Causes for Lag on Exit? (Would a SSD Help?)

[Necromancyr]

I'm having a few issues with lag on exiting a game (like on the 30-90 seconds level). This is in MAME w/the most recent version of GameEx. I'm wondering if anyone knows any causes for this and if using a SSD might alleviate it somewhat if it's related to a write to disk or read related issue for GameEx itself.

TIA. (Also, for those that remember me my cab is done and out in my main basement area - and my theme is done. It works for me but isn't comprehensive enough across GameEx for submission. I'll have to post a video sometime.)

[Draco1962]

Welcome back. If you would, please upload a copy of your gameex,ini and, more importantly, your log.txt file immediately following exit of one of the games. If you have not done so already, I suggest upgrading to the latest GameEx version first.

[Necromancyr]

Did that last night (the upgrade) and it still happened. Seems to be consistent with Tapper (Budweiser version). I'll upload it tonight and hopefully it'll be something easily remedied. I'm fine with the SSD solution though - leaning towards it to quiet the cab a bit.

[Necromancyr]

Log is below. Ini is attached. You can see the lag of ~30 seconds between shutting down the rawinput hook and writring mame stats when you exit.

13:15:52.1  8/30/2012:  Mouse Input is disabled
13:16:37.8  8/30/2012:  Setting Up RawInput Hook
13:16:37.8  8/30/2012:  Launching RawInputHook.exe
13:16:40.9  8/30/2012:  Running: cmd.exe /c C: C:\Emulators\mame\mame.exe tapper -rompath C:\Emulators\mame\roms -nowindow -joy -skip_gameinfo
13:16:41.1  8/30/2012:  Shutting down display
13:24:09.4  8/30/2012:  Exiting game
13:24:09.7  8/30/2012:  Shutting down RawInput Hook
13:24:42.2  8/30/2012:  Writing MAME stats
13:24:42.3  8/30/2012:  Plugin: Game Exit
13:24:42.4  8/30/2012:  Plugin: Process Commands
13:24:42.4  8/30/2012:  Restoring Window
13:24:42.4  8/30/2012:  Reinitializing Graphics System
13:24:42.4  8/30/2012:  Mouse Input is disabled
13:24:44.6  8/30/2012:  Returning to GameEx
13:24:57.9  8/30/2012:  Exiting GameEx!
13:24:57.9  8/30/2012:  Disposing all videos
13:24:57.9  8/30/2012:  Deleting temporary Karaoke videos
13:24:57.9  8/30/2012:  Disposing Image List
13:24:57.9  8/30/2012:  Disposing Fonts
13:24:57.9  8/30/2012:  Disposing Surfaces
13:24:58.1  8/30/2012:  Saving Settings
13:24:58.6  8/30/2012:  Shutting down Bass
13:25:03.8  8/30/2012:  Closing HideOS.exe
13:25:08.6  8/30/2012:  Disposing Plugins
13:25:08.6  8/30/2012:  Disposing Plugins
13:25:09.8  8/30/2012:  Closing database connection
13:25:09.9  8/30/2012:  Checking for applications to Launch On Exit
13:25:10.3  8/30/2012:  Bye

GameEx.ini

[nullPointer]

I hate to ask, but would you mind posting the entire contents of the log? If this issue turns out to be related to hardware, the full log may be able to provide some hints.

[Draco1962]

Yes, please, whenever we ask for the log file, we need it in its entirety. Thanks.

Based on what I am seeing of what you did send us, 13:16 to 13:24 is about 8 seconds. Not hardly 30 seconds. We need more to look at.

13:15:52.1 8/30/2012: Mouse Input is disabled

13:16:37.8 8/30/2012: Setting Up RawInput Hook

13:16:37.8 8/30/2012: Launching RawInputHook.exe

13:16:40.9 8/30/2012: Running: cmd.exe /c C: C:\Emulators\mame\mame.exe tapper -rompath C:\Emulators\mame\roms -nowindow -joy -skip_gameinfo

13:16:41.1 8/30/2012: Shutting down display

13:24:09.4 8/30/2012: Exiting game

13:24:09.7 8/30/2012: Shutting down RawInput Hook

13:24:42.2 8/30/2012: Writing MAME stats

13:24:42.3 8/30/2012: Plugin: Game Exit

13:24:42.4 8/30/2012: Plugin: Process Commands

13:24:42.4 8/30/2012: Restoring Window

13:24:42.4 8/30/2012: Reinitializing Graphics System

13:24:42.4 8/30/2012: Mouse Input is disabled

13:24:44.6 8/30/2012: Returning to GameEx

[Necromancyr]

Uh...those are minutes, not seconds you're looking at. That's the 8 minutes I played the game. The applicable numbers are 13:24:09.7 (Shutting down the hook) and 13:24:42.2 (writing mame stats).

