Mame Jerkiness

[shin_nihon_kikaku]

I’m having a problem with Mame 32 (running on a windows XP laptop). It’s running really s-l-o-w. The machine is pretty high-spec and is capable of running Mame on max resolution and refresh rate, with RGB sharp and frameskip set at 0 (display every frame) on nearly all games. I know because I’ve been running it like that for years (well, a couple).

 

I don’t think this is related but still - I had to ‘end process’ (through task manager) on Mame a while ago and later, when I started it back up, the ‘joystick/lightgun/mouse input’ checkboxes were greyed out and couldn’t be selected. Anyway, I copied all files over the LAN from my main computer and overwrote the old ones. The joystick thing worked again, but when I came to actually play on Mame some days later something seemed to be limiting how fast it was running, even though I scoured and re-scoured all settings and even tried lowering everything to the minimum settings (auto resolution, no scanlines etc).

 

My desktop PC once had trouble running Mame on high settings and that was due to spyware and crap but even then it was an occasional judder and sound crackling I was experiencing, not full blown jerky update). After that I figured the laptop may have been clogged up with spyware and unneeded processes so I went round ending everything that shouldn’t be running and got it down to around 14 essential background processes (which is easily the lowest the machine has ever had). I was sure that would have fixed it, but no.

 

I tried faffing around a bit and while a game was running I changed the frameskip setting manually (using F9) and it improved from the 17/53 that it was permanently stuck on to around 45/53 but that rapidly dropped to 22/53 and stayed there when I got past the select screens and the game was in full swing.

 

As I said it seems that something is permanently limiting its framerate even though the settings say otherwise.

I am properly baffled. I hope it’s something simple that I’ve just overlooked. Please help!

[Gryph]

I'm going to go ahead and move this to the MAME section. James might be able to help you out with this.

 

Try installing another copy of MAME to different directory and see if it gives the same speed problem.

Edited November 16, 2004 by GryphonKlaw

[Ghosty]

What Game Is It?

[Agozer]

I would recommend that you keep at least some frameskip or autiomatic frameskip on at all times. Some people say that automatic frameskip gives ill results, though.

Edited November 16, 2004 by Agozer

[shin_nihon_kikaku]

Yeah I forgot there was a dedicated Mame section. Anyway the game in question was NBA Hangtime (notoriously high requirements but always worked for me on the settings I mentioned) but it's the same on any game, as though something else is limiting the speed rather than system specs (there is no sound crackling that would suggest maxing out of processor), my computer is running great otherwise.

 

Also, I prefer to have frameskip on zero, to prove that auto has a negative effect if I turn it on for 3D games such as fighting layer or ehrgeiz my performance goes to the dogs. The framerate is much better with it off, for me personally.

 

Also, I hope this James can help with my problem! I need a Mame expert on the case

Edited November 16, 2004 by shin_nihon_kikaku