T43 & MAME Performance issues.

[enemyboss]

Hi,

It appears that I am getting poorer performance out of MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator, http://www.mame.net) on my new T43 than my older T20! When I enable tripple buffering or vsync, my cpu utilizations jumps to 99% and I experience signficant drop in frames and sound begins to crackle and stutter. I had experienced this before with an older T43 I returned a few months ago, so this issue might affect many more T43 thinkpads out there.

Refer to the following thread I posted on the official mame forums.

http://www.mame.net/cgi-bin/wwwthreads/ ... Post195432

I've tried all the recommendations offered in the thread above, but they don't help much. I made sure that the T43 was set to Maximum Performance when plugged in. I suspect its a clock related issue.

I believe that this affects other emulators, such as ZSNES, and it may not a MAME specific issue. Its probably the fault of using high resolution timers such as QPC or RDTSC. I'm not sure, MAME works great on a similarily equipped ASUS W3V.

Can anyone help or confirm the problem I'm having?

[christopher_wolf]

Hi,

It appears that I am getting poorer performance out of MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator, http://www.mame.net) on my new T43 than my older T20! When I enable tripple buffering or vsync, my cpu utilizations jumps to 99% and I experience signficant drop in frames and sound begins to crackle and stutter. I had experienced this before with an older T43 I returned a few months ago, so this issue might affect many more T43 thinkpads out there.

Refer to the following thread I posted on the official mame forums.

http://www.mame.net/cgi-bin/wwwthreads/ ... Post195432

I've tried all the recommendations offered in the thread above, but they don't help much. I made sure that the T43 was set to Maximum Performance when plugged in. I suspect its a clock related issue.

I believe that this affects other emulators, such as ZSNES, and it may not a MAME specific issue. Its probably the fault of using high resolution timers such as QPC or RDTSC. I'm not sure, MAME works great on a similarily equipped ASUS W3V.

Can anyone help or confirm the problem I'm having?

Welcome to the Thinkpad Forums

Me? I can't confirm it with either ZSNES (lovely) or MAME (runs smooth as silk). I have even run "Apache" (the original) via several emulators and it ran just fine.

ZSNES doesn't even get the CPU all heated up either.

[enemyboss]

Hi,

Me? I can't confirm it with either ZSNES (lovely) or MAME (runs smooth as silk). I have even run "Apache" (the original) via several emulators and it ran just fine.

ZSNES doesn't even get the CPU all heated up either.

That's interesting... What updates do you recall performing on your thinkpad? Are you using the official Lenovo Radeon drivers, or the patched ones? Do you know of any settings you might have made?

I don't think there's anything wrong with my thinkpad (I hope), especially since this is the same problem I experienced with a previous model. I'll take this as good news, as there now might be away to fix things with MAME.

[christopher_wolf]

That's interesting... What updates do you recall performing on your thinkpad? Are you using the official Lenovo Radeon drivers, or the patched ones? Do you know of any settings you might have made?

I don't think there's anything wrong with my thinkpad (I hope), especially since this is the same problem I experienced with a previous model. I'll take this as good news, as there now might be away to fix things with MAME.

Everything is the latest version (except for CSS, which is version 6); stock ATI drivers via IBM/Lenovo for the X300 and HyperMemory. SMB and Mortal Kombat play just fine, no stutters. I haven't noticed CPU usage get that high either. MAME is pretty tame and hasn't crashed on me or lagged.

I am beginning to think that you are having a software problem, rather than a hardware problem, most likely with MAME or the way it runs.

What drivers do you have? Are you using stock, Catalyst, or Omega drivers? Or just the raw set from ATI's site?

[enemyboss]

In truth, I haven't updated the software yet on this T43. I had performed the update on the previous T43, which I soon returned, a few months ago. I still had problems with those emulators back then.

I guess there might be a chance that current drivers or bios updates may address this problem.


Tomorrow, I'll try using the software updater and try to update everything. I'll uninstall Norton Antivirus, too.

Hopefully, I'll be playing MAME at full speed, and smooth frame rates.

[christopher_wolf]

Get rid of NAV; it can only help. Besides, you can replace it with AVG or the like.

I have no idea what might be wrong with your setup, except a setting with MAME and/or ZSNES.

