jvidal
Posts: 8
Joined: Sun May 29, 2022 3:56 am

Astro Blaster Runs too slow

Hi!

At some point in the last 6 or 7 versions, Astro Blaster started running slower than it should. Other much more demanding games, like Xevious 3D/G (for example) run at full speed with no frame skipping, Does anyone know what's happening?

Astro Blaster used to run at full speed for years and years until something got screwed up and now it doesn't. It's virtually unplayble now, it skips 8 to 10 frames, which causes a lot of sprites to disappear or flicker and it also screws up the sound (and speech).
mhoes
Posts: 186
Joined: Wed Oct 26, 2016 12:26 pm

Re: Astro Blaster Runs too slow

jvidal wrote: Mon May 30, 2022 1:43 am Hi!

At some point in the last 6 or 7 versions, Astro Blaster started running slower than it should. Other much more demanding games, like Xevious 3D/G (for example) run at full speed with no frame skipping, Does anyone know what's happening?

Astro Blaster used to run at full speed for years and years until something got screwed up and now it doesn't. It's virtually unplayble now, it skips 8 to 10 frames, which causes a lot of sprites to disappear or flicker and it also screws up the sound (and speech).
Looks like it's this report over at mame testers ?
https://mametesters.org/view.php?id=7873
If so, then it is a known issue, and it appears you need a better performing CPU to play the the game with newer mame versions.
jvidal
Posts: 8
Joined: Sun May 29, 2022 3:56 am

Re: Astro Blaster Runs too slow

Did you read my post?
I said games like Xevious 3D/G run AT FULL SPEED. Why would a Z80 based game run slower than this one??? it doesn't make any sense.
If my PC can run a much more demanding game, like Xevious 3D/G, why on earth would it struggle to run Astro Blaster?????

Oh, and BTW, my PC runs on a AMD FX-8320 CPU 8 cores @3,5Ghz.
MAME's CPU usage (as shown in task manager) is around 15% while Running Astro Blaster, so the CPU is most definitely capable of running it.

This is a bug in the driver, not a CPU issue.
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Tafoid
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Re: Astro Blaster Runs too slow

jvidal wrote: Mon May 30, 2022 10:55 pm Did you read my post?
I said games like Xevious 3D/G run AT FULL SPEED. Why would a Z80 based game run slower than this one??? it doesn't make any sense.
If my PC can run a much more demanding game, like Xevious 3D/G, why on earth would it struggle to run Astro Blaster?????

Oh, and BTW, my PC runs on a AMD FX-8320 CPU 8 cores @3,5Ghz.
MAME's CPU usage (as shown in task manager) is around 15% while Running Astro Blaster, so the CPU is most definitely capable of running it.

This is a bug in the driver, not a CPU issue.

mhoes is correct. Just because you may not like the answer, doesn't change the answer. Netlist discrete audio change from the pre-recorded SAMPLES is the reason for the slowdown. All machines using netlist discrete audio may simply take a lot of processor power to pull off.

If you want to use the latest version, the best suggestions I can offer is to set autoframeskip to ON to handle some drops and run without enhancements/shaders such as HLSL/GLSL or any any other BGFX chain. Otherwise, use MAME 0.223 for this game at least, as it uses the old SAMPLES which you may be more used to that doesn't have the processor requirements.
jvidal
Posts: 8
Joined: Sun May 29, 2022 3:56 am

Re: Astro Blaster Runs too slow

But, like I said, MAME is using less than 15% of CPU, so my CPU has plenty of spare power, why isn't MAME using it??????
Why doesn't MAME take advantage of multi-core CPUs?

PD: version .223 runs astrob at full speed, as it was before (just tested it).
mhoes
Posts: 186
Joined: Wed Oct 26, 2016 12:26 pm

Re: Astro Blaster Runs too slow

jvidal wrote: Tue May 31, 2022 12:37 am PD: version .223 runs astrob at full speed, as it was before (just tested it).
That is as expected. The described changes were only introduced in 0.224.
jvidal wrote: Tue May 31, 2022 12:37 am But, like I said, MAME is using less than 15% of CPU, so my CPU has plenty of spare power, why isn't MAME using it??????
Why doesn't MAME take advantage of multi-core CPUs?
MAME's performance is - for better or worse - best helped by single core performance.
mhoes
Posts: 186
Joined: Wed Oct 26, 2016 12:26 pm

Re: Astro Blaster Runs too slow

jvidal wrote: Mon May 30, 2022 10:55 pm Oh, and BTW, my PC runs on a AMD FX-8320 CPU 8 cores @3,5Ghz.
I couldn't help but check, but this CPU seems to have been released back in 2012 Q4 (almost 10 years ago now), so it's not really a new CPU in technology terms.

For example, here's a performance comparison of your 10 year old AMD CPU versus my 2 year old Intel CPU :

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/In ... 3747vs1782

For what it's worth: On my PC, with MAME 0.244, astrob runs at about an average speed of 99.82%.
jvidal
Posts: 8
Joined: Sun May 29, 2022 3:56 am

Re: Astro Blaster Runs too slow

Yes,I know it's not a new CPU, but it's still more than capable!

What really baffles me is why MAME isn't optimized to take advantage of multi-core cpus. Having a single threaded app in 2022 is somewhat absurd, considerign multi-core is the way. Most CPUs are adding cores, not speed.
mhoes
Posts: 186
Joined: Wed Oct 26, 2016 12:26 pm

Re: Astro Blaster Runs too slow

jvidal wrote: Tue May 31, 2022 10:25 pm Yes,I know it's not a new CPU, but it's still more than capable!
I get what you are saying, but a decade old CPU is a loong time ago in a meaningful technical sense.
jvidal wrote: Tue May 31, 2022 10:25 pm multi-core is the way. Most CPUs are adding cores, not speed.
Although I might agree with you in general, it is also not entirely correct: you might notice the difference in CPU single thread performance in the link I posted, between your AMD and my Intel: my 2 year old Intel almost performs twice as much as your 10 year old AMD for single core/thread performance.

Anyway, how either of us feel about any of this is not really relevant: it is what it is, and we need to act accordingly.
jvidal
Posts: 8
Joined: Sun May 29, 2022 3:56 am

Re: Astro Blaster Runs too slow

Still, I believe the "netlist audio" implementation in MAME is heavily un-optimized. It's not reasonable -at least to me- that a 4.5+ Ghz CPU would be required to emulate discrete circuitry from 40+ years ago...

but, well. what are you gonna do...

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