NintendulatorNRS running slow with sound enabled

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prototector
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NintendulatorNRS running slow with sound enabled

Post by prototector »

I wanted to try some of the obscure bootleg games with this emulator. When sound is enabled, the FPS is 40 or lower. Disables it brings it back to regular speed. This was with version 0.975. On the latest, 0.981, the speed does approach 60fps but still often dips.
Is there a setting to fix this, or is it just related to my hardware?
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Quietust
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Re: NintendulatorNRS running slow with sound enabled

Post by Quietust »

I can't speak for NintendulatorNRS, but standard Nintendulator attempts to run as fast as possible when sound is turned off (I get around 204fps on my machine in version 0.985), so if you're only getting 60fps with sound turned off, your hardware is probably too weak to handle it. Enabling frameskip might allow it to run at full speed, though it won't be as smooth, and certain configurations disallow frameskip entirely (such as having a Zapper connected).

It would help to know exactly how fast of a computer you're trying to run this on - if it's a netbook or a 10 year-old laptop, it's probably not going to be good enough.
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prototector
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Re: NintendulatorNRS running slow with sound enabled

Post by prototector »

Kind of close to that, yeah. 8 year old laptop, 6 GB RAM, 2.5GHz, i5.
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Quietust
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Re: NintendulatorNRS running slow with sound enabled

Post by Quietust »

prototector wrote: Wed Apr 22, 2020 2:03 pm Kind of close to that, yeah. 8 year old laptop, 6 GB RAM, 2.5GHz, i5.
What generation of i5 (i.e. what number afterwards)? If it's a 1st or 2nd generation, then that could easily be too slow, but a 3rd gen or newer ought to be plenty.

For comparison, I get 201fps on a 3.6GHz i7-4790 and 125fps on a 1.7GHz i5-3317U.
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lidnariq
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Re: NintendulatorNRS running slow with sound enabled

Post by lidnariq »

I used to use a Athlon/1333 for the longest time; Nintendulator ran at almost-full-speed on that machine (under linux via wine). With sound, I'm pretty certain. I'm hard pressed to imagine any CPU from intel's iX series not significantly outperforming it, unless it's in a laptop, on battery, with aggressive power reduction...
prototector
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Re: NintendulatorNRS running slow with sound enabled

Post by prototector »

It's an i5-3210M, could that be the reason?
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Quietust
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Re: NintendulatorNRS running slow with sound enabled

Post by Quietust »

prototector wrote: Wed Apr 22, 2020 4:00 pm It's an i5-3210M, could that be the reason?
According to the benchmarks I've found, that CPU is slightly faster than the i5-3317U - if you're having poor framerate problems, it might be an issue with your video drivers (e.g. it might be forcing VSync) or something else on your system.

Out of curiosity, how does standard Nintendulator perform compared to NintendulatorNRS?
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prototector
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Re: NintendulatorNRS running slow with sound enabled

Post by prototector »

With Nintendulator, I get consistent 59-60fps with sound enabled. But others are able to use NRS without this slow-down.

Also, I compared the configs of both and can't see what's different between them that could cause this.
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Gilbert
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Re: NintendulatorNRS running slow with sound enabled

Post by Gilbert »

Have you checked the power setting of the laptop?
prototector
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Re: NintendulatorNRS running slow with sound enabled

Post by prototector »

It's currently on Balanced, the other option is Power Saver.
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