Problem with D3D filters on netbook with Intel 945GSE

[Mequa]

I've been having some trouble getting WinUAE's Direct3D filters to work on my Windows 7 netbook, although WinUAE in general runs well, as does the basic Direct3D filter and the Scale2X software filter. The DirectX updater reports the latest version is installed. The graphics drivers installed are the latest. I am using WinUAE 2.0.1 with the filters downloaded from winuae.net.

My specs are: Acer Aspire One A110; RAM: 1.5GB (upgraded from 512MB); HDD: 8GB internal SSD plus added 16GB SDHC card (class 6), both formatted as NTFS; OS: vLited Windows 7 (upgraded from Linpus Linux Lite); Native screen resolution: 1024x600; CPU: Intel Atom N270 1.6GHz; GPU: Intel 945GSE integrated graphics.

If I select any of the Direct3D filters (after placing them in the appropriate folders), it reverts to the basic Direct3D filter, and will not work with any software filters such as Scale2X. I can use Scale2X without Direct3D, which is FAST (much faster than hq2x on this system), but I want to combine it with hardware bilinear filtering. This problem does not occur on my bigger laptop, just the netbook with the Intel 945GSE.


I do hope the Intel 945GSE is supported by WinUAE's Direct3D filters, or if not is planned. It's a common graphics accelerator in ultra-portable netbooks, and although among the lowest end GPUs available nowadays, is well up to the task of resizing graphics with bilinear hardware filtering.
For comparison purposes - it's fast enough to rescale 720p HD video played from a SD card (not to mention what it can achieve with a Nintendo 64 emulator like 1964 using Direct3D - I got 60fps at 1024x600 with Mario Kart 64), so surely this GPU should be good enough for a bit of 2D filtered scaling combined with software pixel filters?

With that said, is there currently any way to get the D3D filters working on such a system? If this is a bug, would anyone like to look into it?

[Toni Wilen]

Try latest beta but first delete plugins\filtershaders\direct3d and redownload filtershaders.zip. Direct3d has been rewritten after 2.0.1.

Include winuaebootlog.txt and winuaelog.txt if you still have problems. (check logging box in misc panel)

(note that in my opinion intel gpus are crap)

[Mequa]

I tried Public Beta 17, unfortunately the selector for Direct3D was "greyed out" saying "none". With or without the Direct3D folder.

The only filtershaders.zip I could find was at http://www.winuae.net/files/stuff/filtershaders.zip, is this the correct one for the beta? I tried extracting it in the WinUAE folder but it made no difference.


Edit: I attach the logs I got from the beta. Direct3D was unavailable, any reason why.

[Toni Wilen]

Direct3D option was moved to misc panel in this beta series. It ís more than a filter now. (check changelogs for more information)

[Mequa]

That fixed it, I can now get 60fps Vsync (PAL upscaled) in the Super Stardust tunnel sequence (playable demo version) with both Scale2X and bilinear filtering.

68020/040 direct JIT set to the third notch from the left (plus immediate blitter and lowres+non-doubled mode) seemed to give the best performance. One rule I've noticed is that JIT makes a big difference in performance when playing most AGA games on an Atom netbook with Scale2X. Another is that the JIT needs to be fine-tuned to run smoothly (to VSync at 60fps with clean sound) - but when it's needed it often works.

(The congratulations screen needs the CPU slider set to the far left with JIT to run smoothly, however. Is there a keyboard shortcut to adjust the CPU speed? Sorry for the off-topic question.)

WinUAE 2.1.0 looks like quite a major overhaul.

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by Mequa

That fixed it, I can now get 60fps Vsync (PAL upscaled) in the Super Stardust tunnel sequence (playable demo version) with both Scale2X and bilinear filtering.

Great

68020/040 direct JIT set to the third notch from the left (plus immediate blitter and lowres+non-doubled mode) seemed to give the best performance. One rule I've noticed is that JIT makes a big difference in performance when playing most AGA games on an Atom netbook with Scale2X. Another is that the JIT needs to be fine-tuned to run smoothly (to VSync at 60fps with clean sound) - but when it's needed it often works.

