Destruction Derby for DOS slows down a lot under Windows 9x

Discussion of development and patch submission.
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Battler
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Destruction Derby for DOS slows down a lot under Windows 9x

Post by Battler »

This is on a Pentium 75, Award 430VX PCI, recompiler enabled. It happens starting from this commit: https://bitbucket.org/pcem_emulator/pce ... ba296c099e , before that commit, it was fast.
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leilei
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Re: Destruction Derby for DOS slows down a lot under Windows 9x

Post by leilei »

Cannot reproduce. Getting a consistent 100% on P75, PMMX233, PMMX300 under Win98SE with Mach64 / AWE32
Battler
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Re: Destruction Derby for DOS slows down a lot under Windows 9x

Post by Battler »

- leilei: Well, I have two people who claim they experience this slowdown. Maybe it only happens on some host CPU's? Because from what I know, I don't experience any myself, either, but they swear they do.
TheMadLynx
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Re: Destruction Derby for DOS slows down a lot under Windows 9x

Post by TheMadLynx »

And I am one of them. Some DOS programs shows abnormal low performance drops (15-30% with P200) with any pentium cpu selected in actual PCem builds. I've tried Dreams to Reality and Pyl (Dust) with the PCem from 18.07.2017 (commit 16a453b). Performance stutters most noticeable at a game launch. Also in Pyl this could be easily observed anytime you bring the main menu from the game. Status window shows the drop in Real speed MIPS, but effective clock remains stable. There is no such issue with the public PCem v12 release. My host config is Intel Core i5-2500K, 16GB RAM, Nvidia GeForce GTX 780Ti, Win 10 x64.
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omarsis81
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Re: Destruction Derby for DOS slows down a lot under Windows 9x

Post by omarsis81 »

I guess Sarah will ask for the config file, so please upload it =)
TheMadLynx
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Re: Destruction Derby for DOS slows down a lot under Windows 9x

Post by TheMadLynx »

And here it is: the config file and some screens to illustrate the problem. As I can say it is not very game specific. Dreams to Reality lags much the same.
Attachments
Pyl loading stutter
Pyl loading stutter
Pyl_loading.jpg (162.54 KiB) Viewed 19912 times
Pyl game running
Pyl game running
Pyl_game.jpg (220.33 KiB) Viewed 19912 times
test_P166.cfg
Config file from current latest compiled PCem (e193456)
(871 Bytes) Downloaded 422 times
Last edited by TheMadLynx on Fri 25 Aug, 2017 6:03 pm, edited 2 times in total.
TheMadLynx
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Re: Destruction Derby for DOS slows down a lot under Windows 9x

Post by TheMadLynx »

And some additional screens.
Attachments
Fresh Win98SE just loaded
Fresh Win98SE just loaded
w98_loaded.jpg (123.48 KiB) Viewed 19911 times
Pyl main menu stutter
Pyl main menu stutter
Pyl_menu.jpg (232.61 KiB) Viewed 19911 times
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SarahWalker
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Re: Destruction Derby for DOS slows down a lot under Windows 9x

Post by SarahWalker »

What toolchain are you using? 32-bit or 64-bit?

Could you also provide the main pcem.cfg in addition to the machine specific one.
jznomoney
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Re: Destruction Derby for DOS slows down a lot under Windows 9x

Post by jznomoney »

It doesn't seem to lag on me but I have a 4790k.
Battler
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Re: Destruction Derby for DOS slows down a lot under Windows 9x

Post by Battler »

The two people that reported the slowdown to me both use 32-bit binaries. Not sure what TheMadLynx used.
TheMadLynx
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Re: Destruction Derby for DOS slows down a lot under Windows 9x

Post by TheMadLynx »

It is 32 bit PCem.exe built with Makefile.mingw And here is pcem.cfg attached.
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pcem.cfg
(326 Bytes) Downloaded 434 times
TheMadLynx
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Re: Destruction Derby for DOS slows down a lot under Windows 9x

Post by TheMadLynx »

