GameEX causing games to have slight pause

[jombee]

I am having an ongoing problem with GameEX causing games to slightly pause every few seconds. When I run the games outside of GameEX directly from the emulator they run perfectly, but when run from inside GameEX they pause every few seconds. It is very noticable in many side and vertical scrolling games. Example: When playing Cotton 2 inside of Mame, or SSF the Witch scrolls smoothly across the screen from left to right, or right to left. When the same game is run inside of GameEX (on either emulator), you see the Witch "pause" every few seconds when you try to move either way. I am running the most current version of GameEX (previous few did the same thing). Since the games work perfectly with no pausing outside of GameEX I assume the problem is with GameEX, not another issue. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Specs

WinXP(home)sp2

Pent 4 3.0ghz

1GB RAM

FX5900 128MB

SB Audigy 2

[Adultery]

I have a similar setup (with a bit more RAM however) and I have not noticed an issue - I even run two monitos and I'm not having slowdown issues.

Sorry...

[hansolo77]

Sounds like a high CPU usage problem. GameEx used to have a huge problem with CPU usage, and it's only been recently that Tom's been working on getting it down. If you're using an older version, you should try the most recent one since it doesn't seem to use a lot of CPU anymore.

Another thing you could check would be the artwork. I've not played the Cotton games in a long time, but if they're using artwork, that can slow things down. Whether you're using the new rendered artwork for GameEx or just the regular artwork for the game, just using the artwork adds extra tasks for your CPU to use.

Something else to check on would be your configuration. Some of the tweaks Tom has made allow the user to control how/when different things run. For instance; loading things on thread versus at call. If you have GameEx run everything all at once, like download news, etc., it can really bog down your system. So check your settings.

Lastly, make sure you're not running a whole bunch of stuff. Check to make sure that GameEx isn't loading mulitple sessions. Somebody was reporting they were having this sort of problem. Everything that is running takes up CPU time.

Hope that helps you some. I know they're pretty generic suggestions. And you're probably a computer wiz like most of us and have already checked out all those things, but it's always worth it being told to. Anyway, that's my offering. Somebody will probably write back a few other things to try too.

Good luck!

[Atari800]

Make sure you are not using some NORTON something or other that is recording changes to your environment

Do this

START -> RUN -> and type MSCONFIG

Click on STARTUP tab and disable anything you dont need or cant recognize

*write them down before applying

Then reboot

I dont have virus protection on my arcade machines...I "filter" what goes on them on other machines

Keep that OS pure and basic...so power/performance is available

Hopefully food for thought or something

/|\

[jombee]

Thanks for all the replies.

I have nothing running in the background, no norton, virus or other programs, and nothing useless is loading on startup. I am using the most recent version of GameEX, DirectX and video and sound drivers. I only use GameEX as a frontend, I do not use any of the other options (news, jukebox, etc.). Every game plays PERFECTLY with no stutter/pausing when the emu's run the games directly. It ONLY happens when things are run from GameEX. Is there some setting or tweeks I can try in the GameEX options to try to eliminate this?

[Atari800]

Have you checked THIS out?

[jombee]

Have you checked THIS out?

Thanks, yes I have. I would not consider my setup an "older/slow" system, but I have tried many things mentioned in that thread, with no improvement.

GameEX runs perfectly fine and is very fast and responsive in the menus, etc. The problem is when a game is run with just about ANY emulator, there is brief consistant "stutter/pausing" every few seconds. When I run each and every one of these games outside of GameEX, they all run perfectly smooth with no pausing. So, It would certainly seem like something in GameEX is causing this problem.

[Jontox]

Thanks, yes I have. I would not consider my setup an "older/slow" system, but I have tried many things mentioned in that thread, with no improvement.

GameEX runs perfectly fine and is very fast and responsive in the menus, etc. The problem is when a game is run with just about ANY emulator, there is brief consistant "stutter/pausing" every few seconds. When I run each and every one of these games outside of GameEX, they all run perfectly smooth with no pausing. So, It would certainly seem like something in GameEX is causing this problem.

