Lordmonkus

A user by the name of Brunnis over on the Retroarch forums has done a lot of work testing and improving input lag. He started out testing to see why Snes always had higher levels of lag compared to other emulators and if it could be improved. He finally posted a write up on settings to use to reduce it as much as you can in Retroarch itself, here is the forum post for it. Start at the beginning of the thread which is quite long and technical if you want to know more. http://libretro.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5428&page=36&p=49145&viewfull=1#post49145 Here is the copy and paste of the post he made. All of this information is from Brunnis and he gets all the credit for it, I am simply pasting it here. Linux Important: Run RetroArch from an X-less terminal. This requires a working DRM video driver, which most modern systems appear to have. See https://github.com/libretro/RetroArch/wiki/KMS-mode Important #2: You may get performance issues unless you set your CPU to max frequency. This is because the CPU's power management thinks the CPU is idle enough to be downclocked. In Ubuntu, you can run sudo cpufreq-set -g performance to do this. You may want to put this in a startup script. In retroarch.cfg set: video_driver = "gl" video_vsync = true video_threaded = false video_max_swapchain_images = 2 video_frame_delay = See description further down Windows In retroarch.cfg set: video_driver = "gl" video_vsync = true video_threaded = false video_fullscreen = true video_windowed_fullscreen = false video_hard_sync = true video_frame_delay = See description further down Note on video_max_swapchain_images setting When using the OpenGL ("gl") video driver, this setting switches between using two or three buffers for rendering. Without going into details, a setting of 3 allows the emulator to run ahead and prepare the next frame before the current one has even been shown. This improves performance (i.e. makes framerate hiccups less likely), especially on slow hardware, but increases input lag by one whole frame in the general case. So, the general rule is to use a setting of 2 if the system can handle it. It will shave off one frame of input lag compared to the default setting of 3. Please also note that a setting of 2 forces vsync on. Note on video_frame_delay setting This setting delays the running of the emulator by the specified number of milliseconds. This sounds bad, but actually improves input lag, since it pushes the input polling and rendering closer to when the frame will actually be displayed. For example, setting video_frame_delay = 10 shaves off 10 ms of input lag. The general rule here is to use the highest value possible that doesn't cause framerate or audio issues. This is highly system dependent. The faster your system is and the less demanding the emulator is, the higher you can push this setting. On my Core i7-6700K, I can put this setting at 12-13 ms when using snes9x2010, but not nearly as high when using bsnes-mercury-balanced. Please note that the frame delay value can't be higher than a frame period (which is 16.67 ms at 60 Hz). I believe the GUI caps this setting to a maximum value of 15. I would also advice to play with this setting last. It takes a bit of trial and error to find a good setting, and unless you're willing to make per game settings, you might not be able to find a setting that works well in all situations while still giving a worthwile improvement. A general note on GPU drivers Input lag can vary depending on GPU driver, so it's not possible to guarantee a certain input lag without testing the particular combination of hardware and GPU driver. For example, I have measured different input lag when just upgrading from one GPU driver version to another. Currently, my safest bet for low input lag would be to use Linux in KMS/DRM mode with the above mentioned settings. Note on Raspberry Pi The Raspberry Pi is sort of a special case. In general, it's too slow to use anything other than the default value for video_frame_delay (which is 0). Also, unless you're using the experimental open source OpenGL driver, the video_max_swapchain_images setting has no effect. In retroarch.cfg set: video_driver = "dispmanx" ("gl" if you require 3D acceleration or shaders. Will add one frame of input lag compared to dispmanx driver.) video_vsync = true video_threaded = false video_frame_delay = 0 The settings above are what's recommended for all of those using the default Raspberry Pi GPU driver. I have some comments coming up regarding the experimental OpenGL driver. Regarding accuracy vs input lag There's no real correlation between the two, except that accuracy usually comes with a performance penalty (i.e. frame rendering times increase). This, in turn, makes it less likely that you can use video_max_swapchain_images = 2 and high video_frame_delay numbers. I'd choose the emulator(s) I prefer/need for the games I play and then tweak the above mentioned settings to their optimal values. UPDATE: Version 1.6.0 of Retroarch added in a new input driver, RawInput which reduces input latency even further. This setting is in the Settings > Driver > Input Driver, set this to Raw,

Yeah give the balanced core a whirl, it's not so hard on the CPU requirements. And if Doom is your only issue then you are doing well.

A very similar subject to this has come up in the past and there are a couple of reasons why this is not a trivial thing. For starters RetroPie being based purely around the Libretro cores, they basically built a UI for it. There is no flexibility to add other emulators and this is one of Launchbox's many advantages. Second, Jason is just a one man programming team and dedicating time to program a UI from the ground up for a Linux port of Launchbox to simply mimic RetroPie is not feasible. Maybe one day he will have an army of monkeys programming for him a Linux port of Launchbox can be made It's not that your idea is bad, and it isn't a bad idea. It's just one that is simply not feasible currently for Launchbox. Edit: Here is the discussion similar to this topic previously, things got a little heated but in the end it was all good.

