late 1990s and early 2000s) are pure garbage today and they will never become retro. I can see the point of using old 486s or Pentiums as dos game boxes but not newer ones

Anyway, it must be some compatibility problem because you should have noticeable difference between Display panel hires and lores option. (Does CPU% change at all when you switch lores/hires?)

Check winuaebootlog.txt, if QPF number equals your CPU MHz rate, add the /usepmtimer boot.ini switch. It was extremely common problem during Athlon XP era.

Attach also winuaebootlog.txt and winuaelog.txt (enable logging, to boot to insert disk hand screen and quit emulator), thanks.

[Leandro Jardim]

Do not get angry with Toni, he is a nice guy. What he would like to see from us, the users, is a bit more help with his work. I say this not because of you, of course, but because I see many people asking questions to Toni about WinUAE and when Toni asks about the logs, these guys simply do not reply to Toni, not giving to Toni any way to help him and most importantly, to be able to fix some remaining bugs and others that appears.

Toni gave his opinion about what he thinks about these setups that you like, and is not soo good or oportune but its not because this that you are wrong with what you likes or not likes.

In respect to what Toni said about the Core 2 Duo, I have one, it had me given many headaches (probably is a matter of low quality...), but is a pretty fast machine, its able to do everything I want with emulators, the same way like yours machine.

But differently from your machine, what I noticed with a Core 2 Duo , is that WinUAE is at each version, faster. In reality, near pre-1.0 versions, the emulator was needing more emulation speed, but from some time up to now, this difference is getting smaller, every, every time.

I remember that I had a 266 MHz Pentium PC that I loved, it was a pretty machine, albeit slooow like the hell, and I wanted to use WinUAE with it, and everytime I replied about the slowness of WinUAE, they (not Toni) replied back, "buy a newer PC", and then I replied "but in the docs is saying that 266 MHz is the recommended speed for running it", and then, blah, the damn was done! What I was to say!

Then I changed to a AMD Machine, 600 Mhz I think and I was pleased to see that it ran WinUAE best than the prior. But not so much, really. For that speed I expected even more acceleration! Was only with a 800 Mhz computer that I began to see a difference, really a big jump of speed on WinUAE emulation. I really not expected that. I felt this so interesting about the PCs that I had in my entire life up to now, that I thought to say this.

In brief: dont get angry with Toni, continue using your computer together with WinUAE, but remember that real computer speed is somewhat a misterious subject for many of us.

And dont forget to reply to Toni with the logs.

[jbenam]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

In my opinion "modern old PCs" (late 1990s and early 2000s) are pure garbage today and they will never become retro. I can see the point of using old 486s or Pentiums as dos game boxes but not newer ones

God bless Toni for being so awesome

[Leandro Jardim]

Originally Posted by jbenam

God bless Toni for being so awesome

Yes Toni has sense of humour.

[mc6809e]

During a single memory bus cycle on the Amiga you potentially can have CPU internal processing, a blit in progress, a new audio sample output to a DAC after being AM and FM modulated, pixels from bitplanes being displayed with modification of previous pixel in ham mode and multiple sprites on top with possible transparency, sprite collision checking, CIA's ticking and generating interrupts, and the copper checking for a screen position while waiting.

And after emulating all that, Windows still must be dealt with.

I'm shocked WinUAE works at all on a 1GHz anything.

A second core is often necessary just to make Windows less likely to block processing while it's in the Kernel.