Just for the sake of comparison here are screenshots of the same game running on the same machine with the last public PCem v12 build (Feb-17). Overall performance is much better and more consistent.
Attachments
Pyl main menu
Pyl main menu
Pyl_menu.jpg (226.85 KiB) Viewed 19835 times
Pyl game loading
Pyl game loading
Pyl_loading.jpg (154.58 KiB) Viewed 19835 times
Pyl gameplay
Pyl gameplay
Pyl_ingame.jpg (219.34 KiB) Viewed 19835 times
TheMadLynx
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Re: Destruction Derby for DOS slows down a lot under Windows 9x

Post by TheMadLynx »

And here are the config file for public PCem v12.
Attachments
pcem.cfg
PCem config file
(936 Bytes) Downloaded 427 times
Win98SE just loaded
Win98SE just loaded
Win98_loaded.jpg (106.81 KiB) Viewed 19835 times
Last edited by TheMadLynx on Thu 31 Aug, 2017 11:36 am, edited 1 time in total.
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leilei
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Re: Destruction Derby for DOS slows down a lot under Windows 9x

Post by leilei »

V12's release is profile-optimized and the builds I do use -flto (link-time optimization, nowhere near pgo-speeds but close enough for quick testing and it's safe to use). Have you tried -flto?
Battler
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Re: Destruction Derby for DOS slows down a lot under Windows 9x

Post by Battler »

- leilei: That has nothing to do with it... the first person that reported the bug was given a binary compiled by me on around March, with no -flto or anything, and it was at 100%. A build from around June, compiled with the exact same flags, has the slowdown. SA1988 had the same result, and he even pinpointed the exact commit that introduced it.
Maybe the fact you use -flto masks the problem. Try compiling a non-flto build and running it.
Solstar82
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Re: Destruction Derby for DOS slows down a lot under Windows 9x

Post by Solstar82 »

win 98 here, i get extreme slowdown in dos games, sometimes even around 4%.not always during gameplay but in menus for example or during loading.using win 98 with 64 mb, voodoo 2 and pentium 133 mmx

my main pc is I7 haswell 3.6 ghz, 16 gb ram and a geforce gtx 1050
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SarahWalker
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Re: Destruction Derby for DOS slows down a lot under Windows 9x

Post by SarahWalker »

I was never able to reproduce this issue, but rev 932 addresses what I _think_ the bug was. TheMadLynx, if you're still around, could you try this commit?
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leilei
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Re: Destruction Derby for DOS slows down a lot under Windows 9x

Post by leilei »

Didn't try Derby (couldn't reproduce it earlier) but that last commit did fix up some other recompiler chokers:
Jagged Alliance
Red Alert
One Must Fall 2097
Puyo Puyo 2
STTNG A Final Unity
Warcraft II
(and probably a lot more that choked Pcem's recompiler at a static screen or miles sound systems)
ecksemmess
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Re: Destruction Derby for DOS slows down a lot under Windows 9x

Post by ecksemmess »

Does this same commit improve the issue of the recompiler choking at the Windows desktop, DOS prompt, etc.? Can't compile the latest version to check at the moment, but I'm curious. If so, that's a huge step forward!
TheMadLynx
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Re: Destruction Derby for DOS slows down a lot under Windows 9x

Post by TheMadLynx »

SarahWalker wrote:I was never able to reproduce this issue, but rev 932 addresses what I _think_ the bug was. TheMadLynx, if you're still around, could you try this commit?
I've tried Pyl with 9b72b24 commit. It is not perfect but definitely a huge improvement. Game gets into main menu almost instantly, like on real hardware. Gameplay is smooth enough, like on real hardware too. But there is still odd slowdown in the main menu opened when the game is running. Nevertheless, it is a lot faster than the previous build I've tried.
Attachments
PCem_Pyl_9b72b24_.jpg
PCem_Pyl_9b72b24_.jpg (189.89 KiB) Viewed 18928 times
PCem_Pyl_9b72b24.jpg
PCem_Pyl_9b72b24.jpg (188.4 KiB) Viewed 18928 times
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