Megadrive Emulation - Gives me headaches

[ProtoKnux]

Hi,

@ProtoKnux:

Can't you just disable Vsync? . Or disable vsync and enter fullscreen. Maybe some thing heavy is running in background which is stealing CPU time. Try diabling some background thing that you might be running (like anitvirus etc..). Also try playing with some video card settings (since I don't have a dedicated video card I cannot tell which things to play with ). That said, I might PM you a special build which might fix the problem. But don't expect it soon. I don't see it as a problem with WinXP or even the hardware. I think there is a large mismatch between the timings of the sound card and video card.

stay safe,

AamirM

P.S.:
Just out of curiosity, what other emulators have you tried? and what settings?

stay safe,

AamirM

Look, if I disable Vsync, my screen CUTS the image in two. How could I explain this... is just like this:



It's almost exactly the problem I have (not exactly because I can't make screenshots of that, I had to edit the image to show the effect) everytime I move, and I can't allow it, sorry. So I did try the fullscreen mode on the last beta and... there's something funny about that. Instead of sound skips/frame skips/crackling sounds, this time I get just slow downs.

Don't worry about making special builds, it's probably my hardware, I don't want to make people work on special builds just because I have problems.

Oh and, I have tried, per example, ZSNES, SNES9X, SNESGT, VBA-M, Final Burn Alpha, Kawaks, Nebula, Nestopia, NesterJ, Magic Engine, Project 64, 1964, pSX and ePSXe, with some settings like Vsync and Triple Buffering, various filters and no frameskip, and they all work with perfect video-sound sync on my PC. There are more, but I don't remember right now.

I have tried everything on my graphics card. The only thing left is overclock it, and I don't want to do it.

Ok, now I see where is the problem, my goddamn monitor. Is an Acer AL1916W TFT display that does not support (by default) 60 exact hertz. It supports 59.89. So with Vsync activated it runs at that frequency. I can change that with the Nvidia Control Panel, but, I can't know the exact frequency settings. It'll help if someone knows how do I get that frequency.

[AamirM]

Hi,

Hah, I was just going to ask if you monitor is set to some wierd refresh rate. Can you change it to 60 Hz? Otherwise someone with Nvidia card may help you.

stay safe,

AamirM

[ProtoKnux]

Hi,

Hah, I was just going to ask if you monitor is set to some wierd refresh rate. Can you change it to 60 Hz? Otherwise someone with Nvidia card may help you.

stay safe,

AamirM

I can choose between 59.89 and 61. The thing is, now with 61 I can play without sound skips, with Vsync and Turbo options. Why? I mean, I have a lot of emulators and they run at 59.89hz refresh rate with vsync and they don't cause strange sound skips and frame skips. Is the Megadrive special or something?

[AamirM]

Hi,

Hey, who cares as long as it works....right?

stay safe,

AamirM

[ProtoKnux]

Hi,

Hey, who cares as long as it works....right?

stay safe,

AamirM

Yep. Now I gonna try to help with testing games on the official Regen thread.

[King Of Chaos]

Having 59.89 and 61Mz refresh rates is kinda odd if you ask me. What kind of monitor do you have?

[odditude]

Is an Acer AL1916W TFT display that does not support (by default) 60 exact hertz. It supports 59.89.

[King Of Chaos]

And that's where the problem ultimately is.

[AamirM]

Hi,

Yep. Now I gonna try to help with testing games on the official Regen thread.

Awesome. Just ask any question you might have there.

stay safe,

AamirM

[tetsuo55]

Please post a source to back up your wild claims.

My microsoft source states Exactly what i said in my post.

No it doesn't.

This occurs because Windows takes advantage of the ACPI features of the motherboard, including advanced PCI sharing. IRQ 9 is used by the PCI bus for IRQ steering.

Ok, now I see where is the problem, my goddamn monitor. Is an Acer AL1916W TFT display that does not support (by default) 60 exact hertz. It supports 59.89. So with Vsync activated it runs at that frequency. I can change that with the Nvidia Control Panel, but, I can't know the exact frequency settings. It'll help if someone knows how do I get that frequency.

thats wierd, i know lots of people with that monitor and they seem to have 60

Did you install its driver?
http://support.acer-euro.com/drivers/mo ... 1916w.html

You can try to use powerstrip to force your nvidia to display 60hz

[Deathlike2]

Gil's right for the most part, but ACPI does requires its own IRQ to do a number of things.. including IRQ steering.

In this case though, ProtoKnux does not fall under that catagory. I think this primarily applies for 9x though... not that I should care.

[tetsuo55]

Gil's right for the most part, but ACPI does requires its own IRQ to do a number of things.. including IRQ steering.

In this case though, ProtoKnux does not fall under that catagory. I think this primarily applies for 9x though... not that I should care.

XP does it exactly the same, but removes the option for end-user IRQ changes

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314068/EN-US/

Indeed ProtoKnux has a problem with his videocard(driver) VS monitor(driver)

EDIT:

-Modern processors(pentium pro and up on the intel side) have a Local APIC in the processor
-Single processor motherboards have the old-fashioned 8259(most modern board seem to simply have a I/O APIC which has a legacy mode)
-Multi-processor motherboards have the new style I/O APIC

In a single processor board the Local APIC connects to a master and slave 8529 for a total of 16 IRQ's

In a multi processor board the I/O APIC conntects to one or more Local APIC's and has a total of 224 IRQ's available. Usually a system will only show 24 of them, but these are all really available and not virtual or steered.

IRQ 9 is always reserved for the LOCAL-APIC. You will see this regardless of which mode you are in (8259 or I/O APIC)

If you see more than 15 IRQ's your system is using I/O APIC.

There is one exception to this:

If you are ever on a Windows system where the IRQ numbers for PCI devices are "weird", with no devices sharing IRQs but with all of their "IRQs" seemingly grouped around powers of two: You are on an APIC, non-ACPI machine, and device manager is not reporting the actual IRQs; the "weird" numbers are artifacts of the implementation. Even though it looks as though every device has its own IRQ in this environment, they really don't.

I visited a load of sites but this one explains it best:
http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/for ... 6002322731

So i was wrong with the IRQ's above 15 being mapped to 9.

Actually learned a lot about IRQ and pci(express) by reading all that information. Looks like multi-core and pci-express2.0 solves a lot of the problems from the past. Guess i will keep my eyes on motherboards that put as many devices as possible on the pci-e bus.

[Gil_Hamilton]

In conclusion: ALL HAIL APIC!

[adventure_of_link]

and it would be difficult to patch the OS to recognize at least more than 512 MB of RAM.

I found a unsupported 98SE service pack 1.5 that patches the OS to recognize more than 512MB of RAM. that said, you could find a 256MB stick that fits your mobo to use long enough to install and run 98SE.

My post above was aimed at AOL and not King Of Chaos who posted at the same time.

My bad, everyone discussing Vista all of a sudden threw me off -_-"

[I.S.T.]

Look, if I disable Vsync, my screen CUTS the image in two. How could I explain this... is just like this:

Ah, video tearing. It does suck. I've found with my monitor I notice it far more when moving vertically on a 2D game.

[ProtoKnux]

Look, if I disable Vsync, my screen CUTS the image in two. How could I explain this... is just like this:

Ah, video tearing. It does suck. I've found with my monitor I notice it far more when moving vertically on a 2D game.

Yeah, that pic is not so accurate, I can't do a screenshot of that effect, because that is caused by my monitor.