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Input lag in ME?

 
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denzilla
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PostPosted: Sat May 10, 2008 5:11 pm    Post subject: Input lag in ME? Reply with quote

I was reading the release notes to Ootake 1.49 and the emu author speaks of (if I'm reading it right) how the controller response time isn't as good in ME:

Quote:
2008/05/07 1.49 released
+ This will be an important talk for the future of "PC Engine(TG16)"
emulator. Please read though it is my not good English Language.
+ "Ootake" is not satisfied with "the game was able to be started".
"The game can enjoy even ending" is a target. Therefore, Ootake sticks to
detailed reproduction. Especially, it sticks to the reproduction of
"Reactive speed of the Joypad".
+ Please do seriously and compare the Shooting & Action game by
"MagicEngine(Charge)" and "Ootake(Free)". Perhaps, almost playing by
"Ootake(the delay after the pad is operated is minimum)" will be able to
take a high score. I think the difference of the operation feeling to be
felt.
+ This greatly influences "Played happiness", too. Though it becomes
a severe opinion, it will not be able to enjoy the game enough by
"MagicEngine(the delay from the pad operation to the reaction is large)".
The delay also has danger of making it to the one to which even
"Evaluation of the game" was mistaken. Therefore, "Ootake" is checked
always severely "Whether it is possible to enjoy it by the sense similar
to a real machine or not?". Because it is a respect of minimum to a past
masterpiece "PC Engine(TG16)" game.
About the delay measures of "Ootake"


I haven't done any tests personally but it has peaked my curiosity. Has anyone noticed input lag in ME vs. other PCE emulators?
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Danjuro
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PostPosted: Sat May 10, 2008 6:20 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Not other emulators, Ootake ;)

Kaminari will have a fun time explaining the intrinsequecievities of all this.

The author wasn't trying to start a flamewar (or so I hope... ;), but just stating where his emulator was going. Obviously it aims to be the PC-Engine's Meka.

Without entering a philosophy contest about what emulation should be, I'd just say that both emulators have different goals (perfect emulation for one, high-fidelity and ease of use on the widest range of computers for the other).
I can tell you, as a "low-end" Pentium 4 user, the choice is made for me, but I guess I would still stick to the emulator I am playing ME games (Edit : whoops, lapsus!) on. But in the end, this is all personal. If you are happy, why ask your neighbours why you shouldn't be ;)
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denzilla
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PostPosted: Sat May 10, 2008 9:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I don't think he was trying to start anything nor am I on a hunt to find something wrong with ME. However, if there is joystick response lag in ME, then it should corrected. Fixing this wouldn't be a threat to ME's goals/philosophy. USB based PC controllers already suffer from an 8ms input lag due to how USB technology works so we don't need additional overhead here.
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Kaminari
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PostPosted: Sun May 11, 2008 1:16 am    Post subject: Re: Input lag in ME? Reply with quote

denzilla wrote:
I haven't done any tests personally


Well, maybe you should ;)

Quote:
if there is joystick response lag in ME, then it should corrected.


But you never noticed any response lag, did you? If you are content with the way it works, why should it be fixed?

This is merely a developer's concern. The average user (no offense intended) will never spot the difference. Suffice to say that nobody in the history of ME has ever complained about input lag in the emulator. That must tell something, no?

That being said, Kitao Nakamura does have a point. Hardcore caravan fans who know their game and their machine inside out will notice that there's substantially more response lag in ME than in Ootake, which definitely influences their scores, or at the very least influences the way they have to play on the emu in order to get closer to their "real life" scores.

Ootake strives for complete low level hardware accuracy, which is very commendable. But (as Kitao agrees) it comes up at a heavy performance price. ME's approach is rather different. Its requirements are much lighter. And while David has often worked through reverse-engineering (and even simply looking at / listening to the games), the compatibility rate is at least as high as Ootake. Call it a compromise, but it's a compromise that works for most users.

Then again, both emulators are excellent in their own rights and should satisfy everyone's needs (except maybe hackers, but I'm told Mednafen is their emulator of choice).

Kitao's open letter not only talks about input lag and how to reduce it, it also asks the question: should ME be open-sourced?

That's a good question.

ME has been in the business for over a decade, and enjoys a sort of "monopoly". Is it because it's closed source? Personally, I don't think so. David is very knowledgeable about the PCE, but there are a fair number of people out there who know as much and could (or even did) try to build a PCE emulator from scratch. None of those alternative projects have gone very far however, and most of them died a long time ago. Is that the fault of David? Is he responsible for "killing" the competition by not sharing his work?