If you got the CPU to run BSnes I don't see any good reason to use Snes9x but hey it's your system and your choice

You can but requires a little bit of work. The easiest way would be to set up a separate install of Retroarch and just select it from the emulators list for the games you want to use it for.

If you have 2 different emulators just choose Retroarch from the dropdown for the games you want to run it with. Just out of curiosity why not use one of the BSnes cores for all your Snes emulation ? If you have the CPU to run it you may as well use it.

It works, I just tried it out. I use the BSnes Accuracy as my default Snes core. Setting the use custom command-line parameter to -L "cores\snes9x2010_libretro.dll" made the game run with the Snes9x core.

I am fairly certain it overrides, I will double check though.

Yes. If its just a small collection of games just use a custom command line for those games. Right click the game > edit > emulation tab. Check "Use custom command-line parameters" Then put in the command line: -L "cores\bsnes_accuracy_libretro.dll" Do that for each game. If you want to use a totally different emulator just edit each game but instead of the custom command line just select a different emulator from the choose an emulator drop down menu.

Cool. Damn computers and software can be weird at times.

Something weird is going on and I right now I am stumped as to what to check next. Maybe something will pop in my head to check, or maybe someone else has an idea.

Hmm, everything seems to be set up right. Do other systems using Retroarch work fine through Launchbox ? Like Sega Genesis ?

Ok, first question is are your rom files compressed or uncompressed ? I see you have the extract rom archives before running box checked. Second question is do you have the Snes9x2010 core downloaded and in the \Retroarch\cores\ folder ? Third question is do your games load just using Retroarch on its own ? Last thing to check is make sure your platform names in your Associated Platforms list matches the names of your platforms.

Can you post screen shots of your emulator settings window and the associated platforms tab ?

I don't think the price itself is unreasonable considering the overall quality of the games in the collection and current market for NES games. The bigger issue is going to be in finding a person who actually wants all of or most of those games all in one lot. A lot of collectors will already have many of these games in their collections. But if someone is just starting out and has the money to spend on kickstarting a collection from scratch then it seems fairly reasonable.

Do you have it working on it's own ? If no, get it working on it's own first, unfortunately I am unable to help with that because a buddy of mine gave me his all setup with all the necessary files so my knowledge of setting it up is exactly zero. But if you do have it working on its own then the simplest method to getting it working through Launchbox is to create batch files for each game and import those batch files. Here is how to do that. Step 1) Make a batch file for each game, call the batch file whatever you like. I made these batch files right in the directory which contains the daphne.exe Step 2) This step will be repeated for each game. Open your DaphneLoader.exe and for each game you have and want to import into Launchbox click the Configure button and go to the Advanced tab. The bottom drop down menu "Display command line", set this to Enabled, click apply and ok. Now when you start that game it is going to popup with a bunch of text, select it all and copy. The game will launch but just exit back out. Step 3) Open the batch file you created for the game in notepad you just copied the command line information from and paste it in and save. Step 4) Drag the bat file into Launchbox and put into whatever platform you choose. I use the platform Daphne. Step 5) Right click the game and click edit. Go to the emulation tab and uncheck "Use an emulator to play this game". After you click apply it will popup with a message saying you need to specify and emulator do you want to do this now, click no. Now you can go back into each game and reverse Step 2 to disable "Display command line" When you launch a game from Launchbox if you get an error message repeat Step 5 just to double check it.

Yeah for sure, the oddball systems like the 3DO and Jaguar are good examples of emulators that are lacking.

I wouldn't recommend using stand alone versions where possible no more than I would recommend only using Retroarch cores where possible. I would only recommend trying out different emulators to find the best solution to individual emulation problems and cases. There are systems where the stand alone version of an emulator is better than the RA core like PSP and N64. At the same time there are systems where the RA cores are better than the stand alone options like Sega Genesis / CD, TurboGrafx 16 / CD and Snes. And then you get a situation like the Playstation where it depends on your hardware whether or not you should use the RA core vs ePSXe vs Xebra.

Yeah but the people who bought it out from AOL have been promising a new version forever so for now it's still the same software it was under AOL. Aimp and Foobar both sound better and have better functionality (tabbed playlists ftw). And yes they do sound better, I have tested them compared to Winamp and even with my shitty hearing I can hear a distinct difference in sound quality.

Hehe, sorry I just couldn't resist Winamp definitely is an all time great but it became such garbage when it got bought out. Aimp and Foobar kicks its ass all over the place nowadays.

I ignored everything once I noticed Winamp running

I search both US and Canada Ebay.

Yeah I check Ebay every now and again for these items and looking at the Conker manuals I see the same things I am trying to avoid. The first link wants an extra 20$ US for shipping which makes the booklet 50$ US which is like 70$ Canadian and I am not paying that much. The 2nd link says may not ship to Canada And the third one while is 20$ plus 16.50$ shipping plus another 9$ import fees. We are now up to 45$ US again.

Cool, good to know for sure for now. I really wish the RA guys would get to work on the controller support, I asked the week the RA Mednafen Saturn core came out about analog controls and a dev said it should be easy and would be in soon. That was a while ago now though

ahh