GameEx 4.66 - Out

[Tom Speirs]

24th July 2005
- GameEx 4.66 - Faster and smaller.

• Optimisations to memory
  usage and performance.
• GameEx really should run
  fine on older systems
  
  If it does not there is likely an issue with
  software/hardware.
• Some graphics tests results:
• I had full speed on an athlon
  xp 1700+ with a 16MB PCI NVidia TNT 2 card.
• I have nearly full speed on a
  Pentium III 800 Mhz with onboard Intel 4MB
  Card, when GameEx in a window at 640 X 480.
• Both running in 16 bit colour
  though, due to the low video memory.
• Install no longer re-enables
  DVD and videos.
  

---

[Smiff]

even MORE optimisations? u Da Man! even though i have new-ish system, all resource savings are appreciated as more for the games, quicker loading, etc

thanks on that last point aswell, should make upgrading "ezy"

btw, these optimisations.. do they have any drawbacks at all?

[Tom Speirs]

btw, these optimisations.. do they have any drawbacks at all?

The game launching and exiting improvements could cause problems, where emulators or GameEx dont have time to shut down properly, I am still waiting for reports on that. Looks good so far though.

The latest optimizations in 4.66 are just optimization to .net code, ther should be no drawbacks, unless I messed up something.

[djrobx]

The runtime speed improvements are very noticeable. Good job! Since you seem to be in the optimizing mood - maybe you might look into optimizing the startup sequence? It takes roughly 10-15 seconds to get from launch to the main menu on a "cold" start.

On all my systems, HideOS.exe is taking nearly two seconds to launch:

17:49:31.7 7/24/2005: Get other settings

17:49:31.7 7/24/2005: Launching HideOS.exe

17:49:33.7 7/24/2005: Hiding Taskbar

Another thing that may help and would be easy is to eliminate the emulator path validation at startup. It is contributing to a full second of slowdown on my networked machines per the log.

-- Rob

[Tom Speirs]

The runtime speed improvements are very noticeable.  Good job!  Since you seem to be in the optimizing mood - maybe you might look into optimizing the startup sequence?  It takes roughly 10-15 seconds to get from launch to the main menu on a "cold" start. 

On all my systems, HideOS.exe is taking nearly two seconds to launch:

17:49:31.7  7/24/2005:  Get other settings

17:49:31.7  7/24/2005:  Launching HideOS.exe

17:49:33.7  7/24/2005:  Hiding Taskbar

Another thing that may help and would be easy is to eliminate the emulator path validation at startup.  It is contributing to a full second of slowdown on my networked machines per the log.

-- Rob

I actually had a pause there on purpose for HideOS.exe. I've shortened it now.

Unfortunatly the emulation validation is required, as it turns off features if paths and values are not correct.

[djrobx]

Unfortunatly the emulation validation is required, as it turns off features if paths and values are not correct.

Could you do that at run-time when the emulator is first selected instead of scanning each one at boot? Why not just assume the information in the config file is correct, and then log an error if that turns out to be incorrect when someone actually selects the emulator?

If you need to wait even 1 second for HideOS for some reason, perhaps you can pass that task off to another thread so you can be processing config files or something while you wait?

[Tom Speirs]

Could you do that at run-time when the emulator is first selected instead of scanning each one at boot?  Why not just assume the information in the config file is correct, and then log an error if that turns out to be incorrect when someone actually selects the emulator?

If you need to wait even 1 second for HideOS for some reason, perhaps you can pass that task off to another thread so you can be processing config files or something while you wait?

Yes, you raise some good points. I am looking at startup time. I did stop the icons being recreated every hour in the last version.

On my systems, after the first run from cold its generally pretty quick, a few seconds now. Maybe thats because Windows cached it? Startup time is also to do with the .net JIT compiler. Which starts compiling a lot of code when GameEx starts up.

I am looking at things I can do, but dont have too high hopes.

Cheers.

Tom

[djrobx]

Yes, I see the same thing with regards to re-launches being significantly faster.

Another thing is it looks like you launch mame.exe -help. That's consuming over a half second. Maybe you could skip that check once mame has been verified? Maybe instead of boot-time validation, you could have a "Check installation" button in the config application? I think it'd be nicer to be able to check & correct problems from there anyway.

You just seem to be trying to shake "bloated and slow" impressions, and I think reducing the startup time whereever possible could help a lot with that perception. Just offering ideas, not nitpicking.

-- Rob