New Emulator Optimization

[apollyon0810]

:mupen64:

So I did some looking around earlier for some up-to-date emulator software. Apparently there isn't any?

As far as I could tell 1964 was the only one that had put out a new release in the past year. And Mupen64Plus for Linux.

Anyway, I guess my question is, since I haven't been following, is there an emulator out there made to be ran on newer hardware? I'm having a hard time getting Zelda OoT to run on my new netbook. It's the Asus 1201N with a dual core Atom processor, 2GB of DDR2 RAM, and nVidia Ion graphics. That should be more than enough to run an emulator. And I still have sound issues and some graphics stuttering on my desktop. And my desktop is more than enough of a machine to run it (Core i7 Extreme, 12GB DDR3 Triple Channel, nVidia GTX295).

What I'm thinking is possibly my hardware is too new? Are there updated versions of video/audio plugins that utilize a version of DirectX newer then 8? Are there emulators out there that take advantage of multi-core processors?

Also, could somebody help me out with which is the most up-to-date (best) N64 emulator out there?

[Toasty]

Make sure you have up-to-date graphics drivers and DirectX installations. Being since the major N64 emulators can run on most 1GHz+ CPUs, there was never a pressing need to optimize them for multi-core processors. mupen64plus is still actively developed, though I'm not sure if there are current Windows builds available.

[apollyon0810]

I would be correct to assume Project 64 should run fine on my netbook though, right? I'm dual-booting Ubuntu 9.10 now to try out mupen64plus.

Also, all my drivers are up to date. I'm really good about that sort of thing. And I don't think there have been any DirectX updates released for Windows 7 yet. I seem to remember something about older versions of DirectX being emulated on DX11. Maybe I'm imagining things... Something I'll have to google.

[Toasty]

Yeah, PJ64 should run okay on it. (Note that you also can use PJ64 on Ubuntu if you prefer Linux. It runs very well on Wine.) Atom processors are fairly skimpy on performance per cycle when compared to modern desktop processors (they're designed for low power consumption rather than speed), but at 1.6GHz, it should still be adequate.

[didado]

Hello,

Why does nobody mention the newer plug-ins like glide64 they work perfect with project64..

http://www.emuxhaven.net/forums/showthread.php?t=7202

Make sure that you have Counter factor for all games on 1.. (smoothest) and advanced block linking off..

:bouncy:

Greetings

[Toasty]

Why does nobody mention the newer plug-ins like glide64 they work perfect with project64..
Was it relevant? Thus far, the OP hasn't asked about third-party plugins. :ermm:

[didado]

"Are there updated versions of video/audio plugins that utilize a version of DirectX newer then 8?"

I was just quick looking and gave an answer and you don't need to be offensive..

:king:


I'll be thinking twice when i write/type down something..
I know you longer on this forum than you think Toasty your give always answers to people which i respect =]..

Greetings from Holland

[apollyon0810]

Thanks for the replies guys. Hopefully I can get Mupen64plus running smoothly on my netbook. Decent screen for it too (12.1" @ 1366x768). I'd try it out on my desktop, but Ubuntu (read: Linux) doesn't play nice with my SSD RAID. Doesn't like the Intel Matrix RAID. But whatever.

One more thing. I've read "tutorials" before on how to speed up these emulators for low-end machines. But I haven't read any tweaks for the high end. It seems everything is tailored to old AMD platforms or some crap with regular DDR. Does nobody in the emulation community run new hardware?

[Toasty]

So is the goal to fix glitches or to have eye candy graphics? If the latter is the case, turn on FSAA and anisotropic filtering. didado's suggestion of Glide64 is a good one if you have good graphics hardware and you want accurate framebuffer effects and the like. (IIRC if you use Glide64 you'll have to turn on FSAA and anisotropic filtering in your graphics drivers' utility, since the plugin doesn't have the option built in.) Aside from using a texture replacement pack (if one exists for the game you're playing) that's about all you can do to make things pretty.

If there's some kind of glitch you're experiencing that you want fixed, we'll have to know the game, the glitch and the plugin to be able to help you through it.


"Are there updated versions of video/audio plugins that utilize a version of DirectX newer then 8?"

I was just quick looking and gave an answer and you don't need to be offensive..

:king:


I'll be thinking twice when i write/type down something..
I know you longer on this forum than you think Toasty your give always answers to people which i respect =]..
Sorry if I offended you; it was not my intention to do so. There are plenty of newcomers (to the forum at least) who know way more than I do, and my answers are not superior just because I've been here a few years. I was under the impression the OP was experiencing some sort of issue that he wanted to resolve. Hence it seemed prudent to try and solve that issue, rather than run to another plugin without isolating why his current one wouldn't work in the first place.

BTW, Glide64 doesn't use DirectX - at least not unless you have a DirectX wrapper for it. That's not to say it's not a good plugin or it wouldn't necessarily fix the issue though. ;)

[apollyon0810]

To be honest, the only game I'm currently interested in playing is Zelda:OoT. Especially with the community-driven texture pack. It's BEAUTIFUL.

But even on my desktop, the graphics stutter and the audio cracks. That's using Rice's video plugin, and the default audio plugin on Project 64 v1.7.

It makes me wonder what level of playability people are willing to put up with. When people say, "it runs great!", does that mean that there is a certain amount of compromise they're willing to make? Or is my hardware too new for these emulators to make efficient use of?

In response to Toasty, I do have Anti-Aliasing and Anisotropic Filtering turned all the way up. Maybe I'm missing some obscure setting somewhere?

[Toasty]

During gameplay, go to Options->Configure Audio Plugin... and check Sync game to Audio.

What's the typical VI/s (misleadingly named FPS in PJ64) you're getting during gameplay? NTSC (American) ROMs should run at ~60 VI/s and PAL (European) ROMs should run at ~50 VI/s. If it's running at that speed then it's running normally. For Zelda this translates to 20 FPS (NTSC) or 16-17 FPS (PAL), which may be what you perceive as graphics stutter. (A modern computer game will run at 60 FPS.) That's just the way most games were made back in the N64 days though. AFAIK only a few titles for N64 ran at 60 FPS.

[apollyon0810]

VI/s holds steady at 60. Idle is steady right around 70%. Game is still laggy. When game is synced to audio, it only gets worse.

[Toasty]

Define "laggy" in this context. Is the motion just less smooth than your typical computer game (which is to be expected)?

[apollyon0810]

Laggy as in it runs fine for a couple seconds, jams up, and then is fine again. Semi-constant in that it "lags" at consistent intervals. Audio is always crap.

[Toasty]

I don't suppose there are any other processes running that might account for heavy CPU utilization?