Megadrive Emulation - Gives me headaches

ProtoKnux · Post by **ProtoKnux** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 6:07 pm

Hi, I've been trying emulators since 2002, but still I don't know much about technical stuff. But I don't think we are going to talk about that yet. I have tried tons of emulators and time ago I have discovered the Vsync and Triple Buffering options. So now I can't just play something without Vsync, perhaps because my graphics card is a piece of shit when it comes to 2D graphics or something. The fact is like 5 years ago I don't remember using that feature, and I remember playing games just fine. Now I have a selection of emulators for each of my favorite platforms, except for the Megadrive. This is my hardware:

Processor: AMD Athlon 64 3700+ (socket 939)
Motherboard: A8N-SLI SE (Chipset nForce4 SLI)
RAM: 1.5 GB DDR400 Kingston
Graphics Card: Geforce 7900GT
Sound Card: Sound Blaster Live! 24 PCI

I think is pretty much what you need to know to help me with this. And I think this is enough to at least play some Megadrive games at full speed, with Vsync on and no frame skips, even with some filters, but I may be just wrong with that statement.

What I mean is, Kega and the last beta of Regen, they both give me small, but noticeable frame skips. And since there are no frame skip settings, I can't fix that. Gens works at full speed, but there are crackling sound effects every 10 seconds if I put frame skip on 0, even with the worst sound settings. And If I put frame skip on automatic I notice the same frame skips Kega and Regen do. I have even recorded those crackling sounds as a proof.

The problem is, I have tried Gens on another PC with a different chipset (VIA k8t800), though the processor is an AMD Athlon 64 3200+, and the results were the same, but with different time intervals for those crackling sounds to appear.

Now, I don't even know what the problem is with my computer, or the emulators, and I'm trying to find it out. Perhaps those crackling sounds are due to sound acceleration? It's a common problem with AMD proccessors? thanks for the help.

I.S.T. · Post by **I.S.T.** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 6:57 pm

o_O I got Kega Fusion to work smoothly on a 2.6 ghz Northwood based Celeron with Intel integrated graphics.

The culprit might be the Sound Blaster sound card. Creative's drivers are notoriously shit.

ZH/Franky · Post by **ZH/Franky** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 7:10 pm

I use Kega, Gens, and Regen with no problems.

Deathlike2 · Post by **Deathlike2** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 7:29 pm

Make sure you are running the special AMD patches/drivers.

ProtoKnux · Post by **ProtoKnux** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 7:33 pm

Deathlike2 wrote:Make sure you are running the special AMD patches/drivers.

Special AMD patches? are they official or something? I never heard of them. Can you give me some links?

Deathlike2 · Post by **Deathlike2** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 7:37 pm

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=AM ... tnG=Search

It helps to google on your own.

Edit: It doesn't help if you don't provide what OS you use.. additionally, you aren't using Dual Core, so I don't think those patches are actually needed (I could be wrong).

funkyass · Post by **funkyass** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 7:51 pm

the drivers do add better support for the additional Power states athlon 64 can use. It might have an effect if Kool n Quiet is enabled.

ProtoKnux · Post by **ProtoKnux** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 8:02 pm

Deathlike2 wrote:http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=AM ... tnG=Search

It helps to google on your own.

Edit: It doesn't help if you don't provide what OS you use.. additionally, you aren't using Dual Core, so I don't think those patches are actually needed (I could be wrong).

My OS is Windows XP SP3 (32 bit), I have tried with Cool n Quiet and I have the same result, and when you said "Special patches" I thought they were just like, dunno, special, modified or something, not the default ones, that I have tried months ago with the same results, that's why I asked.

The thing is, I have tried with integrated sound, and a CMI8738, and I have the same problem. I think it's fault of the processor, but I don't know what to say. I don't think AMD processors are bad for emulation, but having 2 pc's with AMD 64 processors with the same problem is a bit suspicious. Perhaps I should upgrade to Intel.

Post by **odditude** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 8:23 pm

haven't had any issues with an Opteron 165, which is a dual-core socket 939 chip - it's not a K8 problem.

neo_bahamut1985 · Post by **neo_bahamut1985** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 9:17 pm

If the motherboard has an integrated sound card, try using that instead.

Post by **odditude** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 9:25 pm

ProtoKnux wrote:The thing is, I have tried with integrated sound, and a CMI8738, and I have the same problem.

neo_bahamut1985 wrote:If the motherboard has an integrated sound card, try using that instead.

reading fail.

funkyass · Post by **funkyass** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 9:25 pm

neo_bahamut1985 wrote:If the motherboard has an integrated sound card, try using that instead.

which forceware version are you using?

that being said, I'd isolate whats common to both computers and then start eliminating one by one till you find the culprit.

AMD64 is a bit picky about ram timing as well. got any more info on your RAM?

ProtoKnux · Post by **ProtoKnux** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 9:26 pm

neo_bahamut1985 wrote:If the motherboard has an integrated sound card, try using that instead.

ProtoKnux wrote:The thing is, I have tried with integrated sound, and a CMI8738, and I have the same problem.

-

odditude wrote:haven't had any issues with an Opteron 165, which is a dual-core socket 939 chip - it's not a K8 problem.

