MAME input lag fixed?

KNTain · Post by **KNTain** » Sun Mar 16, 2008 3:05 am

I remember discussion lately about MAME having some lag in certain games after .99. It looks like it has been fixed as of 123u5; I just tested DoDonPachi and Battle Bakraid, and while I got 1-2 frames of lag in MameUI32 122u6, 123u5 doesn't have any. Going by step-pause and said games' input test menus.

indstr · Post by **indstr** » Sun Mar 16, 2008 3:14 am

too bad it probably still uses directinput

KNTain · Post by **KNTain** » Sun Mar 16, 2008 3:16 am

Educate me.

indstr · Post by **indstr** » Sun Mar 16, 2008 6:06 am

mmm, to the best of my knowledge (although i am not infallable), mame versions after around .116 have a "feature" called directinput, that cannot be disabled. it means programs like Xpadder which map game controller keys to keyboard keys no longer work, because MAME is somehow looking for input only from the physical PCB on the keyboard through the ps2 port.

so for example, i have a custom setup where i use ppjoykey to emulate a gamepad, and then use xpadder to emulate a keyboard with the emulated gamepad... (stay with me here). it allows me to do crazy shit like map my D key to the Z key to make doujin's more comfortable to play, but i've also recently setup autofire with it, making autofire work with any game, even ones that don't support it. including MAME. i tried messing with mame's autofire functions one time and didn't really figure it out

okok, i know that mame itself has joystick support, but i had trouble with that too

anyway, i figure this also impacts people who have some kind of custom joystick rig. maybe not?

anyway, i downloaded version 0.114 just so i could avoid this issue

Zebra Airforce · Post by **Zebra Airforce** » Sun Mar 16, 2008 6:43 am

Here's my question: What version doesn't have crappy lag, sound errors, and stuttering? I just want a version of mame that doesn't suck

Iori Branford · Post by **Iori Branford** » Sun Mar 16, 2008 6:46 am

Zebra Airforce wrote:Here's my question: What version doesn't have crappy lag, sound errors, and stuttering? I just want a version of mame that doesn't suck

Version Final Burn Alpha. At least, it has Cave, CPS2, Raizing and 8ing.

Only trouble is, if vsync is your thing, I hope you like config file digging.

Zebra Airforce · Post by **Zebra Airforce** » Sun Mar 16, 2008 6:56 am

No Seibu? If it can't play RFJ then there really isn't much reason for me to get it, as that's the main draw of MAME for me.

indstr · Post by **indstr** » Sun Mar 16, 2008 8:26 am

Iori Branford wrote: Only trouble is, if vsync is your thing, I hope you like config file digging.

i used fba for a while. forcing vsync in nvidia drivers does the trick for everything

doodude · Post by **doodude** » Sun Mar 16, 2008 8:41 am

Im afraid I dont know WTF most of what any thing thats been said on this post even means!

I had such a problem getting MAME to work that when I ran across ExtraMAME I just gave up & stayed with it.

http://www.godlikedevelopers.com/extramame/

Extra MAME takes all the guess work out, has thousands's of games including a butt load of Shmups & runs smoothly with no lag of any kind that I can detect.

Ive run across post's that explain how to setup MAME & plan to have another go at it but I just havent had the time or the need...

Ed Oscuro · Post by **Ed Oscuro** » Sun Mar 16, 2008 1:12 pm

doodude wrote:has thousands's of games including a butt load of Shmups & runs smoothly with no lag of any kind that I can detect.

Sounds like the regular MAME.

I use MAMEUI myself (formerly MAME32), find that here:

http://mameui.classicgaming.gamespy.com/

Dandy J · Post by **Dandy J** » Sun Mar 16, 2008 2:48 pm

I thought MAME stopped using directinput, hence why the option to turn it off went away. I'm pretty sure there's a post by Aaron Giles about how they stopped using it somewhere.

Off to test this release...

unsane · Post by **unsane** » Sun Mar 16, 2008 3:11 pm

This is good news. I like to use the most recent version of programs but i've been getting sick of noticeable input lag in Battle Bakraid and APB.