Have you tried turning off Tripple buffering feature ?

Jontox

[jombee]

Have you tried turning off Tripple buffering feature ?

Jontox

Yes, and it's the same with it on or off.

Here is something new that I have noticed. When I start a game for the first time in GameEX I get the pausing/stuttering. When I exit out of the emulator back into the GameEX frontend menu, then select the same game again, I do NOT get the pausing/stuttering. It seems to be this way for most emu's I have tested (chankast, SSF, MAME, GENS, etc.).

Does anyone have any idea why this might be happening?

Thanks!

[headkaze]

Just out of curiosity, what Theme are you using? Does it have a startup sound? And do you launch the game before the startup sound has finished playing?

[jombee]

Just out of curiosity, what Theme are you using? Does it have a startup sound? And do you launch the game before the startup sound has finished playing?

I use all the default themes, and I wait until all the sounds stop.

Don't know if this might help, but I just noticed when I run the MagicEngine emu the games do not pause, they flicker every few seconds. Unlike the pausing, this flickering does not go away when I run the game a second time.

None of this pausing/stuttering/flickering happens at all when I run all these emu's directly, it ONLY happens when run them from inside of GameEX.

This is really getting annoying, is it possible to "downgrade" to a eariler version of GameEX? This never happened a few months ago, but all the recent releases gave me the same problem.

Thanks again for all your help.

[lingpanda]

I use all the default themes, and I wait until all the sounds stop.

Don't know if this might help, but I just noticed when I run the MagicEngine emu the games do not pause, they flicker every few seconds. Unlike the pausing, this flickering does not go away when I run the game a second time.

None of this pausing/stuttering/flickering happens at all when I run all these emu's directly, it ONLY happens when run them from inside of GameEX.

This is really getting annoying, is it possible to "downgrade" to a eariler version of GameEX? This never happened a few months ago, but all the recent releases gave me the same problem.

Thanks again for all your help.

A shot in the dark is to uninstall your video card and reinstall. Only takes a few minutes anyhow to rule out.

[headkaze]

Sorry to hear about your plight. I do remember a thread with someone else having a similar problem. Unfortunately they never got back to Tom who was trying to test some things with him.

GameEx doesn't do much in the background while launching a game except poll for key presses and possibly joy button combinations when using an Advanced Config.

Tom suggested to this guy to try replacing the HideOS.exe with the one attached here. There is also an old GameEx.exe in there, but I think it's around version 5.30. Maybe just try the HideOS.exe from there first. Please get back, as it's these sort of bugs that I know Tom likes to fix.

[jombee]

Sorry to hear about your plight. I do remember a thread with someone else having a similar problem. Unfortunately they never got back to Tom who was trying to test some things with him.

GameEx doesn't do much in the background while launching a game except poll for key presses and possibly joy button combinations when using an Advanced Config.

Tom suggested to this guy to try replacing the HideOS.exe with the one attached here. There is also an old GameEx.exe in there, but I think it's around version 5.30. Maybe just try the HideOS.exe from there first. Please get back, as it's these sort of bugs that I know Tom likes to fix.

Thanks again for your fast replies.

I tried replacing the HideOS.exe and there was no improvement. Then I tried the GameEx.exe and got the following error message when starting up GameEx

21:21:56.3 10/22/2006: Could not find file "D:\Program Files\GameEx\THEMES\DEFAULT - DEFAULT\MEDIA\controlpanel640.bmp".

21:22:02.5 10/22/2006: ERRORS DETECTED: EXITING

I would guess that the directory structure has changed since version 5.30. Would you happen to have an installer version of gameex in the 5.x series, or be able to direct me somewhere to download it?

[headkaze]

I don't have any old versions floating around here sorry. BTW When you run a game inside GameEx, if you CTRL-ALT-DEL what CPU usage is GameEx using?

