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30 Fps

HyperHacker

Raving Lunatic
For some reason Mupen64 updates at only half the speed it actually runs at. That is, if I have the frame limiter on, the game will run at 60 FPS, but the display will only update at 30 (and the status bar shows this). Hence for example Mario Kart 64 feels like it's running slow, but the in-game timer matches up with my stopwatch exactly. If I disable the FPS limiter this behaviour continues; when the game is running at 90 FPS, the display will update at 45, etc. Other emulators using the same graphic plugins don't have this problem; changing graphic, RSP or sound plugins has no effect.

This is running under WinXP SP2 with a Volari V3 card (piece of crap <_<), 1GB RAM, 1280x1024, 32-bit, 60hz (LCD FTW).
 
OP
HyperHacker

HyperHacker

Raving Lunatic
Hm, I guess I didn't notice Nemu doing this as well (and PJ64 doesn't show VI/s). But why does the game feel so much slower in Mupen64 than in Nemu/PJ64 when it's actually running at full speed? Is it maybe not actually drawing as fast as it reports? And aren't N64 games supposed to run at 60FPS?
 

smcd

Active member
Like many, you're confusing VI/s with FPS (despite the label, PJ64's counter is actually showing VI/s). It's been explained in a dozen or so threads already...

As this question arises often, perhaps it would be in the interest of Project 64 to update the label to match other emulators, VI/s instead of FPS?
 
OP
HyperHacker

HyperHacker

Raving Lunatic
It wasn't PJ64, I just thought game consoles in general aimed for 60 FPS. The DS, and IIRC the NES, Super NES, Gamecube and Wii all run at this speed.

Anyway that still doesn't explain why it feels so much slower. Are the others forcing a higher framerate or something silly?
 

Doomulation

?????????????????????????
...I just thought game consoles in general aimed for 60 FPS. The DS, and IIRC the NES, Super NES, Gamecube and Wii all run at this speed.
Are you sure? I doubt that. Framerate is game-specific.

Anyway that still doesn't explain why it feels so much slower. Are the others forcing a higher framerate or something silly?

No, unfortunately not. You can't just force a higher FPS without breaking the timing. The games were developed to run at that FPS and thus, emulating that machine, the emulator has to obey that limit too.
 

PistolGrip

New member
No, unfortunately not. You can't just force a higher FPS without breaking the timing. The games were developed to run at that FPS and thus, emulating that machine, the emulator has to obey that limit too.

You can force a higher frame rate for the games which don't artificially limit themselves. You just need to overclock certain elements of the N64 to achieve this (like Goldeneye which doesn't artificially limit).

To the games which artificially limit themselves to 20dl/s (Zelda) or 30dl/s (Super Mario 64, Mario Kart, etc) you can change them to run at 60dl/s by modifying the game code. Which may or may not be a complex task depending on how they have implemented timing in the game (it may be as simple as a 4byte change). When you remove the artificial limit you would then need to run the game on an overclocked system most likely to see the increase in frame rate.
 

Doomulation

?????????????????????????
But then we would restort to game hacking, which is outside emulation and hacking or overclocking the emulated hardware can introduce bugs or side effects. And hacking would be done on a game-specific basis.
 

PistolGrip

New member
But then we would restort to game hacking, which is outside emulation and hacking or overclocking the emulated hardware can introduce bugs or side effects. And hacking would be done on a game-specific basis.

That is what I said, modify the game code. One programmer modding Zelda64 once so that thousands of people can play it at 60fps is worthwhile. If you stored these patches along with an emulator install it could be an option to provide 60fps in all N64 games.

60FPS and retexturing would be very cool. :)
 

Doomulation

?????????????????????????
But again, it would require game hacking and this is a per-game basis. Each game is different and you'll need to find how the game does its work and work around it on a per-game basis. Sure, it's possible, but it has nothing to do with emulators.
The option to overclock would be emulator-specific, but the games would all require hacking, though. So I don't know, if you do find a way to do it, maybe you could ask for such a feature, but as far as I see, the games built-in FPS suffices.
 
OP
HyperHacker

HyperHacker

Raving Lunatic
There's a Gameshark code to speed up Mario 64. I'm not sure it changes the DL/s but the game is certainly running faster; there's a few different versions that vary in how much they speed it up. If you want the games hacked to run 60FPS, I say start looking through the code and make Gameshark codes out of your findings - remember N64 loads all code to RAM. :D

I was just wondering why Mupen64 feels so slow when it's doing the same frame rate as others. It doesn't make sense...
 

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