Performance Issues with Dr. Mario 64 and The New Tetris

[jhilgeman]

I'm running an HTPC that easily handles 1080p movies, but it is having a hard time with these two games. The actual Project64 CPU usage only hovers around 20%, but during that, these games often drop to 20-30 fps during play (seems like they need to be 60fps to play normally).

Most video plugins have graphical glitches with these games, but I came across a 1.7 beta that had like 6 different video plugins. The very first one was a WIP from October and it rendered all the graphics properly on Dr. Mario 64 but it was sloooow. Rice 6.1 seemed to render The New Tetris the best, but again, it was too slow.

I've tried changing out lots of options, trying the no sound plugin, setting my desktop to a smaller resolution with a lower color depth (1024x768 16-bit), with little to no impact on the fps.

I'm running Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit with 4GB RAM, a dual core Atom processor at 1.6ghz. The HDD is a bit slow (5400 I think), but it doesn't seem like the ROM is read constantly from the HDD anyway.

Any suggestions?

[Experiment #150]

Originally Posted by jhilgeman

I came across a 1.7 beta

....You came across a 1.7 beta? I guess you just spontaneously tossed your money to Zilly, because that's the only way to get it legit. Or did you get it from a 3d party site? Now get ready for Squall and me.

[HatCat]

I can't remember if I ever set a config for the tetris game, but if you install mudlord's RiceVideo system it should apply a newer INI with support for Dr. Mario 64. The game won't be fully playable except on 1964 though, cause the configuration relies on 1964's internal frame buffer write back code.

Is it just those games that are slow, or are games like Mario64 slow as well with Jabo's Direct3D?
And you should be able to tell what your graphics card is, more specifically than video quality support on your system.

^ oops, lol not such a hard catch...guess I should have read into that phrase a little more in-depth
Yep, cracked distributions of the 1.7 betas are hacked and interfere with the CPU cores it seems so are not supported sorry. =]

[jhilgeman]

The graphics card is GeForce 9400 M I think - it's embedded on an NVIDIA ION mobo. I have only tried playing those two games and both have performance issues. I'll try some others - any recommendations on what I should test to see if there are deeper problems?

[HatCat]

I wouldn't know; I don't quite beta test the cracked versions of the emulator.

Let it be known if an official version of Project64 has an issue with the specified setup.

[RadeonUser]

Nothing to see here!
Certainly nothing illegal that would get us into trouble.
We're all just using our own dumped games from our cartridges, yeah... thats it. *looks around shiftily*

We can't really offer much assistance on cracked versions, there's just no way of knowing what the person/people did aside from removing the verification.
If you do some digging you'll find some trojan infested versions of the "cracked" beta floating out there.
I have no idea if the one you "acquired" is such a version nor do I wish to know.

I have less of an idea why you'd expect "official support" when you freely admit you're using a cracked copy...

[HatCat]

Hey, hah hah at least he's honest. He even put his honesty in the right forum for it.

About freely admitting to downloading a cracked copy of a beta emulator that was already unstable and in testing to begin with before it was even cracked I mean.

Ah and yeah official support for unofficial, unknown binaries is nonexistent. =]

[Experiment #150]

Originally Posted by rswedlow

Ah and yeah official support for unofficial, unknown binaries is nonexistent. =]

ya halp plz i hav file not no wut it is oar wut it doz oher wear i gott it frum plz halp!!!!
I'm gonna start a riot!!!

I kid (no duh)


JOB WELL DONE RADEON! Although I would have just pinched the guy.

[jhilgeman]

...wow. Forgive me for not being in the emulation elite. Geez. -frown-

I posted the URL just for your convenience in case you wanted to send a request to the site to take down the links.

Given the generally-open nature of the emulation world, how was I supposed to know that the site wasn't just an official mirror for downloading your beta? I had used Project64 1.6 before and it wasn't quite SOP to check the Project64 site to see if the next beta version had suddenly become a $20 purchase (sorry, "mandatory donation").

I only realized the donation thing AFTER downloading and installing it, and when I came here to look for any help. I didn't expect to receive any official support (which is why I didn't post in the 1.6 or 1.7 boards but rather in the "Open Discussion" section) - just community recommendations on settings (e.g. "try turning this checkbox on"). Instead, I get a bunch of sarcastic feedback?

And for the record, I tried w/ Project64 1.6 OFFICIAL build and still had trouble, but honestly if this is the type of feedback I'm going to get (sarcasm and bad assumptions), just forget it.

[dsx_]

dont use cracked shit then