Dodonpachi and general MAME frame skipping question

[PROMETHEUS]

Playing Dodonpachi with wolfmame99, I just realized that the emulator considers the game to be running at 104% speed when "Draw every frame" is enabled (it then draws 58/58 frames per second). When that option is disabled (frame skipping set to "auto"), I get 60/58 FPS according to the in-game counter, and the speed reads 100%.

The question is, which is the speed it's really supposed to run at ?

It's funny I only noticed that now after having done over 80 runs in 104% speed, including the 2-ALL run lol T.T And before that I had always been practicing with 100%. I noticed the difference when coming back to my old configuration. It's slight but definitely there, so it counts in terms of difficulty and I'd need to use the right setting from now on.

[worstplayer]

According to MAME, correct speed is 57.55hz.
So 58/58 is as close to 'real' speed as you can get.

[nimitz]

The counter is not accurate.

you can even switch the actual framerate by increments of 0.001 or so using the mame on screen display.

that being said playing with "draw every frame" is always superior to frame skipping.

[it290]

Are you playing with vsync on? Because if so it might be forcing the game to 60hz. I believe the Saturn version does something like this and I have always thought that DDP runs slightly faster on the Saturn vs. using advancemame with correct clocks.

And yeah, you should always avoid frame skipping if possible.

[Ruldra]

including the 2-ALL run lol

Please tell me you recorded that run...

[PROMETHEUS]

ya ya I recorded it, I record every run

thx for the input guys, I'll play with 58/58 frames and 104% speed as usual then

[nimitz]

well that "104%" is actually 100%

or maybe not depending on wich version of mame you are using.

also very important: are you using v-sync/triple buffering?

[PROMETHEUS]

no, do you recommend using them or not using them ?

I'm not sure what they do exactly.

[worstplayer]

v-sync makes game wait for vertical refresh which eliminates tearing but unless your game runs at same rate as your display it causes choppy movement.
triple buffering is kinda useless in MAME. All it does for me is increasing input lag.

[BryanM]

triple buffering is kinda useless in MAME. All it does for me is increasing input lag.

Hey, I think you're right.

I've suddenly become 4x better at every game. Thanks.

[PROMETHEUS]

triple buffering is kinda useless in MAME. All it does for me is increasing input lag.

Hey, I think you're right.

I've suddenly become 4x better at every game. Thanks.

lol ^^

well I'll try using v-sync but I got a good rendering already, I don't really notice any tearing when playing. I do run the game at the same rate as my display.

[KNTain]

I've lately been wondering...

I can avoid screen tearing by unchecking throttle and syncing to my monitor's refresh, as expected, but MAME has an option (under cheats, oddly enough) to change the game's native refresh rate.

I could be crazy, and I should do some real testing, but the game syncing to my monitor (104% speed) seems faster than when I change the game's refresh to 60.whatever via the tilde menu. That would kinda imply that it's the more accurate thing to do if you wanna play the game at its original "speed" while ignoring tearing.

I'm probably just crazy and they both lead to the same result.

[maco]

...I do run the game at the same rate as my display.

This is probably the reason then, 104% of 58 works out at about 60Hz.

[Skykid]

Just downloaded your Guwange superplay Prometheus - awesome run - but where's the sound?!

[nimitz]

yeah v-sync and triplbe buffering are VERY bad when it comes to gameplay in MAME.

you get about 2-5 frames added delay (input lag) depending on the game.