Snes9xTYL v0.2 is out

[bobbin]

@panajev: Good post of yours, great to see a proper "bug" report

[yoyofr]

I'll check this panajev...
but if you play with speedhacks, you'll have to RELOAD the rom after changing the settings, since
the rom is loaded and then modified in PSP ram. But from what I know of speedhacks, it's unlikely
it will slower the emulation processs. Moreover SMW was one of the first game snesadvance could
emulate....
anyway I'll check.
just as a side note, try not using vsync on if you want optimal performance. This option really eats cpu power since it's waiting most of the time for vblank.

[rush]

I went and upgraded to 2.0. Can I get this to work?

[panajev2001a]

Small update about v0.2 and v0.2c vs v0.1.

I have all three cleanly installed (from scratch) in the same Memory Stick (Sony 512 MB Memory Stick Pro Duo) and I have been testing them with the PSP fully charged (last night it was charged at 16%, still able to function at 333 MHz without warning from any Emu's about low battery: the battery indicator still had one bar left and the PSP battery LED was a solid bright green not flashing).

I have been trying with the exact same conditions (all three emulators had already been run once and all settings were made and saved as default before the "testing" began) all three emu's for a quite a bit this morning, all with Super Mario World... all in the same point and with the same methodology I posted before.

I found that v0.1 was still the fastest of all three in that scenario as it was nearly impossible to get it to drop the frame-rate there (I think maybe once it hit 58 fps [only one counter... with the new counter it would have likely shown as 58/28 fps], but definately out of the three it was the one with the most stable frame-rate... EDIT#2: nope, tried again re-running v0.1, but could not get the 58 fps frame drop this time...).

I also found that v0.1 suffered from a similar problem to the one that afflicted v0.2 and that seems to be the clock-speed initialization issue: when you boot the emulator and then Super Mario World, the intro starts a bit slow, but the speed goes back to normal if you go to the menu/reload the ROM/reset the SNES (to be fair I did go to the menu, reset the SNES and also in another instance re-loaded the ROM with bothv0.2 and v0.1 to be sure I was checking them in a fair way). I never noticed this in v0.1 before today because as soon as the emulator started to load the ROM I would go to the menu and make sure my settings stayed the same (I might have some form of an obsessive compulsive disorder, but what Electrical Engineering student does not develop this issue ?).

I found that v0.2, besides that clock initialization bug which plagued v0.1 too, it is much easier to get slowdown in the "benchmark section" with the Koopa's.
When the level loads up and you do the very first "run/passage" under them the frame rate drop is considerable ( about 52/22 fps, but I got it as low as 42/22-46/26 fps in some instances, for example after passing under them back and forth plenty of times [some times you have to move a bit farther to make sure the engine loads all the Koopa's]).

I found v0.2c to have eliminated the slow-down in the intro as it fixed the clock-initialization bug and I also found this emu to be less susceptible to frame-rate drops running SuperMario World in the "benchmark" section: when the level loads up and you do the very first "run/passage" under them the frame rate stays constant at 60/30 fps and in rare occasions, while you do your running back and forth under the Koopa's, it drops to 58/28 fps. Frame-rate drops below 58/28 fps are very rare in there, it is definately between v0.1 and v0.2 in terms of speed and frame-rate stability.

I hope this can help .

[panajev2001a]

bobbin said:

@panajev: Good post of yours, great to see a proper "bug" report

Thank you, I mean well .

Thanks yoyofr for spending your time investigating this issue.

[panajev2001a]

One more thing: last night, just for fun I tried v0.2c with the "usual" settings (the ones I already posted in this thread) and I also enabled the Speed Hack for Mode 7 even though in Super Mario World it is not needed. Well, the game crashed and itwas the first time this emulator ever crashed on me.

Just wanted to point this out as well before I forgot .

[panajev2001a]

admin said:

just as a side note, try not using vsync on if you want optimal performance. This option really eats cpu power since it's waiting most of the time for vblank.

I know, but if the game can sustain a smooth frame-rate with it enabled, I am happy: I prefer to keep a frame-skip of 1 with a frame-rate of 60/30 fps and not seeing any screen tearing than to have a frame-skip of 0 with a frame-rate of 60/60 fps and seeing screen-tearing when the map is scrolling in most games (platformers like Super Mario World, Pitfall, Eart Worm Jim, etc...). If the platformer cannot keep 60/30 fps with VBlank on even with a frame-skip of 1 then I will gladly turn VBlank off .

