Muchi Muchi Pork MAME 100% speed?

[daskrabs]

What CPU are people using to run MMP (to my knowledge the most hardware-demanding CAVE title) at 100%?

[QXC]

http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=55333

Ask this guy, he's got probably the fastest CPU you can run for mame right now.

[donluca]

You can't run MMP at 100% in MAME at the moment.

At least with vsync enabled.

If you want to run MMP at 100% you'll have to trade off vsync which is kind of a big deal as it takes away a lot from emulation accuracy.

Then it all depends on what's more important for you.

If you just want to run it at 100%, use demul or SDL MAME since it has real multicore support (I'm using it on Mac OS X with my Core i7 and I'm running everything at 100%).

If you want a trade off, use vanilla MAME but you're going to need a very strong CPU (I'm using a Pentium G3258 clocked at 4.8 Ghz atm, but I'm a lucky guy so don't go buy a G3258 thinking you can reach that frequency, there are people who got stuck at 3.8 Ghz and can't go higher, so YMMV) and you still won't be able to use vsync.

IMHO the best you can do is to hope for CAVE to release it at some time in the future on Steam or pray that Haze gets back on work on the cv1k driver and optimizes it.

[Thamiel]

Odd, I have it running 100% on a g3258 at 4.4ghz with groovymame. Well, it fluctuates between 99% and 101% but other than that its fine.

[Xyga]

I'd bet that much power isn't needed, it would probably be the same at 4.0

Those short tiny speed fluctuations are due to emulation issues anyway, I think someone mentioned.

[system11]

It'd be cheaper to just buy a 360 and the port.

[donluca]

Odd, I have it running 100% on a g3258 at 4.4ghz with groovymame. Well, it fluctuates between 99% and 101% but other than that its fine.

Strange, it plays awfully slow with vsync on my end, it dips down to 70-80% during the more hectic part of attract mode, leave alone a normal playthrough.

Can you share here your configuration (OS, groovymame version, etc...) and mame.ini, please?

I'm pretty sure you have vsync disabled, because I get 100% only that way.

EDIT: And I second system11's suggestion btw.

[Xyga]

Yeah, there must be something wrong with your settings or something, the g3258 should easily run all cv1k games at full speed, even with vsync on.
Possibly even with heavy crt shaders on.

PS: MMP/PS on 360 is over $100 now though, not really a good deal considering the poor quality. Hope it'll end un on Steam in the future.

[daskrabs]

Odd, I have it running 100% on a g3258 at 4.4ghz with groovymame. Well, it fluctuates between 99% and 101% but other than that its fine.

Any issues with the audio?

[donluca]

Yeah, there must be something wrong with your settings or something, the g3258 should easily run all cv1k games at full speed, even with vsync on.

Yeah, that's one thing that has bugged me to no end.

The CPU is fine as the single threaded Passmark score is 2548 which is in line with the benchmarks you find around about OC G3258.
There must be something odd in my setup althugh I can't say what. I'm able to play most of the STV games full speed which are notoriously demanding, but cv1k games have issues.
I've even tried old versions of MAME and GroovyMAME with same results: without vsync no issues and full speed, with vsync the game's framerate drops when lots of stuff is on screen.

Go figure.

[system11]

PS: MMP/PS on 360 is over $100 now though, not really a good deal considering the poor quality. Hope it'll end un on Steam in the future.

That 'poor quality' is a hell of a lot better than the current state of CV1K emulation. I had no idea the port was expensive now, they never reprinted this one?

I should probably sell mine, I'll never use it again. Edit: last few sold for under $70, not worth selling yet.

[Xyga]

Dunno if it was ever reprinted or not, maybe it's expensive only because it's one of the region-free bunch and you know: Yaah ! Gaah Waah !

Anyway if MMP/PS has become a collector's game I'd suggest waiting a bit longer to resell it, at least until all the Cave Collection boxes are out of stock (soon enough).

[donluca]

Alright, made some test and discovered what's going on.

People who are using GroovyMAME and getting 100% speed in MMP is because they're using D3D to render the game (they probably have the render set to auto in mame.ini) but they're not using frame delay.

This means that there are 4 frames of lag due to the frame queue introduced by D3D which are, imho, unacceptable for shmups and fighting games.

To remove the lag you have to use either ddraw (win xp) or d3d with at least frame delay set to 1 (win vista and 7).

With the latest release of groovymame there's a new option which is d3d9ex which skips the frame queue by default so you don't have to play around with frame delay yourself but it's supported only on win vista and 7.

Basically, if want to run MMP at 100% you have 3 possibilities.

1 - use Win 7 64 bit with d3d9ex (untested)
2 - disable vsync (emulation accuracy tradeoff)
3 - use d3d9 (4 frames of lag)

everything else will make MMP (and all cv1k games) drop their framerates at some point.

[daskrabs]

Alright, made some test and discovered what's going on.

People who are using GroovyMAME and getting 100% speed in MMP is because they're using D3D to render the game (they probably have the render set to auto in mame.ini) but they're not using frame delay.

This means that there are 4 frames of lag due to the frame queue introduced by D3D which are, imho, unacceptable for shmups and fighting games.

To remove the lag you have to use either ddraw (win xp) or d3d with at least frame delay set to 1 (win vista and 7).

With the latest release of groovymame there's a new option which is d3d9ex which skips the frame queue by default so you don't have to play around with frame delay yourself but it's supported only on win vista and 7.

