nestopia control lag???

[jayk914]

just wondering if anyone else has experienced any lag with nestopia controls through gameex? I have my mame cab setup with an ipac, and nestopia seems to control great on its own, but when I play nes games through gameex the controls seem sluggish and awfull laggy, not sure if there was anything I could do to correct this or not?? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks, Jay

[Brian Hoffman]

just wondering if anyone else has experienced any lag with nestopia controls through gameex? I have my mame cab setup with an ipac, and nestopia seems to control great on its own, but when I play nes games through gameex the controls seem sluggish and awfull laggy, not sure if there was anything I could do to correct this or not?? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks, Jay

OS?

There have been issues with emulators and timing in vista and 7. There was a good write up from the guy who programs ootake emulator about how to fix it.

Taken from : http://www.ouma.jp/ootake/delay.html

In "Ootake", the "Delay Problem" is solved(reduced) by using two strategies.

The First Strategy...

When "Instruction that sees the state of joypad" comes, "Latest state of the Windows Joypad Input" is always acquired.

In a lot of emulators, "State of Windows Joypad Input" is acquired only once in one frame(1/60 seconds). As a result, if the joypad is input according to the timing immediately after acquisition, about one frame input will be delayed.

It can be solved by the above-mentioned strategy.

However, this strategy makes the emulation processing considerably heavy.

In "Ootake" for that, if "Instruction that sees the state of joypad" comes continuously, the frequency that "State of Windows Joypad Input" acquires is limited.

Concretely, when "State of Windows Joypad Input" is acquired, "Processed scanning lines No." is recorded. And, when the following "Instruction that sees the state of joypad" comes, if "Be still processing it at same scanning lines No.", the acquisition of "State of Windows Joypad Input" is omitted.

This method makes the reaction early enough, and processing doesn't become heavy too much.

* However, the emulator certainly becomes heavy for this processing. However, I think that it is necessary processing to "The happiness of the game is not ruined".

The Second Strategy...

The emulated processing is delimited by "about 1/240 seconds (1/60 seconds are divided into four)" unit. As a result, operation approaches "State of the passage of time in a real machine".

When the emulator works by "PC that there is room at the processing speed", it becomes as shown in figure below (Flow of 1/60 seconds).

->[ Emulate Processing ]->[ Wait V-Sync Processing (Rest) ]->[Draw Processing]->(To head)

In a word, the time of "Rest until the V-Sync signal comes" becomes long. (Oppositely, in "PC that there is no room in performance", this "Rest" decreases, and the time of "Emulate Processing" becomes long.)

At the time of this "Rest", the input judgment of joypad cannot be done. As a result, the period when joypad can be input narrows. It causes to be input delaying one frame.

Then, the method like the figure below (flow of 1/60 seconds) is executed in "Ootake".

->[Emu.]->[Rest]->[Emu.]->[Rest]->[Emu.]->[Rest]->[Emu.]->[Rest]->[Draw]->(To head)

In a word, the "Rest" is put every about 1/240 seconds (Divide without taking a rest to one degree). As a result, the flow of the passage of time near a real machine is made. The input judgment of joypad is prevented being delayed by this method.

Moreover, not only the reaction of the joypad but also the accuracy of emulation(Timer interruption etc.) rises by this processing.

Especially, this is important in the reproduction of the tone of PSG (wavy memory + noise) sound.

* In "Ootake", when "Light PSG" is chosen by "Volume" menu, it becomes usual operation every 1/60 seconds.

About the cause of becoming "Bigger Delay Problem"

In "Two strategies of Ootake" previously described, about one frame is prevented being delayed.

To my regret, there is a cause of "Big Delay Problem (about 2-4 frames)" that becomes a problem any more.

It is "Problem of DirectX(Direct Input) of Windows".

If "Direct Input of Windows" is not used well, a big delay is generated.

It seems to be different according to the library used. I am adding the following code for the development environment of Ootake (MinGW+DirectX library).

#define DIRECTINPUT_VERSION 0x0500

"Direct Input" of "Version 5(old)" is used. As a result, the least input delay has been achieved.

(confirm the operation on WindowsXP)

When the version above "Version 5(old)" is used, a big input delay is generated in Ootake, too.

There is a possibility that the person who had made "Direct Input of an old version" loved playing a game more. Or, there is a possibility that the delay occurs when the library is old.

To our regret, there are a lot of emulators where this delay problem occurs.

The problem is caused in "VirtuaNES (Excellent NES emulator)", too.

The problem is caused in "BuleMSX (Excellent MSX emulator)", too. *2008.9.20 It was considerably improved now (ver2.8 wonderful!).

These are very too good. In "Nestopia" and "ParaMSX(latest bata)", this problem is not caused. When the "action & shooting game" are played seriously and compared, the

difference is remarkable. (In "VirtureNES" and "BuleMSX", if improved it is glad as one user.)

* The above-mentioned is a confirmation of operation in "WindowsXP SP2" environment.

[jayk914]

I am running Xp on this machine, and my control panel consists of an ipac keyboard encoder connected to all happ controls. Thanks for the fast response, although the solution may be a bit above my head, (I am pretty new at all this) if so i can still launch nestopia outside of gameex and it works great so if it comes to it that is what I will have to do....

[Tom Speirs]

I am running Xp on this machine, and my control panel consists of an ipac keyboard encoder connected to all happ controls. Thanks for the fast response, although the solution may be a bit above my head, (I am pretty new at all this) if so i can still launch nestopia outside of gameex and it works great so if it comes to it that is what I will have to do....

I suggest you post your gameex.ini and log, so we can see whats going on.

Cheers.

Tom.