Dandy J · Post by **Dandy J** » Sun Mar 16, 2008 3:15 pm

Yep it's fixed. Reacts on the 3rd frame for me in APB. The extra frame of lag may be due to the game itself. Much better than 4 or 5 though (or 6 in some extreme cases lmao).

doodude · Post by **doodude** » Sun Mar 16, 2008 5:31 pm

Ed Oscuro wrote:
doodude wrote:has thousands's of games including a butt load of Shmups & runs smoothly with no lag of any kind that I can detect.
Sounds like the regular MAME.

I use MAMEUI myself (formerly MAME32), find that here:

http://mameui.classicgaming.gamespy.com/

I set up this MameUI & its working fine.

MameUI supports over 6000 games, most of which Ive never heard of, compared to the more than 3500 games supported by Extra Mame.
Winner: MameUI

Extra Mame actually finds & loads the dowload page of the ROM you want leaving you to simply click download, usually from __________, while with MameUI you have to find the ROM yourself. Usually at __________.

Winner: Extra Mame

Having looked at & used both now I still prefer Extra Mame over MameUI.
Probably because Im used to Extra Mame & I like the interface more.
But I will keep using both & hunt thru MameUI for games that Extra Mame dosent support & play them there.
Winner: Me!

Thanks Ed O for the link...

If you try Extra Mame, let me know what you think of it. Just curious...

Mod edit - removed ROM site reference

KNTain · Post by **KNTain** » Sun Mar 16, 2008 6:58 pm

Yep it's fixed. Reacts on the 3rd frame for me in APB. The extra frame of lag may be due to the game itself. Much better than 4 or 5 though (or 6 in some extreme cases lmao).

Yeah, I think that's definitely the case. It acts the same way for me when it comes to ship movement (and in .99, as well), but it reacts on the very first advance in a lot of the service menus.

indstr · Post by **indstr** » Sun Mar 16, 2008 8:46 pm

Dandy J wrote:I thought MAME stopped using directinput, hence why the option to turn it off went away. I'm pretty sure there's a post by Aaron Giles about how they stopped using it somewhere.

Off to test this release...

neat, i'll have to try it as well

Enhasa · Post by **Enhasa** » Sun Mar 16, 2008 8:53 pm

indstr wrote:mmm, to the best of my knowledge (although i am not infallable), mame versions after around .116 have a "feature" called directinput, that cannot be disabled. it means programs like Xpadder which map game controller keys to keyboard keys no longer work, because MAME is somehow looking for input only from the physical PCB on the keyboard through the ps2 port.

Are you sure about this? First off, directinput is part of directx (which is ubiquitous) just so you know, it's not some strange evil or something. I use .117 myself and on the occasion where I want to do something tricky with MAME (like automate a secret character select), xpadder works just fine. It works fine either by itself or as a combination of MAME joystick support + xpadder on top of that.

Instead of doing your weird ppjoykey/xpadder hack, I think the best solution is just to use autohotkey. Also MAME autofire is really simple. Just go to the menu, select autofire, select the button you want, and hit right to move it from "off" to "on".

I'm sorry if this comes off negatively, it's not, I just want to let you know there are "better" ways to do what you're doing, but if this works for you, whatever.

nimitz · Post by **nimitz** » Sun Mar 16, 2008 11:16 pm

Well, up until recently the "best" version or the one with the least input lag was wolfmame 0.101 (got that from MARP, and with some testing this seems true)

but what you are saying is that mame 0.123u5 is better or as good as 0.101?

edit: look what i found in the mame 123u5 whatsnew log

Aaron Giles wrote:Removed cpu_scalebyfcount(). Changed input ports to register a frame
callback, which is called immediately after throttling and updating.
This is the proper "sync point" between emulated time and real time.
Moved all analog and digital port processing into a central place
here. Added tracking of time since the previous frame update and use
that as an estimate for the time of the current frame. This is used
to scale analog ports without the use of cpu_scalebyfcount(). This
is not perfect in the case where frame rates are dynamic (vector
games), but works well for other cases. [Aaron Giles]

KNTain · Post by **KNTain** » Sun Mar 16, 2008 11:29 pm

That's exactly what prompted me to try it out.

nimitz · Post by **nimitz** » Sun Mar 16, 2008 11:36 pm

Well that looks interesting, but I don't feel like building mame from source. So I'll wait for the next release (0.124)

Ed Oscuro · Post by **Ed Oscuro** » Mon Mar 17, 2008 6:26 am

Hmm, that seems very nice!

