Any low lag emulators for SNES?

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evil_ash_xero
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Any low lag emulators for SNES?

Post by evil_ash_xero »

I'm looking for something like Ootake. Where it has VSync, and it still doesn't lag all over the place.

All the other emulators I am using for SNES seem to be laggy. Except for the SNESGT emulator, but it seems to flicker and have issues time to time. It hasn't been updated in over 7 years, so I'm not surprised.

I guess I'm looking for a Japanese emulator. They seem to take input lag a bit more seriously than some.

And trying to play Umihara Kawase on SNES9X, with VSync on...is a trying process.
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Jonathan Ingram
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Re: Any low lag emulators for SNES?

Post by Jonathan Ingram »

As long as you have a decent rig, you should only ever use BSNES(Higan). It has 100% compatibility with SNES games which it achieves through perfect CPU cycle emulation whereas other emulators resort to running a set of hacks and patches whenever a game is launched.

About your problem... The input lag may differ from system to system and the emulator itself is not necessarily at fault here. GPU scaling may cause lag. If there are any conflicting drivers on your system which interfere with raw input, it may cause lag. If the CPU is not up to the task and skips a cycle, it may cause lag. If there are some processes running in the background messing up audio latency, it may cause lag. I suggest you troubleshoot your PC with DPC Latency and LatencyMon first to make sure that it is at least capable of handling requests from the user in real-time and see if there are any problematic devices causing spikes in latency.
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Ex_Mosquito
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Re: Any low lag emulators for SNES?

Post by Ex_Mosquito »

They all have a little lagg especially on a modern LCD. Whenever I get the console urge these days I use an old Chipped Xbox, but the lagg is pretty bad imo and isn't really acceptable if you really want to spend significant time with a game. My friends don't notice it but it really does stick out a mile to me. It's perfectly fine when I have friends over for a drink and to mess around on though. If you want true lagg-free Snes emulation then there is no real alternative other than using a PC with CRT_Emudrivers + GroovyUME on a CRT. This way you get the exact resolution/framerate with no screen tearing or lagg, well supposedly you get 1-frame just from USB technology but you won't feel it.
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evil_ash_xero
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Re: Any low lag emulators for SNES?

Post by evil_ash_xero »

Well, Ootake has very little lag.
K Fusion is good too.
I just have issues with the SNES emulators.

I used Higan some. It had more lag than that JP one I used, but it wasn't bad. I was just hoping for something along the lines of Ootake.

And some really kick up the lag, if you must use VSync. And I only emulate, so I can save my CRTs the wear and tear. I have all the real hardware. Emulation is just to take the burden off of it.
I don't want to fry my CRTs out. They don't make them anymore!
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Ex_Mosquito
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Re: Any low lag emulators for SNES?

Post by Ex_Mosquito »

Eh? You're not using your CRT because it may break? I'm pretty sure you'll be able to find working ones for years and years to come. It's arcade monitors that you have to worry about.
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evil_ash_xero
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Re: Any low lag emulators for SNES?

Post by evil_ash_xero »

Maybe, but I live in the middle of nowhere. It's harder to find them than you think.
ZellSF
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Re: Any low lag emulators for SNES?

Post by ZellSF »

Try RetroArch and its SNES cores.

You're really not going to get much better, might as well start investing in a real SNES if it bothers you.

Make sure your GPU drivers aren't set to prerender a lot of frames.
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jepjepjep
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Re: Any low lag emulators for SNES?

Post by jepjepjep »

evil_ash_xero wrote: I guess I'm looking for a Japanese emulator. They seem to take input lag a bit more seriously than some.
I found that to be true as well.

There's a good post on neogaf about this that led me to SNESGT for snes and Virtuanes for nes/famicom. They both seem to be pretty good wrt input lag, can't say the same for most of the more well-known emulators.

www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=421792
ZellSF
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Re: Any low lag emulators for SNES?

Post by ZellSF »

Feel free to think Japanese emulators are better (in my experience this isn't true), but do try all the emulators regardless of what region of the world they originate in.

You don't want to be overlooking the solution over unfounded bias.
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evil_ash_xero
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Re: Any low lag emulators for SNES?

Post by evil_ash_xero »

That was the same post I read, where I found out about SNESGT.

Does your screen flicker? I don't know what I could change in the menu to get rid of that.

And yes, most of my emulators aren't JP. Except for Ootake and SNESGT.
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jepjepjep
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Re: Any low lag emulators for SNES?

Post by jepjepjep »

I found virtuanes a lot better than nestopia. I was playing Gimmick so the input lag was really noticeable. I don't remember spending a lot of time with snesgt so I can't remember flicker. I'm going off of memory though, it's been a while since I've used emulators.
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evil_ash_xero
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Re: Any low lag emulators for SNES?

Post by evil_ash_xero »

VirtuaNES doesn't have Bilinear filtering, which is what I use for a lot of old games.
And it has no type of VSync. So, screen tearing away!

Hasn't been updated in 7 years.

Did these guys just stop? Aren't there any successors to the JP emulators?
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evil_ash_xero
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Re: Any low lag emulators for SNES?

Post by evil_ash_xero »

Does anyone actually know the numbers on these things?

Like how many frames or ms do these emulators lag? I'm sure there's a list or something somewhere.

I think Nestopia feels good, but yeah, VirtuaNES is quicker. You can just feel it. Too bad about the video options.
e_tank
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Re: Any low lag emulators for SNES?

Post by e_tank »

ZellSF wrote:Try RetroArch and its SNES cores.

You're really not going to get much better, might as well start investing in a real SNES if it bothers you.
this. nothing ive seen comes close to retroarch when it comes to minimizing input latency (not including groovy mame/ume, I haven't examined their src diff compared to vanilla mame so I can't comment on it). retroarch has many different options for you to monkey with in order to best reduce latency for your particular hardware/software setup. try snes9x or bsnes/higan and nestopia via a properly configured retroarch frontend and never look back.
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