[enemyboss]

Well,

I uninstalled NAV, performed a full upgrade of software, including drivers and BIOS. Then I updated Direct X. Still not getting the performance I want. This is a new T43, I haven't installed much software yet, its quite bare. So I'm not sure whats up yet.

I though it might be a QPC issue, but I modified a build of MAME that uses timeGetTime(), but it didn't fix it. So Mame could genuinely taxing the CPU.

Could someone please try playing MAME with magic sword, with the -waitvsync switch enabled, and listen for frequent crackling and frameskip? This game seems to exhibit this issue well.

What else can I try?

[Thinkpaddict]

Hi,

Do you exhibit problems with all roms, or only with specific roms?
If it is only specific roms, and roms with the same name didn't give you a trouble in your other computer, make sure they are exactly the same roms (check for byte size of the file).

Also, I would try to go back 1 or 2 releases in the version of the mame executable that you are running. See if that makes a difference.

If you are no adverse to it and have the tools, I suppose you could compile from source in your Thinkpad and see if that makes any difference.

Specifically, could you tell me what is the MAME executable that you are running? The last time I checked (too long to remember it to well) I seem to remember they had versions optimized for MMX (or something like that) and versions which were for older computers.

What I can say is that your T43 should run those games with no problem. Have you tried running something such as Vendetta? Do you get skips and crackles with that?

Good luck!

[enemyboss]

I'll give Vendetta a try later this evening. I only play a handful of ROMs, but I'll try others to make sure.

I've already attacked the mame sources, I modified the tick counter to use the less precise, but more stable timer. I'll see if there's a way to profile the code, and see what's eating up those CPU cycles.

I only have problems when I enable any options that involves waiting for the vertical retrace. This includes, -waitvsync, -triplebuffer, -syncrefresh, etc. I get little frame skip, and no sound issues if I run Mame without any options, but then I get tearing, which I don't like.

Perhaps the SXGA+ LCD might be forcing MAME to wait too long, because there's alot of pixels that need to get change before a complete refresh can be detected. Perhaps using an external monitor will be better?

I'll try disabling vsync in the PowerPlay options, and see if those vsync related options still cause the problems I have. I'll also try disabling hardware acceleration as there could be a bug in the video driver.

I'm almost certain that my thinkpad is fine, I experienced this before on an older T43 of the same configuration, so its likely my choice of MAME options and ROMS, or related to my software / hardware configuration.

I should sometime try a Linux Live CD, and see if Mame works well with that.

[rosemarycane]

Hi, don't know if this helps or not, but I have used MAME on my t43 without any of the above mentioned problems.

Usually I play Mortal Combat 3, Xmen Rise of the Apocolypse, Street Fighter 2 etc. I have never experienced any lag or stuttering.
The only thing that I do differently however, is I either hook my computer up to my tv through the s-video cable or I use a projector with an RGB cable (it looks sweet on the big screen!)

If you need to know my settings or what not, I can provide those to you.

Let me know.

Sean

[enemyboss]

It looks like no matter what ROM I choose, enabling -waitvsync or -triplebuffer brings the my system CPU usage from 1-4% to 99%. Otherwise Mame runs fine without vsync related options, and take up 70% max. On the W3V, with vsync options enabled, cpu usage range from 70 to 89%.

I can't complain much though, games are still very playable without vsync. Not as arcade perfect, but still enjoyable. When I made the decision to purchace this T43 the second time, I knew it was going to have this minor issue with MAME, so I should make my peace with it.

The next thing to try is to see if I can get better performance on a CRT monitor.

[enemyboss]

Hey, I think I know what the problem is.

Remember how my problem is related to vsync? Well its because the x300 is somehow configured to display at 50Hz. This is why games that normaly run at 60FPS (or 60Hz) have issues when forced by vsync to do 50fps.

For example, in zsnes, if I force a ROM to use PAL, which is a 50Hz video signal, it runs absolutely smooth with triple buffer or vsync enabled.

I can't seem to use the ATI display control tab to switch from 50Hz to 60Hz because it says 50Hz is the maximum supported refresh rate for the TFT. Whats weird is that in the standard windows monitor tab, it says I use 60Hz. Should I take this to mean that the TFT does support 60Hz, but the ATI X300 is using 50Hz?

If only I can get the gpu and the tft to co-operate on a 60Hz refresh rate, I'm 99.9% sure it will solve my problems.

