The State of Emulation topic

Anything from run & guns to modern RPGs, what else do you play?
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Xyga
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Re: The State of Emulation topic

Post by Xyga »

"frame slice" feature

Haven't read much so I'm not sure how it works but apparently this is a major breakthrough allowing current frame response in GroovyMAME;

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.p ... mj1ipspg05
(scroll to the bottom of the thread)

Still experimental, really curious to try a build tho.
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Re: The State of Emulation topic

Post by Despatche »

If MAME has de-emphasized arcade work so extensively, what are we going to do about all that hardware that's in danger of dying and isn't anywhere near figured out? What if a major mistake is figured out decades from now, but all copies of the game are toast? Maybe there needs to be a sub-project.
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Re: The State of Emulation topic

Post by WelshMegalodon »

We've had the Knights of Valour games and Taito C-chips emulated in the past 3-4 months alone, not to mention the implementation of the SH3 dynarec and substantial improvements to Model 2 games for the first time in ages, so arcade work is hardly de-emphasized. Hell, they even got IIDX working, albeit poorly.
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Re: The State of Emulation topic

Post by ZellSF »

So I got around to trying the new Citra hardware acceleration features, since decrypting games to run on Citra is a bit of a PITA, I have only tried two games yet. Battleship and Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars. On earlier versions those titles ran at 60-70% speed on my computer (i7 4790k + 1070) on the current version they run at 100% (with minor drops when loading).

Last time I tried 3DS emulation both those games turned me off the idea entirely. Now they seem to be perfectly playable. Could do with some optional texture filtering though, the UI elements look really blocky when upscaled.
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Re: The State of Emulation topic

Post by WelshMegalodon »

MAME 0.196:
The improvements to Sega Model 2 have continued, with Virtua Fighter 2 and Motor Raid now considered working. Other Model 2 games are greatly improved as well.
The SH-4 recompiler has been enabled by default for Dreamcast-derived systems, giving substantial performance improvements.
NAOMI fans, I eagerly await your feedback.

EDIT: I only get 25% in MvC2 and 49% in CvS2 with my piddly 1.7 GHz i5-3317U (2.6 GHz with 'Turbo Boost') and 6 GB of RAM. Those with |337 gamer rigs may fare better.

EDIT 2: Will you look at that? MAME finally improves some high-profile arcade titles for once and no one is around to hear.
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Re: The State of Emulation topic

Post by BPzeBanshee »

I read from the Bannister shoutbox that the recompiler has a lot of room for improvement. Trizeal (currently not working in MAME) gave me negligible improvements but I imagine once the general emulation as well as the recompiler improves we'll see more then. Slow and steady. :)
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Re: The State of Emulation topic

Post by soprano1 »

https://pt.dolphin-emu.org/blog/2018/04 ... ed-dolphin
Funny story about a shovelware game that wouldn't boot on Dolphin, and why.
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Re: The State of Emulation topic

Post by soprano1 »

https://www.reddit.com/r/emulation/comm ... n_and_the/
Can stuff like this be eventually preserved, like that French guy in Japan preserving PC-88 software?
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Re: The State of Emulation topic

Post by Udderdude »

Sounds obvious, but in order for preservation to take place, it requires enough people to want to preserve it. Old J2ME stuff on phones really isn't an area where I see a lot of interest ..
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Re: The State of Emulation topic

Post by BryanM »

With Donkey Kong in the news again, I do have a question about its sound emulation in MAME.

It sounds terrible, as though they're simulating the output of the original speakers used on the cabinets. Does the raw signal really sound like that? Or are they simulating the speaker output, which uh, shouldn't be universally accurate since PCBs can be played on a variety of hardware.

Is there some kind of toggle, so it won't sound like it's sixty feet away and underneath a mattress?
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Re: The State of Emulation topic

Post by BPzeBanshee »

I believe the result is meant as a direct pre-filter connection, ie before any discrete filters or speaker limitations kick in to give the final output. That seems to be the case for most drivers that don't have the discrete circuitry emulated anyway, not sure about DK specifically.
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Re: The State of Emulation topic

Post by soprano1 »

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018/04/ ... -consoles/
I wonder if this is a good thing for ALL games.
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Re: The State of Emulation topic

Post by Zen »

Just what we need. Another existential gaming crisis.
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Re: The State of Emulation topic

Post by ZellSF »

soprano1 wrote:https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018/04/ ... -consoles/
I wonder if this is a good thing for ALL games.
Why wouldn't it be? I can't think of any game where input latency has been a desirable element. Possible with the exception of rhythm games where audio and input latency need to be in sync. I'm not sure how this feature would influence this. I'm still trying to wrap my head around how it works.
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Re: The State of Emulation topic

Post by Xyga »

It's good for people who use a laggy display to begin, this way they can get closer to the actual real delay, this is a first and real progress.

