Problem with WinUAE, too slow in AGA mode

[alebgo]

Hi everyone, Excuse my bad English, luckily there is google translator. I wanted to ask your opinion on the configuration of the PC to use WinUAE. I have an Asus laptop with an AMD A8-4500M with 8GB of DDR3 memory and an AMD 7640G graphics card.

While using the emulator, through the visualization of the "Native on-screen display" there is a monstrous use of what should be the CPU power which even reaches 140%, and the frame rate drops below 36 fps, at the same time the sound starts to choke and crackle.

In the Win 10 Task Manager the CPU usage by WinUAE never exceeds 36%, so it shouldn't be a CPU power failure problem, so I wonder, what could it be? Is there something I need to change in the laptop bios or some other setting to do?

Thank you all.

[thomas]

Originally Posted by alebgo

In the Win 10 Task Manager the CPU usage by WinUAE never exceeds 36%, so it shouldn't be a CPU power failure problem

It is. WinUAE needs a lot of speed on a single core. You've got a quad-core CPU, so 36% total means one core is at 100% and another is at 44%. That's quite much.

You should try to reduce emulation accuracy to gain some speed.

Disable Cycle Exact.
Disable VSYNC.
Enable JIT if possible, this will make a huge difference.

[rutra80]

I dare to doubt that any CPU younger that 20 years might have insufficient speed for WinUAE...
I'd rather look for some system incompatibilities - ensure that on Miscellaneous tab you're using DX9 or DX11 and make sure that Vsync is disabled (and not forced by graphics card driver), no heavy shaders etc.

[alebgo]

Originally Posted by thomas

It is. WinUAE needs a lot of speed on a single core. You've got a quad-core CPU, so 36% total means one core is at 100% and another is at 44%. That's quite much.

You should try to reduce emulation accuracy to gain some speed.

Disable Cycle Exact.
Disable VSYNC.
Enable JIT if possible, this will make a huge difference.

Overall CPU usage is 46% of which about 36% is used by WinUAE and setting WinUAE to high priority doesn't change anything. Turning off all those options makes the Amiga experience nothing short of terrifying, with jerky scrolls and jerky music. The titles I'm testing are Turrican 2 AGA and a demo from Team Hoi, Planet Groove.

By setting WinUAE to high priority, shouldn't Windows give more power to the core that is handling WinUAE? On the Task Manager everything remains unchanged, same percentages for WinUAE and percentage of overall use, still around 46%. With an I5-650 things go much better, it's very fluid, it has 2 cores, 4 threads and actually the single core I5 is much faster than an A8-4500M.

At the end of the day it's like you say, it's not a good CPU for WinUAE, too bad

[alebgo]

Originally Posted by rutra80

I dare to doubt that any CPU younger that 20 years might have insufficient speed for WinUAE...
I'd rather look for some system incompatibilities - ensure that on Miscellaneous tab you're using DX9 or DX11 and make sure that Vsync is disabled (and not forced by graphics card driver), no heavy shaders etc.

Unfortunately I think it's just the CPU. With an I5-650 things are much better, even with an AMD A8-5500 things are better, because it is better in single core. I wonder if Tony will one day optimize WinUAE to take advantage of all the cores that old CPUs have

[thomas]

Originally Posted by alebgo

By setting WinUAE to high priority, shouldn't Windows give more power to the core that is handling WinUAE?

More than 100%? How shall that be possible?

With a quad core CPU 25% means one core is running at 100%. That one core cannot become any faster.

[malko]

@alebgo : To gain a bit of speed you can also try to run an old release of WinUAE. Give it a go and you will for sure notice some differences. It will not harm your experience for usual gaming.
Also I have seen that WinUAE may "snail" sometime (I haven't figured out the real reason in an usual way of using it) but if you rebuild the WinUAE ini from scratch, it will fly again.
If you don't want to rebuild the winuae.ini manually, you can use a special option of the reInstallDDWC script that I have made. I run it from time to time. It's available here : https://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=107012

[Toni Wilen]

Select Quickstart panel A1200 mode with compatibilty to max (full left). Is it still slow? If it is, reduce compatibility.

If it still is slow: it is something else than emulator, at least directly.

Also use windowed mode when testing. Make sure D3D9 or D3D11 is mode (misc panel) is enabled. Don't just select it, start emulation and recheck the setting to make sure it is still selected. It gets switched off automatically if system does not support it.