Also, can you download Process Explorer and right click on the GameEx.exe process and select Set Affinity... Try a few things there. I remember someone saying something about that solving performance issues.

[night]

i think all grapich format (.bmp) are replaced with (.png) so i would guess thats the problem with the error trying that old GameEx version to run ..

tho i think the best would be to wait to Tom see the tread if this is a bug its best to get it fixed and not downgrade to avoid it

[jombee]

I don't have any old versions floating around here sorry. BTW When you run a game inside GameEx, if you CTRL-ALT-DEL what CPU usage is GameEx using?

Also, can you download Process Explorer and right click on the GameEx.exe process and select Set Affinity... Try a few things there. I remember someone saying something about that solving performance issues.

My CPU usage when nothing is running is 0-2%

When I start up GameEx it varies from 50-60%

When I start a particular game for the first time it goes up to 100% and the game pauses/stutters

When I escape out of the game back into GameEX, then start the same game again it varies from 60-70% and the game runs fine

I downloaded Process Explorer and looked at the set affinity. It had only 2 boxes open, and both were checked for CPU 0 and CPU 1. Should I uncheck one of these?

Thanks again for all your help.

[jombee]

Problem solved (I hope).

I deleted my Page File in Virtual Memory and everything runs fine now with no pausing. I assume the page file must have been fragmented, and that was causing my problems. Thanks again to everyone for their help!

[headkaze]

That's good to know. I would never have thought to do that. In fact never heard of a pagefile causing stuttering!

[Tom Speirs]

That's good to know. I would never have thought to do that. In fact never heard of a pagefile causing stuttering!

Yeah new one for me too, especially with a GIG.

[emphatic]

So where is this file located? I have a similar problem, and I'm eager to test this theory.

Emph

[headkaze]

On an XP machine it's called pagefile.sys located on the root of your boot drive. I think deleting the page file will result in a new one being created, but I'm not sure if you are supposed to do that. And I'm pretty certain the file is locked. You may need to go into Safe Mode (F8 just before the Windows logo on boot up) to delete it. But I would check that out before I do it. Also, a simple defrag may actually help the situation.

When a program tries to access some address that is not currently in physical RAM, it generates an interrupt, called a Page Fault (This is when you encounter the pause, when it accesses the page file instead of physical RAM). If there is pressure on space in RAM, then parts of code and data that are not currently needed can be "paged out" in order to make room - the page file can thus be seen as an overflow area to make the RAM behave as if it were larger than it is.

[hansolo77]

If the page file is really the culprit, you could always change it's settings, and even turn it off if need be.

Go to Control Panel -> System -> Advanced -> Performance [settings] -> Advanced Tab -> Virtual Memory [Change]

I have the page file disabled on all my drives except the C:\ drive. And that drive is set to a maximum of 256k. You can configure it however you want. The file is used as virtual RAM on the hard drive. If you're RAM is full, or not fast enough, it writes the data here. The larger the size, the more you have, but it takes a lot more power to write and rewrite over such a large size. I had my system set to NO page files at all for a long time, but recently I read somewhere that it helps to have a little bit.

[jas.]

well, you don't see fragmenting of a page file as much if it's set as a permanent swap file, meaning it will stay a set size on the hard drive. when you have it set to temporary, the swap file will expand, then contract as needed and if you were to save something else onto the hard drive, it would use up those next few clusters on the drive. next time your temporary swap file needs to expand *poof* fragmented swap file

[jas.]

well, you don't see fragmenting of a page file as much if it's set as a permanent swap file, meaning it will stay a set size on the hard drive. when you have it set to temporary, the swap file will expand, then contract as needed and if you were to save something else onto the hard drive, it would use up those next few clusters on the drive. next time your temporary swap file needs to expand *poof* fragmented swap file

which brings you back to why you might be stuttering. sorry forgot to draw the conclusion of the post