Snes9X emulation performance issues

[alondero]

Hi,

When running games through GameEx I get degraded performance as opposed to running them without. For example, running Super Mario Kart on Snes9x through GameEx there is noticeable slowdown which doesn't appear when running Snes9x standalone. My computer is a 4790k running at 4.4Ghz, 16GB RAM and currently a Radeon HD6850 (whilst I wait for my 290X to be RMAed) - it shouldn't have any problem running Snes9x.

I also notice that the slow down goes away when switching Snes9x to windowed mode, or if tabbing away from Snes9x (leaving it running in the background). As I said I don't see any of this when running Snes9x standalone.

I've attached my GameEx log and ini

Any ideas?

log.txt

GameEx.ini

[Draco1962]

Let's focus on your original Nestopia issue as this may be related before we start on Snes9x, OK? Thanks!

[nullPointer]

Apologies alondero and Draco, I actually advised to start a new thread for Snes9X. Feeling jerked around yet alondero? All the same I was interested in taking a look at the Snes9X log, and didn't want to end up in another "are we talking about SSF or MagicEngine" type of thread.

[morgoth32]

Hi, try disabling "show statistics" with setup wizard; enable/disable features.

[Draco1962]

Apologies alondero and Draco, I actually advised to start a new thread for Snes9X. Feeling jerked around yet alondero? All the same I was interested in taking a look at the Snes9X log, and didn't want to end up in another "are we talking about SSF or MagicEngine" type of thread.

I missed that, my apologies. I have changed the title to reflect the emulator affected.

[Tom Speirs]

Try not using an advanced emulator config. There is no other reason why there would be slow down. Also check you've not got any bloatware installed with catalyst/AMD drivers. See the pinned topic.

[DazzleHP]

Try not using an advanced emulator config. There is no other reason why there would be slow down. Also check you've not got any bloatware installed with catalyst/AMD drivers. See the pinned topic.

Here's the thread if you haven't viewed it yet.

Bare in mind that recent Catalyst Drivers install this automatically if you choose "Express Install", and so you may not even be aware it is running.

Apologies alondero and Draco, I actually advised to start a new thread for Snes9X. Feeling jerked around yet alondero? All the same I was interested in taking a look at the Snes9X log, and didn't want to end up in another "are we talking about SSF or MagicEngine" type of thread.

I agree though, I think we should always try to keep situations separate, even if the circumstances seem to point to same problem. We don't know yet whether they are related, but it's better to sort one and find out afterwards that one solution solved another, than as nullPointer mentioned, we get another "Sega Engine" mish mash. Makes it easier for us to investigate/troubleshoot, and easier for the troubleshooties to keep track of what they are doing too.

[greatflash]

This may not be related, but thought I would mention it just in case.

I have been experiencing very similar problems with emulators (SNES and NES being main offenders). If I run them in a window, I get a silky smooth 60fps, but as soon as I run them full screen (as is my want from GX) the frame rate drops to 30fps. This is not GX, but more the full screen display being the cause (in my case).

I still have not found the reason why this happens, but it certainly does.

is this related, if not, I will return to the back of the room and sit silently?

Run Snes9X in a window with fps display enabled and then ALT-ENTER to full screen and see if it suddenly drops to 30fps?

I am using windows 8.1 64 if that has any relevance, I never had this problem under win7.

[Tom Speirs]

I believe its a known issue with full screen exclusive DirectDraw on windows 8. There is a an official MS fix somewhere. However in this case the op said it ran find outside of GameEx.

[greatflash]

I also notice that the slow down goes away when switching Snes9x to windowed mode, or if tabbing away from Snes9x (leaving it running in the background). As I said I don't see any of this when running Snes9x standalone.

I was just picking up on this part of the post as execution from within GX would be full-screen and am not sure if the report of it working fine out of GX is related to windowed mode.

[alondero]

Following up on this, using Direct3D rather than OpenGL in Snes9x fixed these issues. It is still strange though as have had no issues with OpenGL until using it in conjunction with GameEx...

[Adultery]

That is strange since I use OpenGL for some emulators and don't have any issues.

[alondero]

May have discovered some useful information for this. I ran Dolphin emulator just now from GameEx and it kept showing the messages "got exclusive fullscreen", "lost exclusive fullscreen", the performance of the emulator also was poor in this time. Hitting Alt-Enter in the emulator made these messages go away and performance sped up significantly.

I suspect it is something to do with this that was causing the Snes9x issue with OpenGL

This may well still be a Windows 10 issue, but thought I'd add in case someone else has any ideas.