Same with 'frame slice' in GroovyMAME (there's no talk about GM which is the lag reduction pioneer because most people don't know how to use it anyway, while RA has an interface and settings users can get familiar with even if they're not savvy)

Then again nobody's forced to use the lag reduction features, like shaders etc everything is optional.
I don't see any problem at all, but someone had to write an article...
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soprano1
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Re: The State of Emulation topic

Post by soprano1 »

ZellSF wrote:I can't think of any game where input latency has been a desirable element. Possible with the exception of rhythm games where audio and input latency need to be in sync.
That's what I was referring to.
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Re: The State of Emulation topic

Post by charlie chong »

all new features are welcome but it does kind of destroy the point of emulation if there is less lag than the original console. just look at the hatred that lack of/innacurate slowdown on steam cave ports generates
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Re: The State of Emulation topic

Post by WelshMegalodon »

https://www.reddit.com/r/emulation/comm ... d/dxo3usn/
Spoiler
The issues here is that this tool does not actually reduce input lag, it just hides it. The game is still processing the same 2-4 frames of input lag as it did before, and all you are doing is skipping ahead a couple of frames to see the animation rather than waiting. This has a lot of problems.

Whenever I am testing how input lag "feels" on my systems I prefer to load up Ninja Gaiden in the NES. I like it because it is a game I am familiar with, and if there is a lag problem it I can tell pretty easily when wall jumping or timing jump slashes. On my system I can play with up to 2 frame of run ahead, 8ms of frame delay, and 25ms of audio latency. I tested it on both Mesen and Quicknes for comparison, with the features turned both on and off.
For timing based inputs, nothing has changed as far as real latency goes, but your visual feedback is now more condensed. You have to time your inputs as if there is still the built in lag, but now you are no longer seeing it. All of your inputs feel faster in isolation, but when you string them together, for example when doing a jump slash in Ninja Gaiden, it definitely looks and feels off. It has a very herky jerky sort of sensation. Even with only one frame of run ahead I could definitely feel it.

Another problem with run ahead is that it skips a lot of animation. For example, when using the fire shield power up in Ninja Gaiden, a set of flames will rotate around your character. The animation speed changes noticeably when the game is processing all of your inputs. Even if it takes two frames for your ninja to respond to a jump command, there are other objects on screen being processed inbetween those two frames. The enemies animations felt jerky and weird, and when jumping in the air and slashing I could tell that my ninja was being displaced slightly in response to the run ahead save state loads. Again, it felt very herky-jerky and strange. There are also subtle issues with audio , particularly in the music. The audio delay is likewise compensates by loading a save state a frame or two ahead, but this cuts the continuous audio tracks like the music or other sounds being played at the time of your input.

And finally, the more furiously you are pressing buttons the more frames you are skipping and the more pronounced the effects are. You are never playing the game at constant speed, as the volume of your inputs has a real effect on the speed of the game. I actually found myself, while playing only for a short time, starting to get a tad disoriented. Turning frame delay off and playing for a bit was a huge relief, as the game played at a constant speed, the music, sounds, and animation has no sudden breaks, and the relationship between what I see on screen compared to what I pressed on the controller, while in some sense slower, was much more stable and predictable.
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Re: The State of Emulation topic

Post by Udderdude »

Built-in per-input save states! Fucking brilliant. It's practically tool assisted gameplay at this point.
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Re: The State of Emulation topic

Post by Xyga »

Disappointing. As much as compensating for a laggy display would be awesome for many people, if it breaks things to that extent then it's useless.

I haven't tried GM's frame slice yet but I hope it doesn't have similar issues.
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Re: The State of Emulation topic

Post by tomwhite2004 »

If you run ahead by more frames than the amount of lag that the game actually has then you run into problems, 2 frames is clearly too much for that game and is why he had issues. In fact it could well be that the game doesn't have any frames of lag to remove at all so just doesn't work with this method.