[enemyboss]

Okay, I think now that the native refresh rate of the T43 TFT is 50Hz, like the ATI control panel says (and not what the monitor tab says).

I was able to get decent results, by reducing the frame rate of my MAME roms from 60Hz to 50Hz. I did this using the following options: -noafs -frameskip 2 -triplebuffer (or -waitvsync). This works for the few ROMS I play.

I'm just puzzled that some T43 users that have the SXGA+ 1400x1050 do not have the same issues I had initially reported. It makes perfect sense now: a game that needs to be emulated at 60Hz will have issues if its forced to sync to 50Hz.

Perhaps IBM/Lenovo sold a different TFT a while ago for the T43. Or maybe (I hope) there is a way to get 60Hz on my TFT yet...

[christopher_wolf]

I don't know why you think that 50Hz is the default refresh rate for a T43 SXGA+ 1400x1050 14.1" TFT, but it isn't. Not from mine and not from all the others I have seen. The default should be at the expected 60Hz. Unless it was set to 50Hz to begin with. See;

https://webfiles.berkeley.edu:443/chris ... d/Freq.PNG

Both this and the ATI tools agree and both MAME and ZSNES run fine, not in PAL, at 60Hz.

I suspect something is changing your screen refresh rate without telling you; hence, it happened on the two T43s you have had.

[enemyboss]

The monitor tab on my T43 also says 60Hz. However, if you click on the ATI "Displays" tab, then click on the notebook LCD monitor button (between the external monitor and TV out), the dialog that pop ups says 1400x1050 @ 50Hz max.

So I dunno. I've searched for "50Hz" in this forum, and the results appear to support that the 1400x1050 only works at 50Hz for some users. Thanks for showing me that screen shot, BTW.

[enemyboss]

For reference, see the following threads on this forum to find users who believe their default refresh rate is reported from the ATI Display tab to be actually 50Hz, even though the windows monitor tab shows 60Hz:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... light=50hz

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... light=50hz

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... light=50hz

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... light=50hz

[christopher_wolf]

Call me Misty as in Mystified; but I am getting strange results. You are right in that ATI reports it at 50Hz. However, I can't seem to find any other ill-effects, especially not in MAME or ZSNES.

I tried checking for ghosting, tearing, and lag but nothing else seems to be amiss.

What driver version do you have and have you tried either the Catalyst or Omega drivers?

[enemyboss]

You have to enable vsync or triple buffer, in order to exhibit the results. This forces the game to update the screen, only when a refresh is complete, so it locks the game to 50fps maximum. Also, you need to play game that is designed to run greater than 50Hz.

Try this in ZSNES, take your NTSC ROM, apply vsync in the video mode, plus disable auto frame skip and set the frameskip to 0 (don't skip any frames) in the general options. I almost sure that the game will appear to move slowly, and the sound will appear slow as well. Then try the same, but this time force ZSNES to load the rom as a PAL game, in the checkbox when you load the ROM. You'll notice how its running smooth again.

For mame, play a 60Hz game such as capcom's "Magic Sword" and enable -waitvsync or -triplebuffer like this:

Code: Select all

mame -waitvsync msword

. You should notice the sound crackling.

Thanks in advance, and let me know your results.

Oh, BTW I'm using the latest official drivers from Lenovo.

[enemyboss]

Yes!!!!

I've found a real solution! There is a way to adjust any mame ROM to run at any refresh rate, without it affecting the game's emulated speed. Each time I play a game, I enable the -cheat option along with triple buffer or -waitvsync.

The cheat mode will allow you to adjust the refresh rate, over or under clock the cpu, and other cheats become available in the tilde "~" menu: Press the ~ key during gameplay, and use the arrow up and down keys to find the refresh rate bar, then use the right and left arrow to adjust the refresh rate to 50Hz. This syncs up the game with my T43's true refresh rate and makes everything super smooth with no tearing, jitters or frameskips whatsoever.

Give it a try, even if you never noticed any of the issues I described earlier in this thread, you just might notice a improvement.

I'm so happy, this problem bugged me for so long.

Hooray!!! I'm gonna dance like a Hobbit! ... or an Ewok?

[christopher_wolf]

Glad that you found a solution.

I will give it a try and see what happens.