Gpfce Speed Issue

[lbaeza]

Hi

This is my first post here.

Anyway, I have a question regarding speed of GPFCE on my GP2X. I showed Super Mario Bros on my GP to a cousin who had a real NES, and told me the game speed was a little fast. I never realised before, because I never had a NES.

Last night I saw this video demonstration of the GPFCE on the GP2X:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5n58Jc7YtMk

And I was surprised to see that Mario speed on that video was right!

I have the exact GP2X model shown on the video, and exactly the same version of the GPFCE emulator.
I've read the documentation, and I can't see any references about controlling emulation speed.

The only reason I see for this behaviour is that my GP is overclocked, but I never had overclocked it!
Could it be that it came overclocked 'from factory'? I bought it at the now defunct GP32Z...

How can I make GPFCE have the right speed on my GP2X?

Regards

 

[iignotus]

I forget if GPFCE has frame limiting, but if it does, turn it on.

 

[WhizzBang]

I don't think there is a full speed NES emulator for th GP2x. It is the only 8-bit console that is better emulated on the GP32 and GBA.

 

[craigix]

It could be the 50/60hz which is confusing your friend about the speed.

 

[iignotus]

I don't think there is a full speed NES emulator for th GP2x. It is the only 8-bit console that is better emulated on the GP32 and GBA.

Then what are all these NES games running at 60fps on my GP2X for?

 

[krosfyah]

I don't think there is a full speed NES emulator for th GP2x. It is the only 8-bit console that is better emulated on the GP32 and GBA.

Then what are all these NES games running at 60fps on my GP2X for?

You're obviously experiencing a relative time dilation everytime you turn on the GP2x. If my theory is correct then we will all age much slower than regular humans and live well into our 150s.

 

[iignotus]

I don't think there is a full speed NES emulator for th GP2x. It is the only 8-bit console that is better emulated on the GP32 and GBA.

Then what are all these NES games running at 60fps on my GP2X for?

You're obviously experiencing a relative time dilation everytime you turn on the GP2x. If my theory is correct then we will all age much slower than regular humans and live well into our 150s.

Also, also.

 

[krosfyah]

I don't think there is a full speed NES emulator for th GP2x. It is the only 8-bit console that is better emulated on the GP32 and GBA.

Then what are all these NES games running at 60fps on my GP2X for?

You're obviously experiencing a relative time dilation everytime you turn on the GP2x. If my theory is correct then we will all age much slower than regular humans and live well into our 150s.

Also, also.

Definitely, maybe.

 

[telegramguy]

Last night I saw this video demonstration of the GPFCE on the GP2X:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5n58Jc7YtMk

And I was surprised to see that Mario speed on that video was right!

I have the exact GP2X model shown on the video, and exactly the same version of the GPFCE emulator.
I've read the documentation, and I can't see any references about controlling emulation speed.

How can I make GPFCE have the right speed on my GP2X?

That *is* strange. The video at the URL above shows that the defaults were used except to enable FPS to be shown in the upper left part of the screen. Did you notice though that the gp2x's CPU speed was posted in the bottom as defaulted to 200MHz? What does yours show up as?

Mind you that's just the switch for launching gpfce and doesn't reflect if you used another utility to up your CPU before you launched the emulator.

How do other emulators like the GBC or C64 run?

 

[lbaeza]

That *is* strange. The video at the URL above shows that the defaults were used except to enable FPS to be shown in the upper left part of the screen. Did you notice though that the gp2x's CPU speed was posted in the bottom as defaulted to 200MHz? What does yours show up as?

Mind you that's just the switch for launching gpfce and doesn't reflect if you used another utility to up your CPU before you launched the emulator.

How do other emulators like the GBC or C64 run?

Hi Fat Agnus

Thanks for your response.
My emulator shows "gpfce -showfps" on the upper side of the file browser, and "Firmware Version: 2.0.0 CPU Speed: 200" on the lower side.

I haven't tried GBC or C64 on my GP, yet.

One thing that could explain this behavior is that the video is a capture of a GP2X connected via video output to a TV, and maybe the emulator has a different (lower) performance under this scheme....

This is a mistery to me...

Regards

 

[Blah]

You're probably not overclocked (200mhz). I find GPFCE runs best at 233mhz. Don't worry as I haven't heard of a single GP2X which cant handle up to 240mhz. I think they're specced to that. Make a script (text file) to run it at 233mhz.

Like this:

#!/bin/sh

/mnt/sd/cpu_speed.gpe --cpuclk 233
cd /mnt/sd/emulators/Gpfce/
#replace /emulators/Gpfce/ with your directory 

./selector ./gpfce_showfps_config > ./gpfce.log
sync

cd /usr/gp2x/
exec /usr/gp2x/gp2xmenu

Save it as something like "gpfce_233.gpe" and be sure to save it in Linux format. You can write it in a program like Notepad++ to make sure its linux format. Put it in your gpfce folder. Put the file "cpu_speed.gpe" from the CPU, LCD and RAM tweaker in the root of your SD card. Then, to run it in 233mhz, select "gpfce_233.gpe" in the "Game" menu.

