Cotton 2 in mame

[2dvertical]

Anyone know of any tips to get this to run smoothly?

[Master O]

Generally, the faster the CPU, the better. At least that's what people over at mameworld.info say.

[null1024]

Mame 0.128.
0.129 and up broke something in ST-V for speed, and then there are a few more graphics glitches.

Runs Boomerang for me 100%, almost no frameskip, 2.1GHz machine. Not sure how 2 runs, but aren't they almost the same game?

[ZOM]

Yeah, a faster machine will do the trick; I just upgraded my 3 GHz P4HT machine to a i750 and I can run all games with a "working" status in mame 100% without frame-skip. Now if only I could get rid of the tearing without switching on VSync...

[Domino]

Saturn/ST-V do require I believe a Dual-Core processor if you want to run them correctly.

ZOM: How fast is your processor?

[null1024]

Saturn/ST-V do require I believe a Dual-Core processor if you want to run them correctly.

ZOM: How fast is your processor?

IIRC, dual core processors don't help MAME much [if at all], because MAME doesn't split emulation up into threads.
On the other hand, every other Saturn emulator does, so if that's what you were referring to, ignore this post.

[ZOM]

ZOM: How fast is your processor?

Erm... I just checked - I got that i750( ) wrong: it's an i7 920 @ 2.67 GHz.

IIRC, dual core processors don't help MAME much [if at all], because MAME doesn't split emulation up into threads.
On the other hand, every other Saturn emulator does, so if that's what you were referring to, ignore this post.

I'm not very experienced in this matter but, why is my 2.67 GHz waaaaaaay faster then my old P4 3.0GHz if it doesn't use all 4 cores? Has it something to do with how caching is faster on this cpu?

Also, I ticked the "Enable multi-threading" option under the impression that mame would use all 4 processors... unless this isn't fully implemented...

[Domino]

Saturn/ST-V do require I believe a Dual-Core processor if you want to run them correctly.

ZOM: How fast is your processor?

IIRC, dual core processors don't help MAME much [if at all], because MAME doesn't split emulation up into threads.
On the other hand, every other Saturn emulator does, so if that's what you were referring to, ignore this post.

I can't run Saturn games on my Althon 64 4000+ 2.4 Ghz single core. You will need to get at least a Dual-Core and up to run them correctly.

[Ex-Cyber]

I'm not very experienced in this matter but, why is my 2.67 GHz waaaaaaay faster then my old P4 3.0GHz if it doesn't use all 4 cores? Has it something to do with how caching is faster on this cpu?

Cache size is probably part of it. It also has to do with the fact that P4's architecture was deliberately designed to crank up the clock speed at the expense of being less efficient per clock cycle. Intel thought that the clock speed bumps would outweigh the inefficiency. The Core series grew out of the mobile designs (which in turn grew out of the Pentium III design), which were optimized for better performance at lower clock speeds, and turned out to be the future when Intel realized that performance-per-watt issues were going to kill Pentium 4/D (they actually created a new case standard largely to put the CPU in a more advantageous cooling position, but it didn't catch on).

IIRC, dual core processors don't help MAME much [if at all], because MAME doesn't split emulation up into threads.
On the other hand, every other Saturn emulator does, so if that's what you were referring to, ignore this post.

I can't run Saturn games on my Althon 64 4000+ 2.4 Ghz single core. You will need to get at least a Dual-Core and up to run them correctly.

I think null1024 is right (sort of). AFAIK only a handful of MAME drivers benefit significantly from a dual-core CPU as such, and most of those are 3Dfx-based systems where offloading the graphics frees up a lot of cycles. I've tried enabling/disabling "multithreading" and setting the number of work queues and didn't see any appreciable difference in performance for ST-V.

[ZOM]

I'm not very experienced in this matter but, why is my 2.67 GHz waaaaaaay faster then my old P4 3.0GHz if it doesn't use all 4 cores? Has it something to do with how caching is faster on this cpu?

Cache size is probably part of it. It also has to do with the fact that P4's architecture was deliberately designed to crank up the clock speed at the expense of being less efficient per clock cycle. Intel thought that the clock speed bumps would outweigh the inefficiency. The Core series grew out of the mobile designs (which in turn grew out of the Pentium III design), which were optimized for better performance at lower clock speeds, and turned out to be the future when Intel realized that performance-per-watt issues were going to kill Pentium 4/D (they actually created a new case standard largely to put the CPU in a more advantageous cooling position, but it didn't catch on).

I see, thanks for the insight. I remember back in the day wondering about how alpha processor's and SGI workstation's low clock speeds compared to pentium pro & Xeons still delivered superior performance. =)

[captpain]

Even if you can run it, it has something like 6-7 frames of input lag.