Basically, if want to run MMP at 100% you have 3 possibilities.

1 - use Win 7 64 bit with d3d9ex (untested)
2 - disable vsync (emulation accuracy tradeoff)
3 - use d3d9 (4 frames of lag)

everything else will make MMP (and all cv1k games) drop their framerates at some point.

Thanks for looking into this. What happens when you use DDRAW on Win7 x64? That's how I'd like to run it.

[donluca]

Thanks for looking into this. What happens when you use DDRAW on Win7 x64? That's how I'd like to run it.

It runs much slower because ddraw doesn't run natively in win7 and has to be emulated.

This is a serious issue for games that run in interlaced resolutions because D3D isn't able to output interlaced and, as a consequence, GroovyMAME automatically switches to ddraw and performance gets a hit.

With w7 don't bother with ddraw and let GM use it only for interlaced games.

[donluca]

BIG UPDATE!!

Thanks to Calamity I've found out a way to make MMP run smoothly and at 100%!

I suggest you create a separate .ini configuration file for cv1k games, by opening mame.ini -> Save as... -> cv1k.ini

Then change the following:

render auto
framedelay 1 (or possibly more, if your CPU is strong enough)
multithreading 1
triplebuffer 1

what this does, is it takes the vsync process and puts it in a separate core thanks to triplebuffering.
This way you can achieve 100% speed on MMP (and all the CV1K games).

Mind you, if you press F11 to see the speed you'll see that it erratically goes from 97% to 102% but that's fine because GroovyMame implementation of multithreading is completely different from vanilla MAME and the speed reported isn't accurate.

Just to make sure, I brought my CPU down to 4.2Ghz for you guys and it runs good!

Calamity told me that there might be some choppy scrolling, but so far I don't have this issue.

[QXC]

Just to make sure, I brought my CPU down to 4.2Ghz for you guys and it runs good!

Calamity told me that there might be some choppy scrolling, but so far I don't have this issue.

Do you mind scaling the CPU back further in 200mhz increments to see where it starts to slow down? I imagine the choppyness happens when you run out of CPU power, and for those of us on older rigs, even 4.2ghz is a LOT faster than what we have.

[donluca]

Just to make sure, I brought my CPU down to 4.2Ghz for you guys and it runs good!

Calamity told me that there might be some choppy scrolling, but so far I don't have this issue.

Do you mind scaling the CPU back further in 200mhz increments to see where it starts to slow down? I imagine the choppyness happens when you run out of CPU power, and for those of us on older rigs, even 4.2ghz is a LOT faster than what we have.

Tomorrow I'll jot down my current overclock settings and I'll try toning down the CPU to see where it starts lagging.

I've seen that at 4.5Ghz @ 1.150V the system is rock solid and I'm able to run everything smoothly so I'll just keep it at that.

Bear in mind that CPU clock isn't everything and the architecture plays a big role. The recent core architecture eats the previous one for breakfast, so a 3.2Ghz G3258 Pentium will run circles around a 3.2Ghz Core2Duo.

http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Pentium-G ... erformance

[QXC]

Bear in mind that CPU clock isn't everything and the architecture plays a big role. The recent core architecture eats the previous one for breakfast, so a 3.2Ghz G3258 Pentium will run circles around a 3.2Ghz Core2Duo.

I was hoping you'd be willing to run that into underclock range, actually. 1.6ghz would be nice...

[Xyga]

I'm gonna build a cheap compact mini pc around a G3258 one of those days.

What pisses me off is that apparently today it can be had for $49 in the US while in Europe it's 65€ at best and only on Amazon, from other shops the price even tends to go up over time, now at 70+€.

[donluca]

I was hoping you'd be willing to run that into underclock range, actually. 1.6ghz would be nice...

Oh wow, I mean, I can try, not sure if I'll run into issues with the clock that low but I'll give it a shot and report back.

@xyga: I've paid 77€ for mine, lowest price I could find in Italy ç__ç

[Xyga]

Ouch.
*sigh* I remember the time when I could order stuff from Amazon.com (US) with free shipping to France for anything over $20 or $50, don't remember the exact lower limit, but that was golden.

[donluca]

I was hoping you'd be willing to run that into underclock range, actually. 1.6ghz would be nice...

Bad news

Today I've made some extensive tests and I'm sad to report that at 1.6Ghz the game is unplayable, dipping down to 40%.
The worst part is that even at standard clock, 3.2Ghz, the game still dips down to 80% in the most hectic parts.

To have a rock stable 100% you have to overclock to at least 3.8Ghz but I haven't played through all the game, so there might be parts where it may stutter.

If you OC to 4.2Ghz you should be completely safe.

[Xyga]

That's really useful thanks.

Good to know because MAME's cv1k emulation could become heavier in the future, but with the G3258 there's still a lot of free margin obviously.

[donluca]

That's really useful thanks.

Good to know because MAME's cv1k emulation could become heavier in the future, but with the G3258 there's still a lot of free margin obviously.

Oh god, I really hope it doesn't get any heavier than this, LOL.

Actually, I'm hoping for some coder to optimize it and make it more accurate. Right now you have to screw around with blitter delay to get correct slowdowns and even with that, you're playing with "unsafe" code which could potentially break accuracy of other parts of the emulation.

So yeah, good to have some fun but I'm really hoping they release all the CAVE shooters on Steam with proper slowdown and stuff.