Make sure no special settings, for example Chipset panel subpixel mode is not enabled. It requires MUCH more CPU power.

68020 + AGA requires noticeably more CPU power but it shouldn't be that much, at least in Quickstart + slider set one or two steps from max. Unless your laptop CPU starts throttling due to high temps.

Also I have seen that WinUAE may "snail" sometime (I haven't figured out the real reason in an usual way of using it) but if you rebuild the WinUAE ini from scratch, it will fly again.

Unlikely reason. There is nothing in ini that affects normal emulation configuration, there are some defaults that gets replaced with config file data when config file gets loaded.

[alebgo]

Originally Posted by thomas

More than 100%? How shall that be possible?

With a quad core CPU 25% means one core is running at 100%. That one core cannot become any faster.

Look the image

[alebgo]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

Select Quickstart panel A1200 mode with compatibilty to max (full left). Is it still slow? If it is, reduce compatibility.

If it still is slow: it is something else than emulator, at least directly.

Also use windowed mode when testing. Make sure D3D9 or D3D11 is mode (misc panel) is enabled. Don't just select it, start emulation and recheck the setting to make sure it is still selected. It gets switched off automatically if system does not support it.

Make sure no special settings, for example Chipset panel subpixel mode is not enabled. It requires MUCH more CPU power.

68020 + AGA requires noticeably more CPU power but it shouldn't be that much, at least in Quickstart + slider set one or two steps from max. Unless your laptop CPU starts throttling due to high temps.



Unlikely reason. There is nothing in ini that affects normal emulation configuration, there are some defaults that gets replaced with config file data when config file gets loaded.

Thanks a lot Tony, as soon as I can I do all the necessary tests and post the configurations.

[alebgo]

Originally Posted by malko

@alebgo : To gain a bit of speed you can also try to run an old release of WinUAE. Give it a go and you will for sure notice some differences. It will not harm your experience for usual gaming.
Also I have seen that WinUAE may "snail" sometime (I haven't figured out the real reason in an usual way of using it) but if you rebuild the WinUAE ini from scratch, it will fly again.
If you don't want to rebuild the winuae.ini manually, you can use a special option of the reInstallDDWC script that I have made. I run it from time to time. It's available here : https://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=107012

I had already tested it in the past and actually, I don't remember from which old version, the speed was perfect and I didn't have any slowdown.

But I would like to use the latest version of WinUAE, I would like to start learning how to program the Amiga. I have two Amiga 1200, the problem is that my 3 lcd tvs don't support the Amiga scart signal. My intention was to prepare everything I needed with WinUAE and then put everything on the sd card and use it as HD on the Amiga.

Thanks everyone for the suggestions.

[rutra80]

I just happened to test WinUAE on exactly AMD A8-4500M laptop with 8GB of DDR3 memory and an AMD 7640G graphics and it indeed is too slow for A1200 emulation (and A500 in fact too).

[Toni Wilen]

It can't be CPU speed if A500 is slow even without cycle-exact. More common problems are sound (disable it), or display forced vsync and/or desktop refresh rate is less than usual 60Hz (for example 24Hz). Or falling back to GDI mode.

Lots of reasons, rarely it has nothing to do with CPU speed.

[rutra80]

No I tried full emulation with CE, collisions, sound etc.

[enigma776]

Winuae ran fine with my old AMD Phenom II X4 940, could run an A1200 with addons like networking, sound and even PPC just fine.

[rutra80]

Try newer versions.

[Aladin]

No cache L3 on APU AMD A4/A6/A8/A10/A12
https://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Bulld...0A8-4500M.html

Never had speed problems with the A10-6700 (used until December 2021)

[rutra80]

Yes it's a slow CPU, but I was living in a dream where perhaps Pentium II should suffice

[Aladin]

Athlon II x2 (also no L3 cache) was already not enough in 2012. The sound quality had to be reduced.

on the other hand, the pentium II ... perhaps to emulate an atari 2600 ....

[Seiya]

Originally Posted by alebgo

Look the image

do you use "speed Max" in WinUAE?
only with this option cpu run at 100%, becuase you order to WinUAE to use maximun power or your core/thread.

Run aGA game at default A1200 speed: cycle_exact=true, cpu_multipliler=4 and "cpu_speed like A500/1200" your cpu stay at 0%.

100% cpu is ok for 3D games that need to run at 50 or 60 fps, like Quake, Doom, or TFX in RTG, AGA or Warp3D.