Is my PC too feeble for latest WinUAE

[jimbob]

Hi, I've not used WinUAE in a while, (since version 1110). I've just been trying the latest version on my antique PC and having problems.

>100% CPU, slowing frame rate, audio dropouts. So far just tried a default A600 configuration.

PC is Athlon XP 2.15 GHz, 2Gb RAM. XP SP3. Geforce 6200.

I feel like this should be enough for amiga emulation as it works very well with the earlier version and I used to have no trouble emulating a more powerful Amiga too.

Any thoughts on whether this is compatibility or CPU muscle issue with newer winUAE. If so, since I can't upgrade at the moment, which older version would be my best bet?

[Dreedo]

I can't say I'm overly familiar with WinUAE's requirements.

But emulators like N64 and PS1 would probably run ok on that setup, so I couldn't see it not being able to run WinUAE.

But i could be wrong, the Amiga is a tricky one to emulate.

[Schlachtwerk]

Hi, try to remove the mark on Cycle-exact.

[jimbob]

Yeah, I feel like it should perform OK. I'm finding more and more stuff recently which I can't use because some CPU feature is required. The emulator runs, so obviously these are not required but maybe they are optimised for which somehow causes a big performance hit on old stuff which no-one noticed cause everyone here hates old computers so much.


Unchecking cycle exact is an improvement, but still getting >100% CPU. Audio is better but still glitchy. How critical is the cycle exact, just some games and demos?

[Toni Wilen]

It should be more than fast enough for A500 non-ce emulation. (EDIT: actually it should be fast enough for cycle exact in most situations except some very copper/blitter heavy demos)

Try following:
delete (or move) configurations\default.uae (if it exists)
run winuae
select a500 (most common) configuration, compatibility slider one step from left (non-ce mode, leftmost step is ce mode)

Does it now run slow? If it does, try switching misc panel graphics mode from d3d to directdraw (or vice versa) Still running slow?

[Mequa]

jimbob, I found WinUAE version 1.4.6 seems to perform better on crappy old hardware, even on a 1.6GHz Intel Atom netbook. (I also found 1.5 and above have a noticeable performance hit on such low-end hardware, in my experience.) Of course it lacks many new features, but should give full speed on Athlon XP 2.15 GHz even for AGA emulation.

WinUAE 1.4.6 Installer
WinUAE 1.4.6 ZIP Archive

(This is also the last version compatible with Windows 98SE/Windows ME, but if an ancient PC is too old to upgrade to Windows XP, WinFellow or even DOSFellow may be faster on such an antique PC for some A500 games...)

[Toni Wilen]

Don't do above before some proper troubleshooting, thanks

[jimbob]

Solved! Thanks Toni. The answer is no, my PC is not too feeble!

I tried A500 most common config with cycle exact off and there was some improvement but still not great on some stuff.

I was using a Sanity Arte demo which had two sections ( a textured tunnel thing and a plasma effect) which showed up the trouble. Then I tried the old WinUAE with a A4000 configuration and it worked ok. So trying a A4000 configuration on latest winUAE . . .almost identical symptoms as most basic config. Clearly not the emulation at fault but the interface with windows.

Try miscellaneous->graphics API->direct 3D

result - need to update runtime

update DX runtimes

select direct 3D

demo runs perfectly even on A4000 configuration. Great stuff!

[Mequa]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

Don't do above before some proper troubleshooting, thanks

What Toni said


Seriously, though, someone needs to take an Intel Atom N270 netbook, XP or Win7, or something slower, and benchmark Kid Chaos running on:
1) WinUAE 1.4.6,
2) WinUAE 1.5,
3) WinUAE 2.3.3.

I have *not* been able to get full speed on this Amiga 500(!) game on such a 1.6GHz machine with WinUAE 1.5 or higher, even with sound disabled and no matter what settings I use. 2.x is even slower in my experience. Granted, this is an extremely hardware-banging game with parallax scrolling coming out its ears, but it's 1.6GHz! 1.4.6 can even upscale PAL mode to 60Hz+ with no slowdown on such a humble netbook, while the original UAE recommended 233MHz! While I'm hoping I'm dead wrong and this is just non-optimal settings, unfortunately it looks like serious bloat to me. A real shame, since Toni has done some excellent work on WinUAE since then, which I can't affordably take on the road without a major performance hit.

(No I'm not coughing up for a Macbook Air with Bootcamped Windows 7 just to get low latency Vsync in WinUAE on the go...)