Glitchy sound when enabling Cycle exact DMA/Memory accesses

[SLC]

I've been playing a bit with the latest WinUAE and amazed by how incredibly well it works, but I have run into a small problem which I hope someone has a solution to.

Some games seems to rely on the cycle-exact memory accesses, or they will simply just fly away. All emulation works flawless up until the point I enable either of the Cycle-exact options, and sounds starts cracking up, and this happens on both 68020 and 68030 emulation, regardless of choosing "fastest possible" or "Approximate A500/A1200". I have tried with both no buffer, double buffer and triple buffer and also various sound buffer sizes.

What info will you be needing to find out if there's an error in my setup? Is there a known setting that works around this? My setup is an i7 6700K, 32GB RAM and Radeon R9 290 graphics card. Thanks in advance for any help

[DamienD]

Heya SLC,

Welcome to EAB

Originally Posted by SLC

What info will you be needing to find out if there's an error in my setup?

Attach these as a starting point

a) winuaebootlog.txt
b) winuaelog.txt (gets created via "Paths" --> ticking "Enable full logging" before starting emulation)
c) configuration file

[Toni Wilen]

Check CPU%, does it stay under 100%? Your CPU should be more than fast enough but other settings can cause side-effects.

EDIT: It also happens with basic A1200 mode without any expansions, not even fast ram?

[SLC]

I'll start by uploading the requested files.. I will check if it happens also with standard A1200 settings without fast RAM. I just need to find something suitable to test that config with.

Is there a way I can check CPU usage easily when in fullscreen mode? I also think it's not a CPU issue, but that something in my setup causes it somehow.

[SLC]

Yes, I can confirm it's also happening with standard A1200 settings and no fast.

Edit: CPU usage according to resource monitor never goes above 12% which is not even near maxing one core... so think we can rule out CPU as being the bottle neck.

[Toni Wilen]

I mean WinUAE on screen led CPU% (enable in misc panel) or use windowed mode.

Task manager/resource meter shows 100% = all cores in use which is useless information when program is mostly single threaded.

EDIT: Fastest possible + cycle-exact is not really "tuned" config combination and can cause issues.

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by SLC

Is there a way I can check CPU usage easily when in fullscreen mode?

Load any game / demo and before starting emulation do either of the following:

a) WB config - navigate to "Miscellaneous" and tick "Native on-screen display".
b) RTG config - navigate to "Miscellaneous" and tick "RTG on-screen display".

...or just use "Windowed" mode while testing

[mark_k]

Do you have the same sound glitches when you use Direct3D 9 mode instead of D3D11?

[SLC]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

I mean WinUAE on screen led CPU% (enable in misc panel) or use windowed mode.

Task manager/resource meter shows 100% = all cores in use which is useless information when program is mostly single threaded.

EDIT: Fastest possible + cycle-exact is not really "tuned" config combination and can cause issues.

I know the resource meter shows 100% when all cores are maxed, which is why I mentioned a load that showed activity lower than one core regardless how you look at it. But I agree, it's a bad metric. Did get the resource meter in UAE enabled too which showed nothing odd.

So, fair enough that fastest possible + cycle-exact may cause issues. It works perfectly if I do not enable that, so I guess this is the way to go. But maybe you can tell me if there's a way to achieve what I was trying. I am wanting configs which roughly matches the speeds of a 030/50 and 060/50. Is this possible or is it pretty much A500 speed or max speed in terms of choices in that regards?

[Toni Wilen]

Not really. It is sort of approximate in unexpanded A1200 mode but not anymore when fast ram is added/faster CPU.

CPU% is more useful because it if it shows >100% = emulation can't keep up with real world and sound will glitch.

[SLC]

I think I may have found the issue... speedstep was for some reason enabled. Disabled that and it seemed to go away. Now only some popping occurs when WinUAE reports >90% CPU usage, which is kinda to be expected I suppose. I now watched a demo all the way through using 68030, fastest possible and cycle exact DMA/memory accesses without a single glitch. I hope this issue is resolved now