[yoyofr]

panajev2001a said:

One more thing: last night, just for fun I tried v0.2c with the "usual" settings (the ones I already posted in this thread) and I also enabled the Speed Hack for Mode 7 even though in Super Mario World it is not needed. Well, the game crashed and itwas the first time this emulator ever crashed on me.

Just wanted to point this out as well before I forgot .

could you give more details ? where did it crash, did you
get the blue screen or not , ... ?
btw, the mode 7 hack only works for approx. mode (so software approx. or psp accel.+approx. soft).
in other modes it should have no effect.

[stryke3]

Thanks panajev2001a, it's good to know that I'm not the only one noticing the performance drop. Although I would believe it's to the sound emulation. Even if I drop the quality from 44->11Khz, I would imagine if the emulation is more accurate, then of course it would run slower. I can't wait until they can offload sound emulation to the Media Engine

[alonzobots]

I can play 90% of my games at fairly steady 60 frames per second with the occasional dip when special effects kick in, such as mode 7 special effects, or crazy screen filling spells, but thats okay. My configurations is:

Will use super metroid as an example, but this is generalizable to nearly all games
Configuration running at steady 60frames per second
11khz sound (can get up to 44khz in some games, but not graphics intensive ones)
GFX Engine: PSP Accel.+Appr.Soft.
frameskip 0
rendering zoom 4/3
smoothing: on
video synch: off
CPU clock: 333 mhz

Full speed, the authors should be commended on their amazing work, I thought we wouldnt see emulators like this for at least a year or even two...xbox snes emulators took longer to get this good and have over twice the processing power and memory, bravo!

[rene]

i just cant understand you.
you always complaint about v0.2 be slower in same settings than 0.1

but you can get a near 100% speed emulator with sound as 11 khz and i didnt see a much difference in quality. try to get full speed in version 0.1 ... its impossible

Try to run final fantasy 3 in a village in version 0.2 with 11 khz sound and no transparency: ON and compared it to version 0.1 with any setting you want and you will never find a faster way.

im thinking you're unfair with yoyo and the version 0.2 You can only see the negative point and this version has great enhancements and this emulators is FREE . did you make any donations ?
Yoyo is doing his best. YOYO IS THE KING

seriously i think only this guy can do a snes emulator fast like that on the psp. this is a miracle programmer.
( anyway loopy was great too on snesadvance for a 16 mhz gba )

try stop saying i will keep 0.1 instead of 0.2 this is very frustrating i think. yoyo has spent a lot of hours in this project. tell him encouragement HURRAY

sorry to defending you like that yoyo maybe i loving this snes emu too much LOL

dont get it too personnal people just think about it

YOYO IS THE KING YOYO IS THE KING YOYO IS THE KING YOYO IS THE KING YOYO IS THE KING YOYO IS THE KING YOYO IS THE KING YOYO IS THE KING YOYO IS THE KING YOYO IS THE KING YOYO IS THE KING YOYO IS THE KING YOYO IS THE KING YOYO IS THE KING YOYO IS THE KING YOYO IS THE KING YOYO IS THE KING YOYO IS THE KING YOYO IS THE KING YOYO IS THE KING YOYO IS THE KING YOYO IS THE KING YOYO IS THE KING YOYO IS THE KING YOYO IS THE KING YOYO IS THE KING YOYO IS THE KING YOYO IS THE KING YOYO IS THE KING YOYO IS THE KING

[rene]

i liked your message alonzobots
YOYO IS THE KING

[seikion]

rene said:

i liked your message alonzobots
YOYO IS THE KING

I'm starting to be scared... but yep, the Snes9xTYL rules.

[yoyofr]

lol , this is getting crazy...

I've just done some testing with sound & related stuff... I've put back some stuff from version 0.1 and the sound is really better. next version should be as fast (probably more) as 0.1 when sound is
emulated or on. (star ocean sounds okay, the mario 'benchmark' scene is always > 60fps, ...)

[medion]

Rene, there is nothing wrong with constructive criticism. Sure, turning off sound and transparencies makes FF6 run faster, but I like it at full settings. So 0.1 is better for me.

Yoyo is not the king, he's just a gifted programmer. People like Pana and I respect him enough to let him know where the weaknesses are so that he can work no them, rather than blindly praise him.

[rene]

im not blindy praised him. im just satisfied. i dont expect much more. but i understand you .


