Lenovo Notebook G40 Core i3 64 bit 1.70 GHz

[Leandro Jardim]

Hi, I bought this notebook for me, mainly for playing with Internet, small games and emulators, but for my surprise (a bad one) it seems slower than my old Pentium Dual Core 2.30 GHz, well, its faster in everything, only WinUAE in '030 40 MHz CE Mode, the mode I most use in my old computer, it lacks speed. Even the 64 bit WinUAE port is slower too.

The WinUAE CE mode seems so cool for me, but I could never use it in the way I want, because it push the hardware to the limits so easily, I was thinking, someone of you have a computer capable to run WinUAE in any mode, for example 060 '80 MHz + VSync?

Toni, is my computer really slow, what do you think, or WinUAE is not optimized to run in 64 bit "words"?

[amadama]

Leandro,
What is the actual CPU in the laptop? Is it the i3-4030U?
Try the following things to improve emulator performance:
1) Disable Hyper-threading in BIOS
2) In Windows under Power settings make sure it is set to "High Performance"

If those don't help much try the following:
1) Disable C-states in BIOS
2) Disable VT-x and VT-d in BIOS

[Leandro Jardim]

Argh! My notebook have installed a customized OEM BIOS that has not any of these options on it...

Hey Toni, there is any way for you to fix this issue, maybe by setting an "affinity" option in WinUAE?

EDIT: Maybe you should not worry about it, I cannot tell if the slowness is an issue of hyperthreading or the 1.70 GHz speed (I guess it should be comparable because the new processor is an 64 bit). Also, I think interesting that the WinUAE speed on Non-CE modes is very "respectable", but the CE mode is not.

EDIT2: And I did a tiny test setting the affinity with Task Manager and it didnt work, was unnoticeable.

[Leandro Jardim]

Originally Posted by amadama

Leandro,
What is the actual CPU in the laptop? Is it the i3-4030U?
Try the following things to improve emulator performance:
1) Disable Hyper-threading in BIOS
2) In Windows under Power settings make sure it is set to "High Performance"

If those don't help much try the following:
1) Disable C-states in BIOS
2) Disable VT-x and VT-d in BIOS

No, I think its a lower spec model, an i3-4005U.

[Toni Wilen]

If power saving etc.. options help: crappy bios or drivers.

Compare CPU cache (What Pentium model?) and memory bandwidth differences. It can make huge difference in some modes.

[Sandro]

such core i3 is a haswell but is only a 15w cpu, so don't expect miracles, it sucks in single core performance

[amadama]

The i3-4005U CPU is a performance constrained processor targetted at low-cost, low-power applications.
Turning off Hyper-threading will give you a 5-10% boost in single threaded apps.
Turning off C-states (or IDLE settings) can give you a big 30% boost particularly in a laptop (at the expense of greatly reduced battery life).
The VT-x and VT-d might be listed as "Intel Virtualization Technologies" in your BIOS and should be set to "Disabled".
These low cost laptops often are limited to Single-channel memory (particularly if it only has one DIMM slot). Not sure of the G40 specifically but if it supports dual-channel it might be good to add a second DIMM of the same size (the i3 CPU for sure supports dual-channel but some vendors do not include this in the entire design).
Another thing of note is that "cheat engines" often rely on lots of real-time memory scanning which may really cripple the overall emulator performance. This is amplified if running single-channel memory settings and also if there are other realtime memory scanning processes running such as anti-virus programs.
As always, the best bet for most emulators is the fastest single-core performance possible. A desktop i3 such as the i3-4330 makes WinUAE fly (as does the awesome little Pentium G3258 which I am a huge fan of).
Good luck!

Intel has specs for your CPU here: http://ark.intel.com/products/75105/...Cache-1_70-GHz

[Leandro Jardim]

I turned off the IDLE settings on Windows 8.1 control panel and now WinUAE runs at a very good speed. This computer surprised me, its really a very nice little notebook. Thanks amadama, Sandro and Toni, you saved my day!

[Toni Wilen]

What "Idle" setting?

[Leandro Jardim]

Amadama wasnt referring to the CPU cooling technology builtin in Intel CPUs and which is controllable by the advanced power management settings control panel (system cooling policy)? I remember it was called "IDLE" by some old software (you have heard of the third-party "waterfall" Windows 95/98/ME executable?).

Oh sh*t! I wonder if does is possible that I misunderstood what amadama said, and turned the option "system cooling policy" to passive thinking it could make my system faster??? Now I see that passive does justly the opposite to what I was thinking, it slow down the CPU... Interesting that at a first time WinUAE really feel faster in CE mode, but now the difference is negligible. I think its worse as "never".

[amadama]

I was referring to the idle settings in the BIOS which is often named C-states.
This disables CPU throttling and prevents the CPU from going into low power states. It will make the CPU always run at the 1.7Ghz speed in your example.
Some motherboards have a Windows app that allow you to do this from Windows. I don't think Lenovo has a similar tool (but I could be wrong there).
Running with passive cooling and no fans may greatly reduce your CPU speed (maybe to 500-800Mhz in your case...)

[FOL]

Originally Posted by amadama

I was referring to the idle settings in the BIOS which is often named C-states.
This disables CPU throttling and prevents the CPU from going into low power states. It will make the CPU always run at the 1.7Ghz speed in your example.
Some motherboards have a Windows app that allow you to do this from Windows. I don't think Lenovo has a similar tool (but I could be wrong there).
Running with passive cooling and no fans may greatly reduce your CPU speed (maybe to 500-800Mhz in your case...)

Windows can do it in power management settings. I have mine set to full speed all the time.

[demolition]

Originally Posted by Leandro Jardim

I remember it was called "IDLE" by some old software (you have heard of the third-party "waterfall" Windows 95/98/ME executable?).

This is called 'System Idle Process' and I don't think it can be disabled (neither should it). On DOS/95/98, the CPU was always running at 100% unless you used something like Waterfall which I think worked by running a HALT instruction in a low priority thread.

[Leandro Jardim]

Originally Posted by demolition

This is called 'System Idle Process' and I don't think it can be disabled (neither should it). On DOS/95/98, the CPU was always running at 100% unless you used something like Waterfall which I think worked by running a HALT instruction in a low priority thread.

Oh yes, I saw the "System Idle Process" on Task Manager, and I think you are right about the DOS/95/98 (I mean, I read the Waterfall docs only ), but I was talking about the nomenclature used in programs like CPU-Idle and Waterfall. I really didnt know the difference, thought.