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Magic Engine no longer works (help!!!)

 
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Majestic_Lizard
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 06, 2006 10:54 pm    Post subject: Magic Engine no longer works (help!!!) Reply with quote

The games on my Magic Engine emulator (me100-english-pr10) suddenly
started running extremely slow for no apparent reason. No other emulator
has this problem on my machine.

My specs:
Athlon 64 3200+
Nvidia 6800 128 meg
2 gigs of ram
NO SPYWARE or VIRUSES
Windows XP SP2

About a month ago the latest version of the Magic Engine began to run at about 12 frames per second for most games. I changed the driver from Direct X to Open GL and this solved the problem until I rebooted my machine. Now while the DirectX mode runs at about 12 frames, the Open GL mode runs only slightly faster. Changing back does nothing.

I've recently downloaded an older version (me099-english-beta4) and it
works fine but I like some of the new features on the newer version. I PAID FOR THIS EMULATOR. It is registered in my name.

How do I make this emulator run correctly on my computer? It doesn't
make any sense. My computer is roughly as fast as P4 at 2.6 GHz. It
shouldn't have any problems running an emulator for an 8-bit/16-bit
console. If it can emulate the Sony Playstation and play Doom 3 at 60
FPS this should not be happening.

Thank you.
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Majestic_Lizard
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 07, 2006 12:02 am    Post subject: Little more info Reply with quote

Just a little more information on this system.

It can emulate the Sony Playstation, Genesis, 32X, Super Nintendo, Nintendo 64, and Jaguar with no problems.

It can play games like Doom 3, Far Cry, and Prey at 40 to 60 frames on medium/high settings. It has the latest Direct X drivers and the video card is Direct X 9 compliant.

It has about 50 gigs or hard disk space left. Its been defragged. It has few programs running in the background (only Norton).

It was able to use this emulator perfecty until recently. I have no idea what caused this problem. Very strange.
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dmichel
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 07, 2006 1:56 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Slow down with OpenGL could mean that hardware acceleration was disabled. Double click on the log.txt file and check the first few lines, if it say 'microsoft something' then OpenGL runs in software mode.

About DirectX slow down, well, I have no idea why it does that, I'm aware of only one issue with MagicEngine and DirectX, when the emulator is run in windowed mode and vsync is enabled there can be slowdowns but in all other modes (fullscreen or vsync off) it should work fine. I have a much slower video card and PC and all is ok here, I always get 60fps.
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Majestic_Lizard
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 07, 2006 2:29 am    Post subject: About that Reply with quote

Hardware accelleration is enabled and set to full according to the video settings. There is no mention of "microsoft something-or-other" in the log file.

This is what it says in my log at the top (DIRECTX):
Quote:
[VIDEO INIT]
driver... DirectX
device: NVIDIA GeForce 6800 v14.10.9147 (HAL)

[INPUT INIT]
opening direct input DLL... OK
init direct input... OK
scanning gamepad device(s)...
- gamepad 0 : MP-8866 Dual USB Joypad (buttons=12, axes=4, povs=1)
- gamepad 1 : MP-8866 Dual USB Joypad (buttons=12, axes=4, povs=1)
found 2 gamepad(s)


This is what it says in my log (OPEN GL):
Quote:
[VIDEO INIT]
driver... OpenGL
renderer: GeForce 6800/PCI/SSE2/3DNOW!
vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
version: 2.0.3

[INPUT INIT]
opening direct input DLL... OK
init direct input... OK
scanning gamepad device(s)...
- gamepad 0 : MP-8866 Dual USB Joypad (buttons=12, axes=4, povs=1)
- gamepad 1 : MP-8866 Dual USB Joypad (buttons=12, axes=4, povs=1)
found 2 gamepad(s)


Something is causing it to slow down.

And it is slow in every setting.
*Windowed (basic)- slow
*Full screen (basic)- slow
*Win or Full (high res)- slow
*Win or Full (linear filter)-slow

Any combination is of settings is slow. DirectX or OpenGl. Both slow.

The wierd thing is that there are exceptions. R-Type and Sidearms play at a normal speed. Yet all other roms play slowly. Yet in the 99 beta variant of Magic Engine ALL OF MY ROMS PLAY. At least I still have that. And it runs on my 300 MHz machines.

