Heavy slowdown with ECA in latest release

[holmes]

I am afraid this issue is the same than described here:

https://www.supermodel3.com/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1574

This is due to the Sidewinder USB 1.1 interface which cannot cope with the stream of FFB commands. I do not know if this is possible but I would be glad if this could be solved in Supermodel. I still have my old Sidewinder in excellent shape!

[Calavera]

I am afraid this issue is the same than described here:

https://www.supermodel3.com/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1574

This is due to the Sidewinder USB 1.1 interface which cannot cope with the stream of FFB commands. I do not know if this is possible but I would be glad if this could be solved in Supermodel. I still have my old Sidewinder in excellent shape!

Thanks for the info. I suppose the issue doesn't come up that much as not that many people are still using a wheel that is nearly 20 years old. I still find the issue to be pretty odd. Why would it only happen when turning right and not when turning left? In the post you linked to he is saying there is slowdown at the beginning of the medium track on Daytona 2. I will try that track out on mine and see if I get the same results. Dirt Devils works fine with it and it is rumbling like crazy the entire time! I'd think DD would be sending using more FFB info than ECA but then again I don't know much about the technical side of Supermodel.

Just tested this with XInput and I don't see it happening at all. No slow down and when I log the motor commands, I don't see much data per frame. Are you absolutely sure you've diagnosed the problem correctly? Can you record a video of your desktop with Supermodel in a window (run it with -show-fps so we can see the frame rate) when this occurs? You may need to record with a mobile phone if you don't have a screen capture program that can record the full desktop while Supermodel is running (FRAPS, as I recall, will capture only the OpenGL frame buffer).

The other thing that would be helpful would be figuring out at which SVN release it broke.

I can take a video with a cellphone if you'd like to see the problem in action. With a cellphone recording I can have the wheel in frame then you'll then be able to see that as soon as I turn the wheel right it slows down. Or is a video not needed now due to what holmes posted above? If a video would help I will upload one.

[Bart]

Video is a bit less useful now but would be interesting to see if it's not too much trouble for you. If you email me privately, I could also send you a private build of Supermodel with extra logging. I'm thinking we could log the motor commands as well as how long they took to issue. Then you could run it against a few games and see if you notice anything. I really don't think there's much we could do to fix it but you never know. Maybe there's some stupidly simple fix like batching commands and issuing them at the end of the frame or something.

[holmes]

Actually, Bart, I would be happy to do this test on my own FFB Sidewinder.
Would you be OK if I send you a private e-mail?


Thanks,

[ifride]

Hello! I'm new, and first of all I want to thank you for this wonderful emulator!

I also have a problem with emergency call ambulance. I use the last release and little bit in the first level, but overall in the third, there are drops of framerates that make the title unplayable.

Reading on the forum I tried to change the clock cycles of the cpu from 50 to 66, 100, 166, but nothing the problems always arise.
I use supermodel UI because I am better than the new ui and my configuration is this:

I5 4670k
16 GB RAM DD3
GEFORCE 1060 6GB

Is there any way to solve it or is it a compatibility problem?
Thank you and sorry for my english.

Edit: I solved!
I used SegaModel3UI and i set to 100 the powerpc frequency.
I don't know why with the supermodel ui didn't work...

[Calavera]

I use supermodel UI because I am better than the new ui and my configuration is this:

Edit: I solved!
I used SegaModel3UI and i set to 100 the powerpc frequency.
I don't know why with the supermodel ui didn't work...

I'd recommend not using any of the UI programs. I understand that you don't want to use the command line every time you want to play a game but you can easily make shortcuts that will launch the game you want.

Here is my Model3 game folder.



With just a simple double click the game immediately starts in 1080p and widescreen. You just need to set your screen resolution and widescreen enable in the supermodel.ini file so it will start in that mode by default. To create a file that will start the game you just need to open notepad and type in the command you would usually use to start Supermodel. For example the command for my Scud Race shortcut is

L:\Supermodel\SM\supermodel.exe scuda.zip

Obviously the the drive letter and directory needs to be changed to where you have it on your PC. After you type that in notepad go to save as and where it says "save as type" change it to All Files (*.*) then save the file with a .bat extension. Example Scud.bat. If you did it correctly double clicking that file will now load the game. Also the *.bat file must be saved in the same directory that has Supermodel.exe and your rom files.

Since the *.bat files must stay in the Supermodel directory you will need to create a shortcut to each file to have them in a separate folder with a custom icon like mine. To do this create the folder where you want the shortcuts to be. Then right click and hold on the *.bat file and drag it to the new folder. When you drag the file to the new folder and let off the right mouse button a menu will appear. Click "create shortcuts here". After that all you need to do is rename the shortcut to whatever you want and change the icon to what you want it to be.

It is really very simple to do and once you have it set up you won't need to do it again. All your Model3 games will be accessible through double clicking a shortcut. Which is actually faster than loading the UI program and then selecting the game through there. If you decide to do this and have any questions I'll be happy to assist you. If you want the icons I'm using for my shortcuts I can upload them.

[timmy234]

I use supermodel UI because I am better than the new ui and my configuration is this:

Edit: I solved!
I used SegaModel3UI and i set to 100 the powerpc frequency.
I don't know why with the supermodel ui didn't work...

I'd recommend not using any of the UI programs. I understand that you don't want to use the command line every time you want to play a game but you can easily make shortcuts that will launch the game you want.

Here is my Model3 game folder.