I have been playing a ton of SNES games and it has worked absolutely flawlessly, no issues whatsoever.
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Re: The State of Emulation topic

Post by ZellSF »

charlie chong wrote:all new features are welcome but it does kind of destroy the point of emulation if there is less lag than the original console. just look at the hatred that lack of/innacurate slowdown on steam cave ports generates
1: For a lot of people there won't be less lag than the original console. People have laggy displays, this will allow them to compensate somewhat.

2: For a lot of people the point of emulation isn't to play the game 100% as it was back in the day, it's to get the best possible experience. How many people emulate the NES with composite cable emulation do you think?
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Re: The State of Emulation topic

Post by charlie chong »

i would suggest an ossc and a decent tv or gaming monitor rather than messing with this stuff which is messing with how the game was intended though.
the lag is pain tho .trying to play dodonpachi on rasberry pi using final burn alpha and i was flying into bullets all over the shop because it felt different. as soon as i switched back to mame on my laptop on the same display i was fine.
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Re: The State of Emulation topic

Post by ZellSF »

charlie chong wrote:i would suggest an ossc and a decent tv or gaming monitor rather than messing with this stuff which is messing with how the game was intended though.
We have one person (who might have misconfigured the option) saying it messes with how the game was intended and lots of people reporting no problems.

I would need something a whole lot more convincing to opt for something that can cost several hundred dollars more over a free option.
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Re: The State of Emulation topic

Post by ZellSF »

There's a new release of PCem:
PCem v14 released. Changes from v13.1 :

New machines added - Compaq Portable Plus, Compaq Portable II, Elonex PC-425X, IBM PS/2 Model 70 (types 3 & 4), Intel Advanced/ZP, NCR PC4i, Packard Bell Legend 300SX, Packard Bell PB520R, Packard Bell PB570, Thomson TO16 PC, Toshiba T1000, Toshiba T1200, Xi8088
New graphics cards added - ATI Korean VGA, Cirrus Logic CL-GD5429, Cirrus Logic CL-GD5430, Cirrus Logic CL-GD5435, OAK OTI-037, Trident TGUI9400CXi
New network adapters added - Realtek RTL8029AS
Iomega Zip drive emulation
Added option for default video timing
Added dynamic low-pass filter for SB16/AWE32 DSP playback
Can select external video card on some systems with built-in video
Can use IDE hard drives up to 127 GB
Can now use 7 SCSI devices
Implemented CMPXCHG8B on Winchip. Can now boot Windows XP on Winchip processors
CD-ROM emulation on OS X
Tweaks to Pentium and 6x86 timing
Numerous bug fixes

Thanks to darksabre76, dns2kv2, EluanCM, Greatpsycho, ja've, John Elliott, leilei and nerd73 for contributions towards this release.
Nothing too exciting, except for "numerous bug fixes", because I'm guessing a lot of those are compatibility improvements.
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Re: The State of Emulation topic

Post by ZellSF »

I tried playing Super Mario World on a really laggy monitor with the new RetroArch option. With two frames of runahead it was actually playable, though not comfortable. Definitely a huge difference though. I then tried 4 frames and while there was some jitter, it wasn't all that noticeable and I suddenly had CRT like response to inputs. So a frame or two of jitter might not be universally bad, it'll depend a bit on the game.

Also tried Super Aleste, but I really can't notice input lag in Super Aleste. Unlike Super Mario World however, jitter was intolerable at 3 frames.
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Re: The State of Emulation topic

Post by fandangos »

Since we are talking about lag, how much lag on a display is noticeable?

Looking at rtings reviews monitors have 9ms of lag, which is under a frame (16ms).
Does it matter any value between 1 to 15ms? Since this would be next frame delay.

Also tvs are getting faster, the X900E I'm about to receive claims 16ms at 120hz (1080p) and 30ms at 4k 60hz (game mode).
Is this bad? We are talking about 2 frames of lag.

I guess the real problem isn't the display by itself but actually the combo of lag you get on USB pooling rate + the emulator + the OS.

In my experience with the raspberry pi hooked to a HDTV running at 720p I can feel tons of lag, while comparing a PC to the same display it feels fine.
In the other hand the raspberry pi with RGB output into my PVM doesn't feel laggy, so I guess CRT plus the lower resolution helps out.