What chipset does your mobo use?

EDIT: Forceware version: 175.63

Gil_Hamilton · Post by **Gil_Hamilton** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 9:27 pm

neo_bahamut1985 wrote:If the motherboard has an integrated sound card, try using that instead.

ProtoKnux wrote: The thing is, I have tried with integrated sound, and a CMI8738, and I have the same problem.

I love that searching for franpa alert actually returns results.

Edit: Damn, quad smacked.

King Of Chaos · Post by **King Of Chaos** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 9:27 pm

Kega Fusion and Regen are the best Genesis/Megadrive emulators out there. Sounds to me the problem might lay in the firmware of the graphics card.

Do you use the default settings for the graphics card? Also, do you have the Show FPS options on in both Kega and Regen, if so, do you notice any drops in the FPS?

ProtoKnux · Post by **ProtoKnux** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 9:35 pm

King Of Chaos wrote:Kega Fusion and Regen are the best Genesis/Megadrive emulators out there. Sounds to me the problem might lay in the firmware of the graphics card.

Do you use the default settings for the graphics card? Also, do you have the Show FPS options on in both Kega and Regen, if so, do you notice any drops in the FPS?

I have Show FPS on both and sometimes they just slow down to 59 fps every 5 seconds, but I don't think that should be a real problem. About the Graphics card config, everything checked. But about the firmware, I don't know if there's a firmware that could fix this.

Post by **odditude** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 9:37 pm

ProtoKnux wrote:
odditude wrote:haven't had any issues with an Opteron 165, which is a dual-core socket 939 chip - it's not a K8 problem.
What chipset does your mobo use?

EDIT: Forceware version: 175.63

Her mobo is an ASUS A8N-VM CSM (GF6150/NF430 chipset). Haven't had any issues with either the onboard video or with an add-on GF 7600GS across multiple driver revisions. Memory is 2x 1GB Corsair DDR400 (CL2). Audio is whatever's onboard (see support.asus.com, i'm too lazy to look it up ATM).

ProtoKnux · Post by **ProtoKnux** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 9:39 pm

odditude wrote:Her mobo is an ASUS A8N-VM CSM (GF6150/NF430 chipset). Haven't had any issues with either the onboard video or with an add-on GF 7600GS across multiple driver revisions. Memory is 2x 1GB Corsair DDR400 (CL2). Audio is whatever's onboard (see support.asus.com, i'm too lazy to look it up ATM).

Then it shouldn't be the chipset either. I think my motherboard is just a bit old.

snkcube · Post by **snkcube** » Sat Sep 06, 2008 12:47 am

http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content ... 320053.zip

Try installing this driver. I don't think the cool n quiet driver will help in this case.

franpa · Post by **franpa** » Sat Sep 06, 2008 3:09 am

Try using the DPC Latency Checker and check if any of your drivers/devices are polling the CPU for extensive periods of time (thus ruining the ability for real-time processing)

funkyass · Post by **funkyass** » Sat Sep 06, 2008 5:49 am

franpa wrote:Try using the DPC Latency Checker and check if any of your drivers/devices are polling the CPU for extensive periods of time (thus ruining the ability for real-time processing)

the problem with that is... nothing really uses real-time scheduling outside of very specific applications, and really has no bearing here.

ProtoKnux · Post by **ProtoKnux** » Sat Sep 06, 2008 10:18 pm

snkcube wrote:http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content ... 320053.zip

Try installing this driver. I don't think the cool n quiet driver will help in this case.

That's exactly what I've tried yesterday, and it doesn't help a bit.

Anyway, I'm going to upgrade my PC tomorrow, at least a little bit, not just because of that, this motherboard gives me another problems like, the secondary IDE channel not working, not recognising my RAM as DDR400, etc... I could say at least Nforce 4 sucks. I don't know about any other Nforce versions, but I pass. I'm going to buy a Gigabyte with an AMD chipset this time.

I had the chance to try Gens on another PC with an AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200, chipset AMD 690G, 2 GB DDR2800, an integrated ATI graphics card and GENS goes flawlessly without those annoying sound effects.

Gil_Hamilton · Post by **Gil_Hamilton** » Sun Sep 07, 2008 7:10 am

ProtoKnux wrote:Anyway, I'm going to upgrade my PC tomorrow, at least a little bit, not just because of that, this motherboard gives me another problems like, the secondary IDE channel not working...

So... your motherboard is broken, and you neglect to mention this?
That seems like it might fall under the header of relevant information.

I'm going to buy a Gigabyte with an AMD chipset this time.

You know AMD bought nVidia, right? So you're really not getting away from the nForce that way.

funkyass · Post by **funkyass** » Sun Sep 07, 2008 7:22 am

AMD bought ATI...

I.S.T. · Post by **I.S.T.** » Sun Sep 07, 2008 7:35 am

Gil_Hamilton wrote:
I'm going to buy a Gigabyte with an AMD chipset this time.
You know AMD bought nVidia, right? So you're really not getting away from the nForce that way.

As funkyass says, they bought ATi. I'm kind of glad they did that, though, considering nVidia's semi-horrible chipsets...