JIT + vsync is not really supported, sometimes it works, sometimes it does not. Perhaps someday..

(The congratulations screen needs the CPU slider set to the far left with JIT to run smoothly, however. Is there a keyboard shortcut to adjust the CPU speed? Sorry for the off-topic question.)

There is no default key but it can be configured (and it can be quite unintuitive..)

http://eab.abime.net/showpost.php?p=426792&postcount=7

[Mequa]

I'm using Beta 17, I've noticed that Direct3D seems to be slightly slower than DirectDraw on this lower-spec machine.
This is most noticeable when running extremely resource hungry games such as Microcosm CD32.
Can we likely expect any speed enhancements from this beta anytime soon?

To get Microcosm to work at full speed, I needed to use DirectDraw, disable all software filters and use 68040 with JIT set to maximum using the slider, use lowres mode, disable line doubling, enable immediate blitter and enable VSync 60fps (a fixed framerate on netbook screens).
Vsync+JIT is a MUST to run this game full speed and smoothly on an Intel Atom - disabling JIT dramatically slows down the in-game video, while without VSync it won't look as smooth. Unfortunately this combination is known to be buggy, however it seemed to work the best for me.

For more speed, I used Direct JIT, although this can crash after selecting a level so I only enabled it after. I found switching to NTSC mode faster than upscaling PAL to 60fps (and also leaves the audio pitch unaffected), unfortunately my version of Microcosm doesn't really support NTSC, and gives a hardware error if it's used before choosing a level. Selecting NTSC after gives the best game performance with very little slowdown, unfortunately this throws off the timing of the music a bit as well as cropping the screen somewhat. Still, after much tweaking, Microcosm CAN run full speed on a cheap netbook - play it on the bus, at the pub or on a plane

P.S. On this kind of hardware I have gotten slightly better performance from WinUAE under Windows XP (with 512MB RAM) than under Windows 7 (with 1.5GB). Could the heavier OS kernel in 7 have an impact on WinUAE performance on lower-end hardware?

[Maren]

If syncing to 50hz is not possible, you're much better off disabling vsync, that will save precious resources at the expense of tearing (unless it can do 100hz or a multiple, but then you will likely experience ghosting) which's always preferable over the side effects of attempting to sync a PAL output to non-PAL refresh rates.

[Mequa]

I have since got Microcosm to work in true NTSC mode (and does not give a hardware error after restoring a savestate), which works at 60fps VSync with very little slowdown. (It looks better in NTSC mode too, as the game video is 'letterboxed' with large panels in PAL mode.)

I've personally had little problems enabling JIT with Vsync, even with the CPU slider set to maximum (or near) on a low-end machine.

I have had problems disabling JIT with Microcosm on this machine, however - the in-game video slows to a crawl.
Naturally, this does not occur on faster PCs, so evidently a 1.6GHz Intel Atom is not up to emulating an A1200/CD32 with 14MHz 680EC20, without resorting to JIT. (Whatever happened to WinFellow? For A500 gaming it would likely ace WinUAE on one of these...)

Disabling Vsync also makes it look much uglier, the game is full of smooth scrolling sprites (or blitter objects, whatever the game uses).

If JIT+Vsync is not officially supported, then I would estimate that would place the system requirements for emulating A1200/CD32 games with smooth graphics at at least 2.4GHz.

[Echo]

I've had some trouble with the high quality filters since migrating from XP to 7 - they either revert to null filter or show strange artefacts. Tried a couple of recent builds.

(Hardware: Intel i7 920 / Sapphire 5870 / 6GB DDR3 / Dell 2408WFP)

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by Echo

I've had some trouble with the high quality filters since migrating from XP to 7 - they either revert to null filter or show strange artefacts. Tried a couple of recent builds.

(Hardware: Intel i7 920 / Sapphire 5870 / 6GB DDR3 / Dell 2408WFP)

Sorry but my crystal ball isn't that good.