Raine + DOS = bad sound

[Tux]

In this case I doubt triple buffer would ever be fixable.

But notice also that it slows things only if you enable vsync, and it's not really required for most games (it's about removing distortions which appear mainly during horizontal scrolling). At least with some normal display, but even on my old 17'' crt I didn't have any distortion with most games while not using vsync.

 

Also about speed some neogeo games probably use more than 256 colors, watch the Pal: display in the rdtsc display (f11 3 times), if it's not 0% it means there are more than 256 colors to display and it becomes unefficient in 8bpp. But of course 16bpp will probably be slower in dos.

It's very different with modern rendering... !

 

EDIT : I just added the ability to save frame_skip setting in games.cfg, but actually the ability to save screen settings in games.cfg is disabled by default and there is a comment in the changelog from antiriad who says he didn't like it. Since this setting has remained disabled for ever actually, I'll keep it disabled by default and you'll have to edit raine.cfg to set manually save_game_screen_setting = 1 (it should already be inside with = 0). (I have no idea why he didn't like it, and nobody never needed to use it in all this time so I don't feel like investigating now).

 

For now it saves most screen settings but not frame skip so you'll need an updated binary for that...

I added the setting to save per game screen settings to the gui, but not the allegro gui !

Edited August 21, 2015 by Tux

[theelf]

Hi tux, yes, i always enable save_game_screen_setting manually in cfg

A option in cfg for save frameskip will be great, no need to add to the gui. I just give some ideas I think can be useful, at least, look useful to me jaja, but I understand the hard work you need to do, for a build and options maybe very few users will enjoy

I really appreciate you work in raine, thanks

I really wish more people came to the forum to say the same about raine, and specially dos version



By the way, I found two games that works in 0.50 and not in 0.64, both CPS2, Alien vs Predator and Darkstalkers

Alien give me black screen, darkstalkers a "RAM error"


The roms look correct, works in mame 106 and raine 0.5

Edited August 21, 2015 by theelf

[Tux]

No luck for you this time, both are working fine here with the latest released build (0.64.8-3).

For dstlk with 64 Mb of ram

avsp with 128 Mb of ram.

 

No idea what your problem is, but it's working here.

These 2 games were also affected by the stupid bug which affected cybots, but the same fix works for all of them.

Edited August 21, 2015 by Tux

[silvertrix]

theelf, buy new pc then resolve your problem with sound and speed issue. Don't use this old stuff anymore on present day and don't waste TUX time.

Edited August 24, 2015 by silvertrix

[Tux]

I don't see this as a waste of time don't forget emulators are about old stuff so you could say he is at the heart of the problem!

 

Ideally there should be someone in charge of the dos version, and I would be in charge of only the linux version, but it's far from ideal for now... !

Edited August 24, 2015 by Tux

[theelf]

Hi tux, finally after some working days, i have some free time to use in Raine

 

 

 

 

Sorry loing post, if you dont want to read all, i just ask two questions

 

 

1 - VSYNC in 16bpp is working?

2 - What refresh Raine use for CPS games?

Yesterday I went to my brother house, he have a nice computer running DOS, is a Pentium 4 3400mhz, ATI 9200, 512MB ram, he use for DOSmame, and everything works great, thats why I decide to test raine there


After some test, I realize about something... how do you enable VSYNC in 16/32bpp modes? in 8bpp vsync works, but in 16bpp and up, vsync dont do nothing...

We tried some vesa modes, without luck.


Now i came home, and in my celeron, i start testing 16bpp modes, but same problem here (NVIDIA TNT2), vsync only works in 8bpp modes

After giveup to make vsync working at 16bpp, I made some refresh for vesa modes, based on the info from arcade (59.629403Hz) to tried to lower the tearing

I make two, one is 59.60 very close from arcade, and the other, is double (59x62x2=119.24hz), i make 119.16, the closest i can




59.60hz



119.16hz

 

In Raine 59.60hz refresh give me a lot of tearing, but 119.16hz is much much better, and tearing almost gone


I tested 59.60hz resolution in callus.. and surprise! without VSYNC callus give me a smooth scroll....



After this test... this question came to my mind.... Raine use internally 60hz? or 59.62?

 

 

 

***In my house i have a real CPS2 Arcade with a SFZ2 board to test && a PC running XP connected to a CRT using RGB SCART, with mame, using custom modelines

When i say i have a sync problem, flicker screen or not smooth scrolling, is because i compare Raine dos with the CPS2 or PC RGB

 

 

Thanks

 

 

 

theelf, buy new pc then resolve your problem with sound and speed issue. Don't use this old stuff anymore on present day and don't waste TUX time.