Actually, with the new CPU, LCD and RAM tweaker, that I have yet to download, apparently you can do this without a script. But scripts come in handy and you should learn how to write them

Also, TV out doesn't work in GPFCE, it might however with the TV out hack program, which forces certain settings.

 

[krosfyah]

But he wants it slower not faster

 

[Blah]

Oops, I didn't get what he was saying. The speed being too slow is only an issue for a few games that require more processing power. I run at 233mhz so that doesn't happens (Kirby's Adventure, etc).

As for the speed being too fast, theres a frame limiter, and thus the speed being too fast has nothing to do with overclocking. Little things being a bit off such as speed, is a common occurance in emulation. It is not possible to get everything exactly right, especially since we don't know everything there is to know about an NES (Nintendo still holds the cards). What we do know was discovered mostly through reverse engineering.

I played SMB, and it seems just fine, if maybe a tad sluggish. Then again, I haven't played on my NES for like a year now.

 

[sam fisher]

I don't think there is a full speed NES emulator for th GP2x. It is the only 8-bit console that is better emulated on the GP32 and GBA.

Then what are all these NES games running at 60fps on my GP2X for?

You're obviously experiencing a relative time dilation everytime you turn on the GP2x. If my theory is correct then we will all age much slower than regular humans and live well into our 150s.

Also, also.

Definitely, maybe.

I only say also!

 

[telegramguy]

That *is* strange. The video at the
How do other emulators like the GBC or C64 run?

I haven't tried GBC or C64 on my GP, yet.

One thing that could explain this behavior is that the video is a capture of a GP2X connected via video output to a TV, and maybe the emulator has a different (lower) performance under this scheme....

This is a mistery to me...

My NES emulation runs at the same speed as the video. But check it out, even though the video starts off using tv-out, the author switched back to camcorder recording.

what other emulators have you tried and does the speed in those run comparable to the other videos?

 

[lbaeza]

My NES emulation runs at the same speed as the video. But check it out, even though the video starts off using tv-out, the author switched back to camcorder recording.

Hi

I just uploaded on youtube a video of my GP2X running Super Mario on GPFCE. Check it out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUqIHckDkl0

The sound is a little off, but you'll get an idea of my problem. This can be noted when Mario gets into that room with several coins, the back tune is faster than usual!


Regards

 

[PokeParadox]

To me this is just an issue of PAL versus NTSC. The early consoles used to just run the same software at 50Hz meaning the music and everything were slower.

Just run the PAL version of the rom if you want it to be slower.

 

[lbaeza]

To me this is just an issue of PAL versus NTSC. The early consoles used to just run the same software at 50Hz meaning the music and everything were slower.

Just run the PAL version of the rom if you want it to be slower.

Hi

PokeParadox:

Definitely you have a good point here.

Fat Agnus:

Could you please send me an email with the Mario rom you used on that video? Please.... send it to lbaeza (at) yahoo (dot) com.

Thanks in advance.

 

[telegramguy]

Fat Agnus:

Could you please send me an email with the Mario rom you used on that video? Please.... send it to lbaeza (at) yahoo (dot) com.

Sorry, this is a no no but you can post another video of another NES on NTSC or PAL and see how that runs. Have you tried the post earlier about running it at 133MHz instead?

 

[Epicenter]

GPFCE runs most games at 60 FPS or very close at 200 MHz; you could achieve faster performance with a small overclock of course, to ~210 or 220 MHz-ish. Very few games will run slowly at 200 MHz, like Kirby or Armadillo- games that lagged the original real NES hardware, too. (I overclocked the real deal to get rid of this a few times. )

To the OP- you overclock each time, every time you run a program as a conscious decision, if you do at all; it's not a hardware setting so it can't be done from the factory as you suggest.

As for SMB running too fast? I've found GPFCE's speed regulation is quite good; you are probably living in a European country with 50 Hz games, and the ROM you are running is designed for the US or Japan and a 60 Hz refresh rate-- so the game runs significantly quicker to what you are used to. 60 Hz is the original intended speed by the developers, however. Some games compensate for these changes, some do not. SMB1 does not.

As for why the GBA/DS emulate the NES better, it's not for a hardware reason. These emulators are more highly developed and use a NES 6502 CPU core written in ARM9 ASM and other specialized code. The GP2X's best NES emulator, GPFCE, is entirely C which is quite slow in comparison. An ARM9 ASM core could be added though and it would dramatically improve performance. Note how AlexKidd2x and DrMDx, which emulate the Master System/Game Gear (which use a Z80 processor that poses a greater workload to the system) run fine at ~100 MHz.