WinUAE very slow when starting in beamraced mode

[WDeranged]

If I load a config that has beamracing enabled I'm getting extremely slow emulation. Restarting in standard vsync and then changing to beamraced is fine. Anyone know what's going on?

[Toni Wilen]

I think someone else had same problem. I don't remember any details, unfortunately. Lagless vsync depends on technically undefined behavior of display driver so anything is possible.

Attach both winuaelog.txt (tick misc panel logging option) and winuaebootlog.txt:
- when directly booting to lagless vsync
- when booting to normal vsync first and then switching to lagless.

[Retroplay]

I had that problem back on Windows 7, I had to load a non beamraced windowed config first, then my fullscreen beamraced config, if I didn't emulation would crawl to a halt.

Not a problem on 10 though.

[hexaae]

Did someone ever had the time/will to a do comparative test between:
g-synced WinUAE fullscreen VS lagless vsync (beamraced) mode?

[rutra80]

But what would you like to test?

[hexaae]

How slow is g-sync fullscreen compared to lagless vsync beamraced...

[rutra80]

Freesync/gsync/VRR has no speed penalty - it's as fast as no vsync. How would you want it to be comapred?

[WDeranged]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

I think someone else had same problem. I don't remember any details, unfortunately. Lagless vsync depends on technically undefined behavior of display driver so anything is possible.

Attach both winuaelog.txt (tick misc panel logging option) and winuaebootlog.txt:
- when directly booting to lagless vsync
- when booting to normal vsync first and then switching to lagless.

Ok, here you go. Windows 7 x64 by the way.

[Toni Wilen]

I have 1080Ti and it works fine in lagless vsync mode (Windows 10) so most likely reason is Windows version. Windows 8.1+ introduced new DXGI features that most likely helps this mode.

Does Direct3D 9 mode work? (Misc panel). If it won't activate: make sure full DirectX9 redistributable is installed.

Try also without any shader filters.

[WDeranged]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

I have 1080Ti and it works fine in lagless vsync mode (Windows 10) so most likely reason is Windows version. Windows 8.1+ introduced new DXGI features that most likely helps this mode.

Does Direct3D 9 mode work? (Misc panel). If it won't activate: make sure full DirectX9 redistributable is installed.

Try also without any shader filters.

Yeah it's exactly the same in DX9 with shaders disabled. Oh well. It's not a big deal, I'll likely be upgrading to Windows 10 at the end of the year.

[Toni Wilen]

Also make sure you don't have forced vsync configured in nvidia control panel. Usually also any GPU power saving option must not be enabled.

[r.cade]

FWIW, this broke somewhere between the 4.2.1 -> 4.3.0 releases.
I don't know what beta version in that series since I didn't keep them all.

Summary:
4.2.1 works perfectly with lagless v-sync in Windows 7 from start of emulation.
4.3.0+ you have to start in non-lagless mode, then switch it after starting emulation. Then it works fine for the rest of the session.

It only affects Windows 7 (I didn't test 8/8.1, but it works on 10 and 11 fine).
I don't believe it's card specific (it did it on my desktop with GTX 770 and laptop with Intel)
DX9/DX11 setting doesn't help
No video card setting helped, that I could find.
Changing to 1 beamraced slice doesn't help.
I dropped the newer WinUAE exe into my 4.2.1 folder to make sure the config is exactly the same, this doesn't help.

I am happy to go through the 4.3.0 beta series and see where it may have broken, if you're interested in finding it. Let me know.

[Mixon]

I have this problem too on Win10, Nvidia Card, latest stable WinUAE.

[Toni Wilen]

Logs from last working (beta) and logs from current version would help + config file. Use single slice to keep it simple.

[r.cade]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

Logs from last working (beta) and logs from current version would help + config file. Use single slice to keep it simple.

I'd be happy to do that. However, the links in the 4.3.0 Beta thread appear to be dead. If that series of betas is made available, I will go through them.

[Seoman]

Originally Posted by WDeranged

If I load a config that has beamracing enabled I'm getting extremely slow emulation. Restarting in standard vsync and then changing to beamraced is fine. Anyone know what's going on?

Same problem too on Windows 11 with Nvidia card.

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by r.cade

I'd be happy to do that. However, the links in the 4.3.0 Beta thread appear to be dead. If that series of betas is made available, I will go through them.

Links might be dead but files are not deleted (4.2 betas are oldest). Check 4.9 beta URLs and adjust them to match 4.3 urls.

Originally Posted by Seoman

Same problem too on Windows 11 with Nvidia card.

It isn't same if 4.3 does not work. There can be dozens of reasons because it is unsupported way to use D3D.

[r.cade]

OK, hopefully this will help.
Let me know if I messed anything up with the logs.

I have 4 bundles.

1) The last version that did not have the problem, which is 4.3.0 b4
2) The first version with the problem, 4.3.0 b5
3) The newest 4.9.1 b3.
4) The newest 4.9.1 b3 also, but is with me selecting non-BR mode first, then switching after emulation starts.

All were created with A500 quickstart and just changed to fullscreen BR mode only.

Note that I only experience this problem in Windows 7. The exact same PC with Windows 10 or 11, this problem doesn't occur.

[Toni Wilen]

https://download.abime.net/winuae/files/b/winuae.7z

Add "-beamrace 1" command line parameter. This should enable pre-430b5 behavior.

Does it help? If not, attach logs.

[r.cade]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

https://download.abime.net/winuae/files/b/winuae.7z

Add "-beamrace 1" command line parameter. This should enable pre-430b5 behavior.

Does it help? If not, attach logs.

Yes, this does fix it for me.