Killer Instinct - Low FPS

[purplesanz]

Whenever an FMV is displayed or one of the top of buildings stages rotate at the beginning of a match, the FPS drop to 40s. Also, during any match (or whole game overall), even when the FPS counter stays at 60, the framerate feels choppy compared to any other MAME core. Framerate also drops when a fireball breaks into sparks.

Service mode is also broken. Some options cannot be set, and fps go too fast when trying to set the volume in-game.

[markwkidd]

Thank you for taking some more time to document the issue for us. (For other folks, this started as a forum thread here: https://forums.libretro.com/t/mame-2010-2nd-player-remap/16025)

Bringing over my notes from that thread:

• purplesanz already tested Killer Instinct in MAME 0.78 which I understand from the forum post has some or all of the same timing issues.
• There was a timer fix in 0.116u4.

[markwkidd]

I'm looking at the MAME 0.80 source right now.

this caught my attention

0.79u2: Replaced Custom sound with DMA-driven DAC.

[markwkidd]

Hm.. For what it's worth the OP mentioned in the forums that Killer Instinct runs at full speed on their system via MAME 2010. Although it has some controls issues for P2 in MAME 2010 so that's when this discussion began about how it performs worse in MAME 2003-Plus than it does in MAME 2010, at least for this setup.

[markwkidd]

@grant2258 sorry I made some noise in the thread.

Are you asking @purplesanz to try Killer Instinct in the regular MAME 2003 core, and disable the DCS Hack core option when doing the testing?

[purplesanz]

what is his setup ?

I'm sorry. i3-3220 @3.30 GHz, 8 Gb RAM, GTX 660.

You know i am struggling to see why the Killer Instinct games could be slower in this core vs Mame 2010

Believe me, so am I, but trust me, they are.

try disabling and enabling the speedups to see if
it makes any difference to the performance

Oh, I forgot to mention that. Yes, I already tried DCS Hack ON and OFF, it doesn't make a difference.

[purplesanz]

UPDATE: I got rid of some of the slowdown by disabling Hard GPU Sync in RetroArch. I have no idea why, but seems like MAME 2003 and MAME 2003 Plus are the only two cores that won't play nice with Hard GPU Sync, which is weird, since I use it with every other core (including MAME 2010, MAME 2014 and MAME 2016) in order to achieve less input lag, and I never had any issues with it before.

Ok, that took care of the huge FPS drop when playing FMVs and when fireballs break into sparks, I don't know if the core is intended to work that way (without Hard GPU Sync), in which case, I'm sorry, my bad.

However, the framerate difference is still there and it is VERY noticeable. I wish I could show you, is it possible to upload videos here?

[purplesanz]

Could you download normal mame078 @purplesanz and see how it runs there if it is faster

It is not, I tried that already. It is actually cool that you mention Progetto Snaps, since they have a very clear example of what I'm talking about: http://www.progettosnaps.net/videosnaps/mp4/kinst.mp4 See what happens when the stage is rotating at the beggining of the match? That's exactly what happens in MAME 0.78b and both MAME 2003 & MAME 2003 Plus cores, and I know it is not very noticeable in the video, but the overall speed of the game is not accurate, feels as if it was running at 40 - 45 FPS when compared to MAME 2010 (or any newer version).

[markwkidd]

@purplesanz do you know what the most recent libretro MAME core you have access to that can run Killer Instinct at full speed?

@Arcadez it seems almost like we should mark this as GAME_NOT_WORKING (or some other flag if there's a more specific one) :(

At one point I was talking with twinaphex about the theoretical possibility of grafting a second, more recent version of MAME together with an older version like MAME 2003 so that only games that required the newer MAME code was running on it. This was a theoretical question understanding it would take an investment of time and energy, maybe also some money.

My question is: does Killer Instinct run accurately and playable on MAME 2010 for anyone who can't also run it on more recent MAME cores?

[purplesanz]

@purplesanz do you know what the most recent libretro MAME core you have access to that can run Killer Instinct at full speed?

That would be MAME 2016 without Hard GPU Sync or any Frame Delay, which sucks for input lag. That's why I love how it performs in MAME 2010, with Hard GPU Sync ON and Frame Delay 5 the input lag is almost not noticeable, and FPS won't drop at all, it's perfect.
MAME can also run it at full speed most of the time, it is just that moment when the game makes a transition from an FMV to a match, that the audio stutters and crackles like crazy (same thing happens with MAME 2016 when Hard GPU Sync is on).

[markwkidd]

I've just been having some Killer Instinct Chat ™️ with @barbudreadmon who was saying that kinst tops out at about 40fps with this core even with very fast hardware:

i tried kinst with mame2003-plus on my pentium n3710 (turboed at 2.56Ghz), it was barely running at 40 fps iirc
which is still faster than with fba on my i7

I don't have any objective in adding this to the discussion except as another datapoint

[barbudreadmon]

@grant2258 that was a test with the mips3 standard interpreter in fba (the x86_64 dynarec runs at full speed), this is preliminary emulation stuff currently, and yeah my cpu was at 100% :)

[barbudreadmon]

No, it was written by a fba developper, afaik there is no "pure" mips3 dynarec for x86_64 in mame, just the old x86_32 one, and the more recent "UML" one.

[Panderner]

I heard killer instinct runs full speed on Pentium 4 PCs using older versions of Mame but it lacks mips3 arm dynarec. it may be slow for all Android Devices even a snapdragon 855+

[bluestang2006]

On an overclocked Pi 4 the exact description by the OP occurs. The slowdowns at those specific instances are exactly the same.

If you also disable sound altogether, the game plays way too fast.

It seems like the Pi 4 is capable (overclocked). I’d be willing to throw in a bounty if this is achievable.

[mahoneyt944]

#1100 takes this discussion further. Moving this issue there, also added CPU clock scale core option to help increase performance

[Panderner]

But how about ARM CPUs?

[mahoneyt944]

You'll have to expand your question a bit. But we added a new core option "CPU clock scale" which allows you to modify the clock speed of the emulated state. This has shown promise of increasing about 15 fps or so but requires tinkering to get a setting that works on your specific platform. For most cases the default setting should be used but if your looking to pull a few more fps this may be the key. For me I find a setting of about 40 to 60 yields the best results on my arm based platform. Noted that altering clock speeds can result in odd behaviors... Freezing, crashes, speed ups , slow downs, etc .

[maxmag-soft]

Using Xiaomi Mi 9, Snapdragon 855 (ARMv8), Retroarch Plus APK, 1.10.3 Mame 2010 (0.139 932e6f2) core,
Loaded Killer Instinct 2
FPS is slow ingame, on the intro, and the sound is stuttering all the time.
Can this issue be related to this behavior that I am reporting?

Killer Instinct 1 plays nicely, with minor drops of fps during gameplay

[mahoneyt944]

This repository is for mame2003-plus not mame2010, so I can't comment on the performance of mame2010. This core should be less demanding in general so I would recommend it over mame2010 in that regard. Altering the clock speed isn't exactly a magic fix, but can yield a slightly better experience. I would consider that option experiential for the tinker-er type of user