Well, the only that can decide how to "waste" his time, is Tux, not you or me. I just decide how to waste MY time

Of course, the guy is working for free, thats why he have all my respect and thanks


About old stuff.. I have a question, what screen do you use for emulation? multisync arcade CRT? 15khz CRT? 31khz CRT? TFT?... how do you connect your PC to screen? Jamma? VGA>RGB SCART? VGA? DVI/HDMI?

Edited August 24, 2015 by theelf

[Tux]

Not sure for both I'll check the code
By the way in case you didn't notice there is a 0.64.8-4 dos binary with the changes For frame skip

 

Ok, here is the more precise answer :

1st for the timing : if you use the rdtsc (that means, you have at least a pentium and use_rdtsc = 1 in raine.cfg which is the default), then raine uses the timing indicated by the fps counter, so for cps2 it must be 59.62 fps if I remember correctly.

If you set use_rdtsc = 0 then the timing is rounded to an int, and probably badly rounded, it probably takes 59 fps here. Don't do that.

 

For the vsync : it relies on the allegro hacks, which I didn't write and didn't test much, in 2000 I was more interested in linux stuff already and these are mainly for dos, and before that there were very few games which had tearing (I can remember armed police batrider during its demo and its giant horizontal scrolling of course). Except that maybe there were small tearings in a few games but I didn't notice.

Anyway these hacks mainly disable any vsync wait as much as they can. Apparently the main vsync still works but in only 1 place, and I suspect there is more than one place where it should work. In doubt I can try to compile an allegro without these hacks at least for the vesa modes if you are interested in testing, it might be slower though, your choice, it wouldn't take much time for me to do a test build.

Edited August 25, 2015 by Tux

[theelf]

Not sure for both I'll check the code

By the way in case you didn't notice there is a 0.64.8-4 dos binary with the changes For frame skip

 

Ok, here is the more precise answer :

1st for the timing : if you use the rdtsc (that means, you have at least a pentium and use_rdtsc = 1 in raine.cfg which is the default), then raine uses the timing indicated by the fps counter, so for cps2 it must be 59.62 fps if I remember correctly.

If you set use_rdtsc = 0 then the timing is rounded to an int, and probably badly rounded, it probably takes 59 fps here. Don't do that.

 

For the vsync : it relies on the allegro hacks, which I didn't write and didn't test much, in 2000 I was more interested in linux stuff already and these are mainly for dos, and before that there were very few games which had tearing (I can remember armed police batrider during its demo and its giant horizontal scrolling of course). Except that maybe there were small tearings in a few games but I didn't notice.

Anyway these hacks mainly disable any vsync wait as much as they can. Apparently the main vsync still works but in only 1 place, and I suspect there is more than one place where it should work. In doubt I can try to compile an allegro without these hacks at least for the vesa modes if you are interested in testing, it might be slower though, your choice, it wouldn't take much time for me to do a test build.

 

 

 

Hi tux! sorry the delay to answer i was working

 

 

Thaks for the build! im sorry i did not say nothing before, but i was not in home (not even in town), and i did not have my old good PC with my.... just a crappy Core i5 laptop with Windows 10... .... i miss my celeron !!

 

 

The frameskip option works great, thanks. I was talking with other guys in a spanish forum, and they say they will test, because some people still have arcade cabinets with Pentium 1mmx/Pentium2 inside

 

 

About timming, im happy to know Raine use the precise one from CPS2, im totally unhappy because i cant do a vesa modeline that works well in Raine i did modelines with 59.62 and 119.24, but still tearing

 

I will continue testing, but i think the only option will be to use vsync or tripple buffer, and this last option is.. not a option then vsync

 

About triple buffer, i was checking the code, and say this

 

/* if triple buffering isn't available, try to enable it */

if (!(gfx_capabilities & GFX_CAN_TRIPLE_BUFFER))

enable_triple_buffer();

 

 

I was reading alegro docs, but sadly not much info about DOS triple buffer... maybe allegro did not support tripple buffer in DOS?¿ i really wanna check what " enable_triple_buffer();" do.. i need to take a look in allegro source.. jeje

 

 

 

Ok, back to vsync, of course i will be happy to test any build you made, because this is something is not working well. The truth is for my now, my celeron will be not powerfull for CPS2 + vsync... but i think if someone have a pentium 3 800mhz, maybe wanna play games in 16bits and enjoy vsync too....

