A few minor things

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avatar_58
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A few minor things

Post by avatar_58 »

First off - awesome emulator, it's nice to have a choice and not have to wait for ZSNES. There's just two things I've not been able to find searching the forum -

I can get 60/60 constant using DDraw on my Q6600. It runs perfectly but occasionally the audio will skip for a few seconds then go back to normal. Almost like the emulator is pausing for a background task or something. Any particular reason? It seems to happen every 30 seconds in some games. Both sync options are enabled.

The other thing is, and I realize most people don't like it, I was wondering if you can force the video to stretch to fullscreen and ignore ratio. I can't seem to find the ability to do this. I understand it's a niche since most are pretty adamant about keeping the ratio intact, but for me I don't mind a little stretching to get the full picture. I figure it really ought to be up to the player don't you think? Though I don't really mind either way, I'm more interested in fixing my sound issue.
byuu

Post by byuu »

Hah, eight minute response. God I need something to do at work v_v'
It runs perfectly but occasionally the audio will skip for a few seconds then go back to normal. Almost like the emulator is pausing for a background task or something. Any particular reason? It seems to happen every 30 seconds in some games. Both sync options are enabled.
If you're on Vista, I get that a lot there too. I think it's the OS running something in the background.

Otherwise, try changing the "frequency adjust" option under config->audio. Should help by moving it to the left, you should notice less and less audio skips. Go too far and you'll get a repeated video frame every few seconds, so it's a balancing act. Kind of a pain I know, sorry.
The other thing is, and I realize most people don't like it, I was wondering if you can force the video to stretch to fullscreen and ignore ratio.
Yes, but with a few limitations. The scale only goes to 5x, but clamps to the screen size, so if you have > 1440x900, you need to adjust the aspect correction to do this. Config->advanced->video.ntsc_aspect_x,y controls that. It's a pixel width:height ratio, so enable aspect correction and increase the aspect_x setting until it fills your particular monitor. Restart the emu after changing settings in the advanced panel for them to take effect.

If you have > 1920x1200 and you want the height to fill too, I loathe you and your fancy 30" monitor :P

Again, definitely a pain. This actually wasn't meant to be possible at all, we're just hacking up another feature to do what you want.
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Post by King Of Chaos »

byuu wrote:If you're on Vista, I get that a lot there too. I think it's the OS running something in the background.
This is probably due to the Windows Desktop Manager part of Windows Aero. The Sega Genesis emulators have/had the same problem (Steve Snake addressed this in Kega Fusion).

If this is indeed the cause of the issue, you should be able to address it by using these DWM API calls...

DwmSetDxFrameDuration
DwmSetPresentParameters

These functions *should* control how DWM updates the screen, which in turn addresses the slight frame drop (I've noticed a frame drop right before this happens) and hopefully the sound skip.

Now, a good way to test this is by going into the Windows Classic theme and disabling dwm.exe and see if the skip still occurs.
Last edited by King Of Chaos on Mon Jan 05, 2009 6:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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avatar_58
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Post by avatar_58 »

Ah yeah that would be it, I do use Vista. One thing I didn't try was increasing the priority, but I'm not sure if that would help. I did notice one rather odd thing - in fullscreen mode the start menu seem to have aero disabled....and yet opening a program/windows shows that aero is still active.

One interesting thing to consider though - my Wifi card (wireless N) seems to have issues when I play SPC audio files in Winamp. If I disable the card it doesn't skip at all. I'm going to try this out by disabling the card and seeing if it affects BSNES since hey - it's an awful big co-incidence that the skipping sounds similar for snes audio.

As for the aspect ratio I wasn't aware it was changeable under advanced - thanks. I probably won't bother as it's not such a big deal.
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Post by King Of Chaos »

Try running it with Windows Aero completely turned off and disabled and see if it still occurs. If it does, then it's probably DWM screwing with it.

Another thing to try is disabling both Syncing options while on Windows Vista, since it seems Vista/Aero/DWM has issues with emulators trying to use VSync.
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Post by creaothceann »

byuu wrote:Otherwise, try changing the "frequency adjust" option under config->audio. Should help by moving it to the left, you should notice less and less audio skips. Go too far and you'll get a repeated video frame every few seconds, so it's a balancing act.
Speaking of repeated frames...

Would it sound bad to repeat/skip samples as required to keep the synchronization? Instead of resampling.
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Post by grinvader »

It sounds quite bad.

Especially if you're in a part where the volume/pitch changes, causing a particularly nasty saw-teeth repetition of said change.
And skipping causes all sorts of *prtzz* as you go that can completely kill an awesome tune.

The debate is open as to which is worse, but they're not good.
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Post by Dullaron »

If you have Norton then get rid of it. Its a memories hogger. Get one of those freebies AntiVir. AntiVir is not a memories eater. Anyway Norton will slow things down.

If not then there is something running.
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Post by King Of Chaos »

Well, let me ask you this. On Vista, does the framerate jump from 60 to 61 then down to 59 and back up again?
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Post by adventure_of_link »

Dullaron wrote:If you have Norton then get rid of it. Its a memories hogger.
Not to mention that it leaves itself all over your system, making complete uninstallation almost impossible.
Dullaron wrote:Get one of those freebies AntiVir. AntiVir is not a memories eater.
I concur.
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Post by h4tred »

Yet it gets quite annoying with false positives. Especially when dealing with packed files on a regular basis using FSG and other packers that are used for certain types of files that are not malware. :( I'm considering switching from AntiVir to KAV just because of this reason.
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Post by avatar_58 »

Well I use Avast so there's nothing going on there. I tried disabling Aero (desktop composition in the shortcut does it), disabling audio effects on my sound card, setting high priority, setting affinity, disabling network card etc - nothing seems to change the behavior.

When it skips it loses 2-3 frames for only a second.
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Post by FitzRoy »

avatar_58 wrote:Well I use Avast so there's nothing going on there. I tried disabling Aero (desktop composition in the shortcut does it), disabling audio effects on my sound card, setting high priority, setting affinity, disabling network card etc - nothing seems to change the behavior.

When it skips it loses 2-3 frames for only a second.
Turn on both syncs in the emulation speed menu. Then go into the configuration and mess with that frequency slider. 31800 or 31900 is recommended. Tell me if that helps any.
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