With just a simple double click the game immediately starts in 1080p and widescreen. You just need to set your screen resolution and widescreen enable in the supermodel.ini file so it will start in that mode by default. To create a file that will start the game you just need to open notepad and type in the command you would usually use to start Supermodel. For example the command for my Scud Race shortcut is

L:\Supermodel\SM\supermodel.exe scuda.zip

Obviously the the drive letter and directory needs to be changed to where you have it on your PC. After you type that in notepad go to save as and where it says "save as type" change it to All Files (*.*) then save the file with a .bat extension. Example Scud.bat. If you did it correctly double clicking that file will now load the game. Also the *.bat file must be saved in the same directory that has Supermodel.exe and your rom files.

Since the *.bat files must stay in the Supermodel directory you will need to create a shortcut to each file to have them in a separate folder with a custom icon like mine. To do this create the folder where you want the shortcuts to be. Then right click and hold on the *.bat file and drag it to the new folder. When you drag the file to the new folder and let off the right mouse button a menu will appear. Click "create shortcuts here". After that all you need to do is rename the shortcut to whatever you want and change the icon to what you want it to be.

It is really very simple to do and once you have it set up you won't need to do it again. All your Model3 games will be accessible through double clicking a shortcut. Which is actually faster than loading the UI program and then selecting the game through there. If you decide to do this and have any questions I'll be happy to assist you. If you want the icons I'm using for my shortcuts I can upload them.

what an excellent post!

would you care to post the exact content of your .bat files so unexperienced users such as myself could use it?

Also, where did you get these fantastic icons from?

Thank you so much for your post

[Calavera]

Hope it is ok to bump this old thread I created. I didn't figure it was worth making a new one for. Anyways I decided to hook up the ole Sidewinder FFB wheel again to see if possibly the issue had been fixed over the past couple of years. I used the latest SVN 880 release but unfortunately the same problem exists.

I was just wondering if there was anything I could do in help locating the problem. Bart had mentioned before about using a special build with extra logging functions to help locate the problem. If that is still an option I'd be happy to do it now. I'm not sure why I didn't before. Time must have just gotten away from me. I know this isn't much of an issue for the emulator in general as there is basically nobody using such an old wheel. But if you'd still like me to run the extra logging build to look for the issue I can do it this time. Thanks.

[Bart]

Hope it is ok to bump this old thread I created. I didn't figure it was worth making a new one for. Anyways I decided to hook up the ole Sidewinder FFB wheel again to see if possibly the issue had been fixed over the past couple of years. I used the latest SVN 880 release but unfortunately the same problem exists.

I was just wondering if there was anything I could do in help locating the problem. Bart had mentioned before about using a special build with extra logging functions to help locate the problem. If that is still an option I'd be happy to do it now. I'm not sure why I didn't before. Time must have just gotten away from me. I know this isn't much of an issue for the emulator in general as there is basically nobody using such an old wheel. But if you'd still like me to run the extra logging build to look for the issue I can do it this time. Thanks.

I actually didn't write the input code. And we've now got force feedback working in SDL thanks to Spindizzy's efforts. Skimming over this thread, it appears this issue is triggered for you when you use your wheel, right? That is, when you run it without the wheel and just use the keyboard, it runs at a normal frame rate?

Here's a few things to try:

1. Confirm whether the game works without the steering wheel. You may have to unmap the inputs entirely (or just run a clean install of Supermodel that hasn't been configured yet). If it's slow under these conditions then we can rule out input and the next step is unnecessary.
2. Configure and run Supermodel using SDL (underneath the hood, I think SDL uses XInput anyway, so it probably won't matter but it's worth a try):

Code: Select all

supermodel -config-inputs -input-system=sdl


Code: Select all

supermodel eca.zip -input-system=sdl -force-feedback


Is this any different than the slow XInput case?

[Calavera]

Here's a few things to try:

1. Confirm whether the game works without the steering wheel. You may have to unmap the inputs entirely (or just run a clean install of Supermodel that hasn't been configured yet). If it's slow under these conditions then we can rule out input and the next step is unnecessary.
2. Configure and run Supermodel using SDL (underneath the hood, I think SDL uses XInput anyway, so it probably won't matter but it's worth a try):

Code: Select all

supermodel -config-inputs -input-system=sdl


Code: Select all

supermodel eca.zip -input-system=sdl -force-feedback


Is this any different than the slow XInput case?

Everything runs full speed with keyboard/controller. It actually runs full speed using this wheel if I go into the in-game arcade settings of the game and disable FFB or just disable FFB from Supermodel. For example in Emergency Call Ambulance in the game assignment menu there is a setting called "Steering Reaction" which effects the strength of the FFB. It can be set from OFF up to 7. On anything 3 or higher it has extreme slowdown which only happens when you turn to the right. If you are going straight or turning left everything runs fine but as soon as you turn to the right it slows down big time. If the steering reaction is set to 2 it plays pretty much fine. It seems to have a tiny bit of slowdown but nothing compared to when it is set to 3 or higher.

Here is the video I took that shows the issue in action. It is from 2019 but the exact same situation occurs on the latest version.
https://youtu.be/31bHxu0jRGQ

I also uploaded a video of Scud Race showing similar issues
https://youtu.be/CQ9x3BQa6EM

With Scud Race it slows down at certain parts of the course. When disabling FFB in Supermodel it plays fine with the wheel.

I did try the SDL commands you recommended. I ran "-config-inputs -input-system=sdl" and reconfigured my inputs then launched the game with "-input-system=sdl -force-feedback" but it made no difference.

Is this any different than the slow XInput case?

I don't know what you mean by slow XInput case.

If you need any more videos showing different games running or other information just let me know. I'm more than happy to help and try to fix this if possible.