Weirder still, this emulator worked perfectly just a few weeks ago and in DirectX mode no less. I just decided to play Legendary Axe a few days ago and was in for a rude awakening.

I can go back to that 99 Beta version and it plays fine. I would rather use the new version. Could it be the refresh rate somehow?

I'm out of guesses on this. It makes no sense to me.

The two things I like about this new version are:
1) the bilinear filtering, which makes the emulation more accurate in my opinion.
2) the addition of png files. I made thumbnails of most of the US and Japanese PC Engine games so that you can actually see the cover of the game when you go to play it. It took me considerable time to compile that.
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Kaminari
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 07, 2006 10:20 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Sounds like you've changed/updated/downgraded a driver somewhere.

Have you reinstalled your OS recently, or reinstalled DirectX, or changed your graphic driver? Make sure your DX version is 9.0c and your graphic driver comes from nVidia, NOT from Microsoft Update. And disable vsync if it's on (Video Options in ME).

Oh yeah, and make sure you didn't activate one of the Slow Modes (look at the Keyboard Options in ME). Though I don't think the Slow Mode state is saved between two sessions, but you never know.

Post your config file if that doesn't help.
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dmichel
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 07, 2006 12:18 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Graphics drivers look OK, it's strange... may be the problem is elsewhere then. When MagicEngine runs (with vsync and hires off) how many % of CPU does it eat? On a machine such as yours it should be 10-15%.
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Odonadon
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 08, 2006 5:48 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Kaminari wrote:
Sounds like you've changed/updated/downgraded a driver somewhere.

Have you reinstalled your OS recently, or reinstalled DirectX, or changed your graphic driver? Make sure your DX version is 9.0c and your graphic driver comes from nVidia, NOT from Microsoft Update. And disable vsync if it's on (Video Options in ME).

Oh yeah, and make sure you didn't activate one of the Slow Modes (look at the Keyboard Options in ME). Though I don't think the Slow Mode state is saved between two sessions, but you never know.

Post your config file if that doesn't help.


Kaminari is right, this sounds like an issue with something other than Magic Engine or your PC's power. What other software have you installed recently? It could be something as simple as Microsoft's stupid spyware utility slowing things down. What has changed since you last saw it at full speed?

OD
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Rockman
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 09, 2006 6:17 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Do you run an antivirus program. In particular Norton or McAfee/AOL. These programs make some computers run half as fast or worse.
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Majestic_Lizard
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PostPosted: Sun May 23, 2010 2:55 am    Post subject: Four years later.... Reply with quote

It turned out to be a problem with the Lexmark printer driver which started using up 50 percent of my system resources at all times and embedded itself in the print spool service. Even uninstalling the printer did not help. The registry had to be edited to remove all traces of the drivers.

Go figure.
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Tru
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PostPosted: Mon May 24, 2010 10:47 pm    Post subject: Re: Four years later.... Reply with quote

Majestic_Lizard wrote:
It turned out to be a problem with the Lexmark printer driver which started using up 50 percent of my system resources at all times and embedded itself in the print spool service. Even uninstalling the printer did not help. The registry had to be edited to remove all traces of the drivers.

Go figure.


lol... took 4 years to figure the problem out? Or just 4 years to remember you had this post?

Either way, glad you got it working...
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Majestic_Lizard
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PostPosted: Tue May 25, 2010 6:17 pm    Post subject: What can be learned from this experience. Reply with quote

Quote:
lol... took 4 years to figure the problem out? Or just 4 years to remember you had this post?

Neither.

Actually, I got a message in my email stating that I had a message on this website. I logged in and found that no one had sent me an email. Not sure why I was sent an email from the Magic Engine site. I then checked the forums to see if it was in regard to post that I made and found that the last message I left was four years ago. However, I remembered that I solved the problem and figured why not respond.

The computer in question was upgraded to a 7600 GT, then to an X1950 Pro (on par with a 7950 GT), then sold for $200 in 2008 to a friend. It now has Windows 7 on it.

The thing to remember about this is that when you install a printer, it is best to install the printer driver ALONE through the device manager, rather than install the entire printer software suite. With HP and Lexmark printers, there are often invasive and resource intensive utilities that come with the printer software suite that should be avoided, just as you would avoid any other form of malware.
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