Topic: windows 7 - unwanted frameskip

[AtTheGates]

hi,

when i'm on windows 7, pretty much all games i try on the newest FBA build (029707, but happens with all the old ones as well) have frameskip. This might not be easily recognized by most people - i play fighting games, so i'm pretty sure. the emulator runs perfectly under XP, which i run on the same pc. my machine is strong enough (quad core, 4 gig ram, geforce 8800gt), so performance shouldnt be the problem.

is there any reliable way to fix this? so far i've played around with the blitters, changed from windowed to fullscreen, played around with resolutions and changed priority to "high" under misc. no success.

[iq_132]

Open up your task manager (right-click the start menu->start task manager->processes tab), click the "show processes from all users" button and play your game in windowed mode with that up in the background. It should tell you how much cpu, etc it is using (since you're using a Quad-core cpu, if fba is using more than 25% cpu [since it is only a single-threaded emulator], it won't run at full speed, which is quite strange). You may also find that another process (virus scanner?) is eating cpu cycles like mad.

You may also want to give updating your sound and video drivers a try as well as making sure your version of directx is the most up-to-date.

[AtTheGates]

it's at 1-3%. drivers are up to date, no virus scanner etc. running. it's definitely not the strain on the system, i suspect it must have something to do with refresh rate and how win7 handles it or something.  keep in mind that i could play just fine on xp, got 2 OSes on this pc.

i know of other people who have the problem - well, in fact i know only one other person who used fba with win7, and he has the same problem.

[Barry Harris]

Try changing your power options to High Performance. CPU throttling seems to have an effect on performance.

[AtTheGates]

aren't those power settings for laptops? oô
anyway, i still don't think it's performance.

[Barry Harris]

I noticed the same hit going from XP to Vista.

The power plans are different post-Vista and the CPU enters power saving when idle. When using FBA the CPU is in low power until it needs to ramp up. I find the power state tends to fluctuate lots and I think this affects the skipping - I certainly know that changing it to High Performance (hence turning off CPU power saving) removes the issue altogether. The default setting is Balanced which has some pretty heavy CPU power saving.

[AtTheGates]

i switched it to high performance, makes absolutely no difference =(

[iq_132]

Weird issues you're having dude. I know it's probably a little crazy, but have you tried putting fba into compatibility mode?

It probably won't do shit, but it is worth a try. ^^

[AtTheGates]

still no success. i wish i knew more about how win7 treats programs like fba, things like refresh rate etc. my monitor is set to 60hz, and fba is using force 60fps, but even if i switch it off, it doesnt change anything.

[iq_132]

It is very strange man, I've been running 64-bit windows since it February and I've never had any issues with it slowing down -- (core 2 duo 1.8, geforce 8600 gt, 4gb of ram, etc).

[AtTheGates]

it's not a slow down per se - it's frame skip. certain frames are missing, it becomes really apparent when i try to do combos that involve visual timing, and no muscle memory (such as combos with jumps). missing frames means less time to react and just wrong signals in general, makes it harder to play =(

[manliodp]

I know it could seems obvious but..
did you try enabling triple buffering and vsync and disabling auto-frameskip?
Are the video drivers correctly installed?

For me, with 7, triple buffering makes the difference.

[AtTheGates]

no difference with triple buffering and v-synch, and yeah, video drivers are installed correctly =(

actually, v-synch and triple buf are known to cause some minor input lag, so even if it would fix the frameskip problem, i still couldn't play on win7.

on a side note, when i play street fighter IV in windowed mode, i also have frameskip - if i switch to fullscreen, its smooth. supports my theory that it's somehow related to windows 7 refresh rate / windowed mode, whatever. problem is, switching to fullscreen for fba doesn't fix the problem for me.

[manliodp]

no difference with triple buffering and v-synch, and yeah, video drivers are installed correctly =(

actually, v-synch and triple buf are known to cause some minor input lag, so even if it would fix the frameskip problem, i still couldn't play on win7.

on a side note, when i play street fighter IV in windowed mode, i also have frameskip - if i switch to fullscreen, its smooth. supports my theory that it's somehow related to windows 7 refresh rate / windowed mode, whatever. problem is, switching to fullscreen for fba doesn't fix the problem for me.

It's a known fact that the AERO interface slows down graphics-intensive applications, so fullscreen is always the better choice.
Anyway, try to switch the GUI from AERO to basic.
About the triple buffering lag, i play 3s at a good competitive local level and i can say the lag isn't noticeable.

Bye

[AtTheGates]

update: sf4 says 60fps even when it lags in windowed mode, which is imo another indicator that its related to windows.

will try disabling aero later.

aynway, about you not feeling lag, that's great, but jojo requires 1- and 2f links, so i do feel it. the problem with input lag is usually less of a combo problem and more of a reaction problem, since every frame of input lag effectively increases your reaction time (which is bad).