I don't think the display is the main problem anymore, at least in relation to monitors.
I guess a proper implementation of 120hz would also helps out since you can press a button and the next frame isn't 16ms away.
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Re: The State of Emulation topic

Post by Xyga »

fandangos wrote:Since we are talking about lag, how much lag on a display is noticeable?
For the average everyday joe gameplay IMHO up to 2 frames (total lag) is fine.
But for the high-level fighting, shmupping, bemani etc aficionado then under 1 frame is better.
fandangos wrote:Looking at rtings reviews monitors have 9ms of lag, which is under a frame (16ms).
Does it matter any value between 1 to 15ms? Since this would be next frame delay.
Rtings like many other websites stupidly forget to remind the reader clear and loud that they give you the total lag measurement at the center of the screen, which means where the frame is already halfway/halftime.
The logic (that most websites don't care to explain much of at all bc they don't really understand and just follow the herd) is that while playing we gaze most at the center of the screen.
To know the input lag to the display just substract about hallf a frame (8ms).
fandangos wrote:I guess the real problem isn't the display by itself but actually the combo of lag you get on USB pooling rate + the emulator + the OS.
All factors add up, the display's input lag, the source hardware's lag if any, the controller's pcb or controller ports, emulator settings, GPUs and their drivers/settings, whatever else.
fandangos wrote:I don't think the display is the main problem anymore, at least in relation to monitors.
It depends on the display, today many monitors available are practically lagless, but there are still a lot released that have more than 1, 2, 3 farmes of lag etc.
TVs still perform worse than monitors overall, even though a handful are sub-1 frame.
fandangos wrote:I guess a proper implementation of 120hz would also helps out since you can press a button and the next frame isn't 16ms away.
Sure if we could convert all sources 60Hz to 120Hz (and why not quadruple etc) without actually adding lag nor killing stability it woud be fantastic, but that's still only reasonably true for PC gaming and emulators (though iirc not without issues as some suggest)
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Re: The State of Emulation topic

Post by orange808 »

fandangos wrote:
I guess a proper implementation of 120hz would also helps out since you can press a button and the next frame isn't 16ms away.
Retro consoles and software were specifically designed around ~60Hz refresh with no concern about scalability. So, I see no advantages in frame doubling.

The key to lower lag in console emulation is frame processing delay. The faster your machine can completely emulate a full frame cycle, the longer it can wait to emulate each frame. Waiting longer allows the machine to poll the USB port closer to the actual emulation of each frame.

Reducing lag in emulation is often a question of raw power. With a bleeding edge machine and a fast polling controller setup, lag is becoming a nonissue. (Obviously, Raspberry Pi emulation doesn't register as powerful.)

PC hardware is the way to go if you want good emulation.
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Re: The State of Emulation topic

Post by fandangos »

Xyga wrote:
fandangos wrote: Rtings like many other websites stupidly forget to remind the reader clear and loud that they give you the total lag measurement at the center of the screen, which means where the frame is already halfway/halftime.
The logic (that most websites don't care to explain much of at all bc they don't really understand and just follow the herd) is that while playing we gaze most at the center of the screen.
I don't get this at all. As far as I understand they use some kind of webcam hooked to a computer and sends a signal to display a white dot and the timing between the command and the moment it gets displayed is the total amount of lag.
And as you said gamers look at the center of the screen so that would make sense. What is that halfway/halftime?
Isn't fixed pixel display always showing a full image all the time and the pixels must change so a new image appears?

I really don't get the concept behind halfway image on fixed displays. I do understand it on crt tvs/monitors that display from top to bottom and left to right while drawing the screen but that's not the case.

And you said subtract 8ms? You mean a rtings monitor review that claims 9ms we are talking about 1ms? This is the equivalent to a crt display.

And when you say "lagless" how much is it? is 20ms lagless?

Here, I have upgraded to a i7 6700k with a 1080Ti hooked to a 4k TV.
I can play ninja gaiden on my hdmi nes but I can't play it on retroarch, except hooked to a crt, for compensation, I use the 120hz trick to enable 2560x240p@120hz on a sony g520. This works really well.

I want to add one more thing about emulation and picture quality not just lag:
If retroarch had a decent scanline shadder (all sucks and are not what a scanline looks like) I would play it at 2048x1536@60hz on it at it's native resolution. But that's not the focus of this discussion but I also want to add one other thing, maybe if you can convince me around this I would be happy to be proven wrong.
The Hi-Def NES is way sharper compared to retroarch at 4k. This doesn't make sense. I have bilinear filtering disabled and such but let me put it this way:
The hi def nes is sharp as the OSSC x5 and retroarch is sharp like the framemeister. Hope my analogy can paint a clear picture of how I see it.
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