 

 

And of course, for neogeo for example, 16bpp+vsync will be nice, some games like you say before, use more than 256colors. By the way, 16bpp is not slower than 8bpp in my PC, for sure the AGP TNT2 helps a lot here

 

 

Thaks a lot for all

Edited August 27, 2015 by theelf

[Tux]

Hehe, poor windows 10 user !

I guess it's for work, I thought companies had learnt the hard way to wait a bit before adopting new windows versions, but not all of them apparently !

Anyway...

 

On my side I resurrected my ps2 lately, to play again an old game that I liked very much, but it's heavily moded now, it reads its games from the network, from a samba partiton (windows share if you prefer) formated using zfs... ! I took quite a while to have everything working again, but it's working fine now !

 

Your new build (exe alone) : http://raine.1emulation.com/archive/rained.7z

It's just allegro recompiled inside without the hacks for vesa, so vsync should work, but I don't know if it will be slower.

 

No idea about the code you are referring, afaik, I was never able to enable triple buffer without these hacks and it seems they were broken at a point when upgrading allegro, and since there was poor testing at that time and poor maintaining of these hacks, it can't be fixed anymore. Antiriad wrote them originally, but I am sure he has forgotten everything now ! And since he is never on the forums anyway, you can't ask him. I send his mail by pm if you want to try your luck, but it's very unlikely to work !

[keropi]

Just tried this latest version with my 233mmz setup.

 

GUS does not work, I have a classic and all I hear is some static. SB is OK but volume is low, dunno if there is a button for that - need to actually read the docs

 

CPS-1 games run at ~40fps average - they do go to 50s and 33s at times

CPS-2 games are below 40fps

NeoGeo are better, metal slug 1 tends to stay above 50 almost all the times

simpler games like P-47 and gals panic are 60fps

suprisingly pang was below 20fps...

 

What roms do I need for this version? the latest mame ones? or some older version? I want to test some more games but I get rom errors...

All the above are with a riva128zx/vbe3 (or vbe2/linear) and SB16 @11khz (because there is a difference)

 

Really nice job on the emulator , I am truly impressed as I had no idea Raine had such a good DOS port! I know I can't expect much from my machine but even being able to play the classics is a big deal! Kudos on that!

If I can help in any way please tell me.

 

ps:

is it possible to make 400x300 resolution available for VBE2/3 extensions? it should help a little ... IIRC callus allowed that (yeah I was quite the big fun of bloodlust's emulation trio back in the day, it blew lots of us away) and it did help because fewer pixels is faster in old machines...

Edited August 27, 2015 by keropi

[Tux]

The vbe resolutions depend on the vbe driver you use and your video card, raine just reads the available modes.

For the roms some are compatible with mame (cps1 & 2, neogeo and maybe a few others), some are older. Some sites still have compatible raine romsets, just search more and you'll find them !

 

Glad it works well for you, no idea why the gus doesn't work but I can't do anything about that.

[keropi]

gotcha on the romsets

I assume you can't fix gus because you don't have one, right?

Also a question on VBE extensions, what is better to use if your vga support all VBE2/VBE2_linear/VBE3?

 

edit:

Solved the 400x300 deal with the freeware now univbe ... didn't get a speedboost tbh, not even setting depth to 8bit gave me a speed boost. I am cpu bounded apparently

Edited August 27, 2015 by keropi

[Tux]

For the gus I had one, it finished burnt a long time ago, but anyway it was an isa card, it couldn't be used in any modern computer.

And if it doesn't work it means it's a seal bug, and I don't know anything about seal so I can't do anything there. The source is opened though, but no way I could debug this now.

 

Yeah univbe is a good solution.

Linux also allows to create any video mode or almost with its modelines (for the xorg server).

[keropi]

regarding sound and ISA , I made a thread about Raine on Vogons forum and user Jorpho posted that MPXPLAY contains sound drivers + source to initialize onboard and pci sound cards under DOS... maybe that is of interest to implement?

[Tux]

It would mean look into the sources of this mxplayer to see if they could be used for audio support in dos ?

Well who wants to be in charge of the dos version then ?

Because this time it's not something light which can be tested quickly !

 

On a side note this thing could be used to maybe add full neocd support to dos because it would allow to have some mp3/ogg/flac decoder.

Currently it's very limited, I think only games with data and audio in the same file could work, and I didn't even test it.

 

Anyway I might take a look out of curiosity later, but not sure I would try that.