And interesting. This one it took at least 10-12 seconds, but the log doesn't reflect that time.

log.txt

[Necromancyr]

Hrm...odd. Just redid it again (see additional log) and this time counted off (using mississippi's to get something consistent) and got up to 12 before things flickered and GameEx came back up.

So...seems like this is potentially two things...MAME isn't exiting correctly and/or GameEx is taking awhile to come up... :/

And, possibly pertinent, esc is my mame/emulator exit key.

[nullPointer]

This is probably a stretch, but let's try to eliminate some of the circumstances that may be unusual to your setup. As you've probably noticed the log doesn't show any error messages. Technically nothing is going terribly wrong with GameEx, but there may be something going on with one of its ‘satellite’ systems.

15:29:44.2  8/30/2012:  Loaded Plugin:"Cursor Hider" Version 1.01 By Stu
15:29:44.2  8/30/2012:  PlugIn: "Cursor Hider" Initialized OK
15:29:44.2  8/30/2012:  Using Plugin System Version: 1.3
15:29:44.2  8/30/2012:  Loaded Plugin:"LEDBlinky" Version 4.0.0 By Arzoo
15:29:44.7  8/30/2012:  PlugIn: "LEDBlinky" Initialized OK
15:29:44.7  8/30/2012:  Using Plugin System Version: 1.3

Do you still experience the problem if the above plugins are disabled? How about themes?

15:29:44.7  8/30/2012:  Using Theme: OmegaMame
15:29:44.7  8/30/2012:  Checking for alternate Image Directory for Theme: OmegaMame

Do you still experience the problem when using an alternate theme?

[Necromancyr]

I'll dig through everything to see. I just tried MAME straight up and there's zero lag exiting it using the esc key so it seems it's def. GameEx or some interaction of the two.

Tested the two plugins, still happens. Oddly, if I go into the game, play real quick then exit it went back to GameEx faster. May have been a fluke.

Tested the theme as well, still happening.

Basically, hit esc/exit, black screen for 10 seconds or so, then gameex comes back up and buttons all light back up (via ledblinky, if it's running)

It seems some games do this, others don't...maybe something to do w/writing cabinet/ram state to the disc or something?

[Draco1962]

My bad, misread, that's what I get for trying to work and help at the same time.

[nullPointer]

Hmm … I notice that you’ve got some of the networking features turned on. Is your cabinet capable of connecting to the internet (or otherwise connected to your network)?

Here’s a thread which bounces around a few different ideas related to a similar report:

Slow exit from game

It’s a bit old, but I don’t see anything in there that doesn’t apply equally today (well other than MAWS being gone)

[Draco1962]

I would also look at cleaning up some of your paths. As an example from your gameex.ini:

[CPWizard]
CPWizardEnable=True
CPWizardPath=C:\Program Files\CPWizard\CPWizard.exe
CPWizardStarted=True
CPWizardStartup=True

Per your log.txt:

15:29:44.7  8/30/2012:  CPWizard enabled
15:29:44.7  8/30/2012:  CPWizard path invalid. Not using CPWizard

This may not seem important, but it does make a difference if the correct path is available for a program that is enabled. If you are not using it, disable it Setup Wizard under the MAME settings section.

Other things that can speed up your system is minimizing the amount of load on your CPU and GPU by disabling Aero Glass in Windows 7 and all the other graphic "bling" and slide the scale towards performance. If you are using this in a cab, you don't need Windows sucking more processor and GPU cycles than necessary.

[Necromancyr]

Hrm...I *AM* using CPWizard....so that's odd. And that's the right path. I'll check that. (ALthough CPWizard gives me an entirely other set of issues w/working once then crashing out...so...we'll see.)

And I was using the network features, but with MAWS being gone...not sure if I need anything else.

I'll try tweaking a few things - good call on the aero/glass item. Completely overlooked that and 1-2 other tweaks I used to make before processing power got cheap and my normal PC was ridiculously overpowered (which aligns almost exactly with when I got a decent paying job, oddly enough ). Will post more once I tweak things out a bit.

[Necromancyr]

Well. Turned off the network game list options and a bunch of services and things are a bit snappier in getting back to menu - my gut is telling me it is the network lists that was causing the issue even though the PC is networked. Odd...

I'll post again if something else pops up or I get a ridiculous delay again.

Also, I did a few other tweaks and the cab is working way better than before based on that. Thanks guys! Appreciate the help.

[Draco1962]

Glad to hear you got things working a bit snappier. I have found that quite a few issues I have had that seemed like they were at first GameEx were actually caused by the way I had things setup in my OS. Often simplifying the features and services that are running will go a long way in making the experience more fluid and fun.

Edited September 11, 2012 by Draco1962
This thread is now closed. If the problem re-occurs, please start a new thread.