Of course no. Ootake proves it. Actually, Ootake is so advanced and documented that I'm pretty certain Kitao doesn't even need to look at the source of ME in order to learn more about the PCE. While it's always harder to work alone and it might be like re-inventing the wheel, Ootake demonstrates that the only problem we've always had in the PCE community had to do with long term motivation and perseverance. Truth be told, Ootake is the only other PCE emulator that I would gladly recommend as the best alternative to ME.

I will end this discussion by pointing out that open-sourcing has, unfortunately, rarely benefited any emulation project in the long term. Just look at VisualBoy Advance. It's a total failure. Open-sourcing the code didn't gather the GBA developers into one nest, very much the contrary. All of a sudden, everyone wanted to add their own features and released their own builds. It just contributed to chaos and incompatibility from one development branch to another.

Some other OS projects simply lag behind or are even left semi-abandoned (Gens, SNES9x, Project64...). Open source is not the miracle solution. It works sometimes for some projects (ScummVM), it miserably fails on others (FreeSCI).

Ultimately, David is the sole owner of his code and decides what is best for it. That's the beauty of capitalism. If you don't like it, don't buy it. You could of course steal it, but that's a whole different story which doesn't have much to do with capitalism (or so we hope...).

Anyway, Danjuro beat me to it with far fewer words and more cleverness ;)
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denzilla
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PostPosted: Sun May 11, 2008 2:08 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I wasn't even going to get into the open source thing Wink Like you, I see no point in David releasing ME's source code. The hardware is pretty well known so its not like David's holding secrets hostage. There is nothing wrong with someone making money on software they spend time working on.

As for testing, I've been playing Ninja Gaiden in both ME and Ootake and the controls do feel more responsive in Ootake. I find it noticeable when performing precisely timed jump/slashes. The question I have for you is why would you come at me like I'm being all demanding and unreasonable inquiring about something like this? Who wouldn't want more responsive controls if it were possible? Maybe its only a small tweak David has to make....Sheesh.... Anyway, nothing I posted was intended to be a complaint or incite a flamefest. Just a simple inquiry. I'm a fan of both emus. Observations in one emu could possibly make the other that much better.
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dmichel
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PostPosted: Sun May 11, 2008 6:07 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The biggest problem seems to be DirectX, from Kitao's finding DirectInput above version 5 adds 2 to 4 frames of delay.

I'm not surprised though, I'm always fighting DX, it works well but it can not be used for anything real time, it adds latency everywhere.

ME uses DirectInput8, going back is not too difficult but I can't just do a recompile as I'm using a few features of DI8. I think I can include both a DI8 and DI5 driver in ME and make them selectable from an option in the pce.ini, I will see what I can do. Smile
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denzilla
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PostPosted: Sun May 11, 2008 3:49 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Would reverting to an earlier version of directinput affect compatibility with Vista and what features would we lose by reverting? It may not be worth it.
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Kaminari
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PostPosted: Sun May 11, 2008 3:58 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

denzilla wrote:
Who wouldn't want more responsive controls if it were possible?


Don't get me wrong, I don't think your request is unreasonable at all. Actually I'm all for it as well, providing it's feasible and not taxing too much on requirements. I was simply demonstrating that ME is not fondamentally flawed just because input response isn't (relatively) as good as Ootake, and as such it doesn't need to be "fixed" because of this :)
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Mednafen
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PostPosted: Sun May 11, 2008 4:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ootake's code contains many hacks to low-level emulation behaviour depending on the game detected as being loaded, and other general voodoo hacks(including its CDROM SCSI emulation code being extremely hackish).

Saying that an emulator strives for "complete low level hardware accuracy" when it is nowhere near it, and could even be argued to be moving away from it, is inaccurate. :b
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David Shadoff
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PostPosted: Sun May 11, 2008 5:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I think both statements are probably true:

- On the one hand, Ootake may have various hacks to allow games to run properly (particularly on CDROM games),

BUT

- On the other hand, I have seen many updates where Kentaro Ishihara has provided new timing information for the core, and Kitao Nakamura has immediately integrated it, and made adjustments or removed no-longer-necessary hacks.

Basically, I just don't think that anybody knows "everything" about this hardware; we are still discovering new information. And I'm very happy to see that the whole community is very open with respect to sharing this information (ie. answering questions, discussing in #utopiasoft, and open source projects).
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dmichel
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PostPosted: Sun May 11, 2008 5:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

denzilla wrote:
Would reverting to an earlier version of directinput affect compatibility with Vista and what features would we lose by reverting? It may not be worth it.


Not sure about Vista, but in all cases I won't remove the current DirectInput8 driver, I would just add a second driver for DirectInput5.

The only feature we will lose with DI5 is the ability to display the image of a gamepad in the gamepad config panel, but this feature is not supported by most gamepad manufacturers anyway. Sad
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