GO YOYO GO YOYO

CONTINUE YOUR GOOD WORK !!!!

its sure that a mix of the best of the 2 versions can be great

i just hope this emu dont become better than the real harware because i will sell my real snes system LOL

[panajev2001a]

admin said:

panajev2001a said:

One more thing: last night, just for fun I tried v0.2c with the "usual" settings (the ones I already posted in this thread) and I also enabled the Speed Hack for Mode 7 even though in Super Mario World it is not needed. Well, the game crashed and itwas the first time this emulator ever crashed on me.

could you give more details ? where did it crash, did you
get the blue screen or not , ... ?
btw, the mode 7 hack only works for approx. mode (so software approx. or psp accel.+approx. soft).
in other modes it should have no effect.
Just wanted to point this out as well before I forgot .

I tried it with PSP accelerated mode and I got it near the beginning of the level, not long after the "benchmark" section. The game froze and I think I got a Dark or Dark Gray Screen Of Death... sorry if this is the least thourough bug report, but I tend to be afraid for my Memory Stick and not to repeat crashes if I can avoid them.

I could try again I guess ...

To get out of it I did try the Home Button + Exit Program thing as it was the only thing (besides the Power Switch which I did not want to use but as a last resort) that responded. That was enough to save the Memory Stick from corruption as even though it did not bring me to the XMB screen it allowed me to reset the machine with the Power button without damages to the Memory Stick.

[panajev2001a]

admin said:

lol , this is getting crazy...

I've just done some testing with sound & related stuff... I've put back some stuff from version 0.1 and the sound is really better. next version should be as fast (probably more) as 0.1 when sound is
emulated or on. (star ocean sounds okay, the mario 'benchmark' scene is always > 60fps, ...)

Always 60 fps with the quasi-0.2d version or with bog standard 0.2 version (not 0.2c, which is a bit faster) ?

Just wanted to make sure I do not misunderstand you

[sukoshi]

It really looks like this version is nearly perfect.
I'm just waking up, testing it with the few roms i left on my memorystick (i'm on holidays )
Anyway, Congratulations.

Mes félicitations pour ce beau bout de code

[stryke3]

rene said:

i just cant understand you.
you always complaint about v0.2 be slower in same settings than 0.1

<snip>

try stop saying i will keep 0.1 instead of 0.2 this is very frustrating i think. yoyo has spent a lot of hours in this project. tell him encouragement HURRAY

sorry to defending you like that yoyo maybe i loving this snes emu too much LOL

dont get it too personnal people just think about it

<snip>

I don't think there's much wrong with saying I want to stick with 0.1. I've since cut down the sound quality (lately I haven't been able to use my headphones anyway), and I've gone with 0.2c. I simply wanted to let yoyofr know that I was having better performance with an earlier version of the software. This is not unusual, even if there is not a good explanation (which there is in this case).

I've been developing software for only a few years, but I already know that I cannot always see all the little problems/bugs in my programs - I need other people to find them and tell me about them. So I'm trying to extend that to yoyo. If I had said nothing from the beginning, then perhaps he would not have looked to 0.1 for ideas of improving rendering speed.

As for encouragement, I have encouraged him, and the fact that I am (and all of us are) using his emulator is probably very encouraging as well.

[prettzv]

You guys are my hero. I really love this emulator adn wish you the best of luck with future releases. .2c is pretty nice. If you get the sound worked out then everything will fall into place imo

[magicmascarade]

Hi yoyofr and thank you very much for your hard work! Your emulator is very good and most of my favorite snes games work on it

But there is one exception, I don't know if somebody else told you:

Another World (or "Out of this World" in the US version) stop working just after the intro (the loading clock starts after the intro, then a black screen freeze the game). I took many version of the game everywhere, but the result is always the same, so I guess that it comes from the emulator.

I like so much this game, it's the "prequel" (not really in fact) of Flashback and is one of my best game ever, so it's a little painful not to play it on my PSP Anyway never mind if you can't resolve the problem, I can still live with it. I'm so happy to use the emulator for other games!

Thank you yoyofr for reading my text, and for your great work!

[yoyofr]

yeah, I know very well another world from eric chahi, I used to play/finish it a billion times on my amiga
it's short but so well designed!
anyway, I need to try this, probably an issue with snes9x core to fix. meanwhile perhaps it's playable in amiga emulator (psp uae)... moreover amiga version of the game is the best!

[magicmascarade]

Thanks for your answer yoyofr! (well I'm french too, but never mind, it's good to speak in english ;D )

I discovered the game with the snes, I didn't have an amiga, so it's good to know it, thank you for your advice, I'll take the amiga version. Anyway, if you can resolve the problem, it would be nice