GameEx 8.76 + Alpha blended transitions

[headkaze]

Just updated to version 8.76 and am experiencing a major speed hit with alpha blended transitions. I'm guessing it's due to recent updates for ATI and/or alpha blended transitions. They are really choppy and slow now. I have a Radeon 9800 Pro. I havn't updated my video card driver in ages so I'm wondering if it's a good idea to do that (are the recent fixes for newer ATI drivers perhaps?). Last version of GameEx I had (around 8.73) was incredibly fast during alpha blended transitions. I guess this is a message for Tom mainly. Bug report?

[Brian Hoffman]

Just updated to version 8.76 and am experiencing a major speed hit with alpha blended transitions. I'm guessing it's due to recent updates for ATI and/or alpha blended transitions. They are really choppy and slow now. I have a Radeon 9800 Pro. I havn't updated my video card driver in ages so I'm wondering if it's a good idea to do that (are the recent fixes for newer ATI drivers perhaps?). Last version of GameEx I had (around 8.73) was incredibly fast during alpha blended transitions. I guess this is a message for Tom mainly. Bug report?

Just giving my 2 cents... I probably couldn't hurt to update them. As it would rule that out as a possability

Otherwise Tom might be spinning his wheels when there is no problem at all..

Unfortunatly I use nvidia cards and cannot replicate the issue to try as well.

Take care buddy

Brian Hoffman

[Tom Speirs]

Just updated to version 8.76 and am experiencing a major speed hit with alpha blended transitions. I'm guessing it's due to recent updates for ATI and/or alpha blended transitions. They are really choppy and slow now. I have a Radeon 9800 Pro. I havn't updated my video card driver in ages so I'm wondering if it's a good idea to do that (are the recent fixes for newer ATI drivers perhaps?). Last version of GameEx I had (around 8.73) was incredibly fast during alpha blended transitions. I guess this is a message for Tom mainly. Bug report?

Actually the fixes are for newer ATI drivers, which broke the 3d transitions. The patch was to make them run on the newer drivers, but the side effect is they run slower on the older drivers.

Upgrading the drivers wont help, as the latest ATI drivers are still broken.

Im going to either add an option for the older drivers, or detect driver version in the next release.

Wont be long.

[Tom Speirs]

Here is the latest GameEx without the patch for ATI cards.

Could you confirm its ok?

The changes to alpha blending was a change to the actual transition the transition is longer but should look better.

Can you let me know what you think?

GameEx.zip

[headkaze]

Okay tried the latest Catalyst drivers and it's actually worse than before. I'll be changing to 2D transitions until this gets fixed. Also the newer Catalyst driver seems to make my background videos pause longer when scrolling through the Mame list. I'm showing video snaps too, but I'm pretty sure the pause wasn't this bad. I might roll back to the older video drivers now we have that ticked off the list.

UNRELATED: I've also noticed for a while that scrolling through the lists with the small images that zoom out will chug along when you scroll through the list quickly by holding down the joystick/keyboard. What is happening is that it's zooming each picture out while your scrolling down but it should be skipping them and only showing it when you release the button.

EDIT: Oops missed Tom's post.. I'll try this exe and get back to you. Thanks mate.

[headkaze]

Hey Tom just tried that exe and it's even slower. I can count about 3 seconds inbetween each frame of it zooming in and out alpha blended (in 3d alphablended mode).

[Brian Hoffman]

Hey Tom just tried that exe and it's even slower. I can count about 3 seconds inbetween each frame of it zooming in and out alpha blended (in 3d alphablended mode).

Headkaze..

http://ati.amd.com/support/drivers/xp/rade...revious-xp.html

This is the link to older drivers..... Maybe you can find one that works the best.. Somewhere between the version you had and the newest..

[Tom Speirs]

Hey Tom just tried that exe and it's even slower. I can count about 3 seconds inbetween each frame of it zooming in and out alpha blended (in 3d alphablended mode).

Yeah, thats the issue with the new drivers, before I put in the fix. Since you upgraded drivers your getting it.

[headkaze]

Yeah, thats the issue with the new drivers, before I put in the fix. Since you upgraded drivers your getting it.

Okay rolled back to Catalyst 5-10 drivers and with that exe you posted it runs great. I love the new alpha blending, looks really smooth

So perhaps there needs to be an option to turn of ATI optimizations. They may only work with newer cards since ATI 9800 Pro is a very old card now.