Calling all Pinball Dreams/Fantasies Fans...

[Christian]

Hi all,

I seem to get a very slight delay on the flippers in Pinball Dreams/Fantasies that I can't seem to get rid of.

It's only very slight and I find myself compensating for it, but when checked against my real Amiga, it's definitely there

Obviously, a bit of a game-breaker, I've tried different priority settings, vsync on/off, various sound settings, various display settings, usb keyboard instead of wireless, various cpu settings, etc. I have tested it on the quick-start A500 setting of course.

It's doing my head in as I love these games. My 1200 is not really an option as when plugged into my 1080p screen via RGB scart, the scrolling is jerky (although there is no lag/delay). I'm guessing the screen is getting confused with the signal coming from the Amiga somehow - not sure. Very annoying though.

Just wondering what other people think on this - like I said, it's a very, very slight delay (which I guess is happening all the time) so checking against a real Amiga is necessary.

The only way for me to play these games properly so far is to plug the Amiga into my CBM monitor I have, but to be honest, it's too small for me nowadays.

Edit: Sorry, forgot to say, Vista32, Q6600 4GB, 8800GTS 512. Can submit proper info if needed.

BTW - Not sure about Pinball Illusions - doesn't do it for me for some reason. They seemed to lose all "feel" when coming out with that POS (although not too bothered as I'd already sold my Amiga by the time it came out). lol

[john4p]

Do you play with a gamepad or the keyboard (or even the mouse)?

[Christian]

Keyboard mate

Actually, just reading the comments from Photon below and the two problems may be related.

[twinbee]

That's odd. I just posted about input lag in another thread, and you're experiencing that here.

What's the version of WinUAE you're using? I found v1.6 better (but not perfect) in terms of input lag (compared to using v1.3 previously).

The other problem may be because you're using a high-lag LCD monitor. But then if it doesn't happen with standard PC games, then that may not be the case.

Input lag can be an insidious beast which is hard (though not impossible) to objectively measure, but many can certainly 'feel' it.

Love Pinball Dreams btw. We got the highest scores for that game in existence I reckon

[Christian]

Yes, using version 1.6 and I've noticed the improvement too. From what I remember, the older versions used to get much laggier when vsync was enabled whereas 1.6 seems the same either way.

I thought about the LCD lag but I've plugged my real Amiga into the very same screen and it feels fine.

[john4p]

I'm still using version 1.4.6 and don't feel any lag. You could try that one (it's the last version before Toni Wilen did some fundamental changes with version 1.5.0).

[twinbee]

Also may I suggest playing the game in windowed mode. I find that may help a little with lagging.

Also, when I set the refresh rate to max (85hz for my CRT), and 99fps, the lagging seemed better again. But of course, Pinball dreams would run way too fast then

Is the main developer of WinUAE on these boards? Perhaps it would help if we could hear about lagging direct from the horse's mouth.

[Toni Wilen]

There is always some lag (minimum is PC display refresh rate but in practise it will be larger) It is impossible to have fully real-time emulation.

[twinbee]

Emulators such as MAME seem to cope okay. And of course the standard Windows enviroment cursor is 0 ms lag on a CRT afaict.

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by twinbee

Emulators such as MAME seem to cope okay.

I always ignore emulator comparisons, especially statements like this with zero information.

And of course the standard Windows enviroment cursor is 0 ms lag on a CRT afaict

Of course it isn't. There is already some lag between mouse hardware and mouse driver and display refresh isn't instant. (for example 60Hz refresh rate and mouse moves just after it was "drawn" by CRT = you won't see new position until next refresh = 16.6ms lag in worst case)

[twinbee]

I always ignore emulator comparisons, especially statements like this with zero information.

The information present in that sentence is basically me saying "To me, MAME subjectively feels like there is no lag present" (compared to WinUAE). Now for sure, any information which relies on the fuzzy limit of human perception has to be taken with caution, but that doesn't mean it has to be ignored. Perhaps you can't tell the difference (or maybe you can - I don't know), but then that's true of many people who can't detect lag even up to 50ms (which is painfully noticable to me, and lots of others).

Of course, there are more objective, precise ways to measure lag, but they are going to be *very* tricky to do. By all means, if you can think of one, I'd be interested to hear. The camera trick which is usually used to compare LCD with CRT can't be used in this case.

Of course it isn't. There is already some lag between mouse hardware and mouse driver and display refresh isn't instant

Okay, it was an exaggeration, but I (and maybe Christian) can bet that WinUAE will be around 10ms or even 30ms extra in many/all cases. The Windows cursor etc. feels less than that, and thus more responsive.

[Toni Wilen]

You sure it isn't "standard priority problem", some OS/driver/something combinations have lag when in "fastest possible" mode (=WinUAE uses all available CPU power) if priority is normal or above normal.

I have never seen this but it is confirmed problem, no explanation found.

[NfernalNfluence]

don't know how Pinball Hazard behaves on a "real" amiga but sprite collision as far as flippers & pinball is utterly abysmal !! !! (just want to make clear, there is nothing wrong with WinUAE's sprite collision detection)

[NfernalNfluence]

trying my best to take a screen shot but unfortunately they are taken a fraction of a sec too late

[NfernalNfluence]

[Christian]

K - sounds like a bit of a nightmare to pin down. I'll try and do some more extensive testing with old versions of WinUAE, CRT screen, etc when I get the time (not today - got a big gig to play yay!)

As i said, real Amiga into RGB scart = no delay. WinUAE into HDMI = very slight delay. I wonder if there is a difference in the ports??? hmmm.

Only asked the question as I don't want to be "pissing against the wind" as it were, which is what Toni has hinted at.

TBH if it wasn't for these pinball games, I probably wouldn't have noticed the very slight delay.

[twinbee]

You sure it isn't "standard priority problem", some OS/driver/something combinations have lag when in "fastest possible" mode (=WinUAE uses all available CPU power) if priority is normal or above normal.

Hmmm... good idea, though I tried lowering to below normal pri (in the "Pri. & extensions" area) and it didn't seem to help. Perhaps there's something else I can try? In any case, I'm still really happy with this version of WinUAE compared to previously.

By the way, in AMOS Pro, the lagginess of the mouse cursor is more apparent for some reason. I don't suppose there's a chance of including an option which displays the lag of input relative to final output...

[PowerPie5000]

I have Pinball Dreams and it has absolutely no input lag on my A500 - Using the keyboard of course I have not tried it on my A1200 though.

I do have Pinball fantasies too, but it may take a while to find amongst all the other miggy games i have so i cannot test it out right now.

[twinbee]

By the way, just a passing thought. I often see 'tearing' (where the screen splits in two, and there's a strange tear separating the two halves) in certain games and emulators like MAME, though haven't noticed it so far in WinUAE. I suppose in theory, the tearing should appear whenever Vsync is disabled, though I still haven't noticed it in WinUAE even then.

If it's possible to get the 'tearing' effect (which is fairly subtle sometimes anyway) and have a lower input lag, I'm all for it

[NfernalNfluence]

just checked Pinball Hazard on the last & latest build of WinFellow... there's definitely some weird lagging effect happening as far as the action between pinball & flippers is concerned! (that being on Toni's WinUAE)
infact the problem i identified above isn't really obvious on WinFellow presumably due to the absence of a lag!!