You don't need to build MAME from source (unless you use teh Lunix); just check out MAMEUI.

nimitz · Post by **nimitz** » Mon Mar 17, 2008 6:36 pm

MAMEUI/MAME32 loads slower than Vista on a 486DX

Twiddle · Post by **Twiddle** » Mon Mar 17, 2008 8:06 pm

also a bunch of crashes that are suspiciously absent from plus, one which mamedev does not want you to use ever

doodude · Post by **doodude** » Mon Mar 17, 2008 9:58 pm

At the risk of repeating myself, EXTRA MAME is free, no set up, easy to use, finds your ROMs for you, no lags, very small, no stems, no seeds etc etc etc...

http://www.godlikedevelopers.com/extramame/

Try it, youll like it.

roker · Post by **roker** » Tue Mar 18, 2008 12:52 am

what's a good mamerz for mac?

I haven't played APB or Bakraid because of the input lag on mac mame as well

ReKleSS · Post by **ReKleSS** » Tue Mar 18, 2008 6:11 am

Dandy J wrote:Yep it's fixed. Reacts on the 3rd frame for me in APB. The extra frame of lag may be due to the game itself. Much better than 4 or 5 though (or 6 in some extreme cases lmao).

Regarding the frame advance method of checking for lag, it always shows one frame higher than it actually is. Due to the point where the pause is handled, the input for the frame before is taken before the pause, and the update is shown after. Or something, it's been a while since I looked into it. I managed to fix it, at the cost of DDP running at 66% on my Q6600...

Btw, P48: The Freedom Fighters has the least lag of anything I've tried. Good for checking lag.

Edit: That would be p47, not p48. And even that single frame is gone is 123u5.

Zaarock · Post by **Zaarock** » Tue Mar 18, 2008 8:29 am

roker wrote:what's a good mamerz for mac?

I haven't played APB or Bakraid because of the input lag on mac mame as well

mameosx, macmame died years ago. I used to use SDLmame before I started using mameosx and the latter is better in a few ways.
It can use effects in OSX itself such as core image and core video which run pretty damn well, and you can have audio effects like echo.. only problem I've had so far is I cant find options for autofire.

Dont know much about the input lag, maybe someone else can check it out?

roker · Post by **roker** » Tue Mar 18, 2008 9:23 am

Zaarock wrote:
roker wrote:what's a good mamerz for mac?

I haven't played APB or Bakraid because of the input lag on mac mame as well
mameosx, macmame died years ago. I used to use SDLmame before I started using mameosx and the latter is better in a few ways.
It can use effects in OSX itself such as core image and core video which run pretty damn well, and you can have audio effects like echo.. only problem I've had so far is I cant find options for autofire.

Dont know much about the input lag, maybe someone else can check it out?

ha

I might be waiting for a while

maybe I should setup bootcamp

Post by **nZero** » Tue Mar 18, 2008 3:15 pm

doodude wrote:At the risk of repeating myself, EXTRA MAME is free, no set up, easy to use, finds your ROMs for you, no lags, very small, no stems, no seeds etc etc etc...

It's also only a user-interface frontend to official MAME, and as such has no effect on input lag and therefore next to zero relevance to the topic being discussed.

doodude · Post by **doodude** » Tue Mar 18, 2008 10:52 pm

nZero wrote:
doodude wrote:At the risk of repeating myself, EXTRA MAME is free, no set up, easy to use, finds your ROMs for you, no lags, very small, no stems, no seeds etc etc etc...
It's also only a user-interface frontend to official MAME, and as such has no effect on input lag and therefore next to zero relevance to the topic being discussed.

Whew, Im glad we got that cleared up anyway!