Linux version: poor performance

[darklegion]

Okay, I have been getting low fps with the linux version of pSX.For instance with Tales of Phantasia, I average around 20-30 fps with the linux version whereas I get constant 60fps under windows.Now I would have chalked this up to crappy video drivers, but the windows version under wine, runs at full speed.Could this be a bug with the linux version or is it just not as optimized as the windows version? I am aware that most people are probably not seeing performance issues because they have much better hardware, but obviously it makes a huge difference with my old laptop.
BTW I have spent a great deal of time testing various driver versions/settings and nothing made any difference, so I don't think it's a configuration issue.

Specifications:
Pentium III-m 1.06ghz
512mb ram
Intel 830M onboard
Gentoo 2008.0
xf86-video-i810 2.1.1 drivers

Also some notes on running with wine (I'm using wine-0.9.60) :
* Disable vsync.Make sure it's turned off in your video card's driver settings too.If vsync is enabled it will run very slowly.
* If you get stuttering, up the sound latency settings ( I set sound latency = 64 and xa latency 40)
* Windowed mode runs slowly.Fullscreen mode works, but the menubar is visible.I'm going to do a git-bisect and see if this works correctly with older wine versions.
* I had to set audio to OSS as the sound was cutting out completely. YMMV on this one, though.
* I recommend running the game with wine debugging turned off which may give a small performance boost.Set it like this:

WINEDEBUG=-all wine psxfin.exe


[patrickp]

Must be a Gentoo thing, darklegion - I find pSX actually seems to run better in Ubuntu (last 3 versions, certainly - I think it may have in Edgy, too) than in Windows. Additionally, in the most recent two versions, I've found that, with a decent soundcard, latency doesn't need increasing above the default. Actually, the video driver doesn't make much difference, as emulation is done in software in pSX; the soundcard seems to make more difference.

If you have to increase the sound latency as much as you say, is it possible that it's the soundcard that's the bottleneck - you don't say what soundcard you're using?

[darklegion]

May 2, 2008 11:39:37 GMT -5 patrickp said:

If you have to increase the sound latency as much as you say, is it possible that it's the soundcard that's the bottleneck - you don't say what soundcard you're using?

Just onboard audio, using the snd-intel8x0 driver.


lspci | grep audio

00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation 82801CA/CAM AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 02)


I guess it could be an alsa issue, what alsa version are you using? I'm using 1.0.0.16.

BTW even though pSX is a software emulator, video drivers still sometimes have problems with 2d performance, so it can be an issue.

[patrickp]

My ALSA version appears to be 1.0.16, too.

Onboard sound chips often seem not to perform very well, although if, even with your high latency settings, the sound seems Ok, it shouldn't really be slowing the emulator down.

About all that pSX needs from a videocard, too, is that it displays the picture Ok. I would have said that, of the two, the soundcard is more likely to cause poor performance than the videocard. I think your videocard driver is an open one - have you tried the proprietary one?

[darklegion]

I lowered the latency settings with the windows version under wine, and the sound only skips occasionally, so I doubt it's a sound issue at all, at least on the driver level.There are no proprietary intel drivers on linux AFAIK.I've tried various open source releases, including the latest git code, but there was no change.
I should note that pSX when run on my desktop without direct rendering enabled would run similarly to this, but this doesn't explain why wine works fine, or that other software emulators have good performance (e.g mednafen,xmame etc)
And of course, direct rendering is enabled and working anyway:

glxinfo | grep direct
direct rendering: Yes


[patrickp]

I don't use any Intel videocards, darklegion, but I'm pretty sure Intel does a proprietary drivers for them. See here, for instance.

[darklegion]

The drivers listed on that site are open source.It even says in the title "Open source graphics for the masses".I believe there was a prop. driver in the past but there doesn't seem to be anymore.The open source driver is at least partially developed by intel themselves, so it's unlikely that a prop. driver would even be any better.

I'm going to let this one go for now .Wine works well enough for my needs.I'll wait until someone with an intel card can confirm that they get the expected performance on linux, before I bother spending any more time on this.

Thanks for your help, in any case.

[bevito]

Strange, of course i have not the same configuration, but my desktop and laptop are based on Intel (souncard & video)
Like patrickp, i find that pSX run better under Linux, than under Windows.
But (there is always a but) with different laptop and desktop PC, i found that a good video driver increased performance in pSX. (intel driver is better than ati free driver) I mean the sound run perfectly.

[xalos9]

I get the same problem with Devil Dice and other 480i/576i games on my Ubuntu 8.04 installation. I am well within the system requirements (good processor & everything and my GPU is an Intel 915GM), but the frames skip when there are more objects on screen compared to Windows. If I disable frame skipping, the frame rate slows down (goes under 60FPS) and the XA audio briefly silences at regular intervals.

DirectX is superior to OpenGL. That is why pSX will always be faster on Windows than Linux.

[patrickp]

It's not really a question of whether DirectX or OpenGL is better, xalos9 - they're working in different environments. The point is that, using either on a machine that meets the specifications for pSX, pSX should run at maximum speed. If it doesn't, this is either a compatibility problem with the game, or a problem on the machine pSX is running on.

Yourself and darklegion are both running Intel integrated graphics and darklegion has an Intel integrated soundcard, too - you didn't say. My feeling is that your problem is linked to one or both of these.