#1500 Slower than usual emulation speed despite running at 60 fps

[Josh]

This game Miami Night: Singles in the City have jerky animation. The whole game itself (from the intro to title screen to in-game) emulate slower than usual despite the emulator is running at 60 fps. I also notice the intro Ubisoft logo animation have screen tearing artifact. Both renderers exhibit the same behavior.

[rogerman]

Cannot reproduce the jerky animation issue in Miami Nights: Singles in the City. What is your operating system and hardware specs?

Also, "the whole game itself [] emulate slower than usual" is too vague a description. What exactly is running slow? Be aware that not all single-screen 3D games will run at 60 FPS. Many single-screen 3D games actually run at 30 FPS, or even slower than that. Does this game exhibit the same slowness when run on a hardware NDS?

The screen tearing in the intro Ubisoft logo animation is most likely an emulation timing issue. This is not an uncommon issue with NDS video playback. The timing issue is not likely to be fixed anytime soon.

[Josh]

All I can say is the whole game is more like running at 20 fps rather than the full 30 fps speed. The tearing issue I think is also likely cause by the slower emulation speed because it can't match the actual refresh rate.

I don't have an actual NDS hardware to test that but I notice the emulation speed is faster in Drastic emulator so I assume that to be the actual emulation speed because I don't see any slowness and audio cracking. And there is no tearing issue exist in Drastic emu too.

If you can compare Drastic and DeSmuME emu side by side you will know what I mean. But a word of caution, their emu is not free but you can test with their trial version.

[zeromus]

30 fps isn't full anything. Anyway, why guess what FPS you're getting? You can get data. Turn on the FPS display.

[rogerman]

The screen tearing you're seeing has absolutely nothing to do with the host machine. It is purely an issue with the emulation, and is most likely a timing issue. This has been observed in other games that do NDS video playback. You need to step the emulation frame-by-frame to see the tearing in action.

I don't see any slowdowns for this game. You need to be more specific about what is slowing down. What steps are you taking to observe a slowdown?

If you are experiencing audio crackling, then you should use one of the SPU synchronization methods, either N, Z or P. And while you're at it, you should also enable Advanced SPU Logic. Enabling these two settings makes for more accurate sound emulation and will eliminate sound crackling and other sound issues in many games. Users only need to disable Advanced SPU Logic and use Dual SPU Synch/Asynch if their host hardware is sorely inadequate. Since you're using a 2.93GHz Core 2 Duo, then you should have no problem enabling Advanced SPU Logic and using one of the SPU synchronization methods.

[Josh]

Edit: Maybe is just the intro video part and the upon loading the game the emulation speed is slowed down. Now I noticed something. When the game changes the time like from morning to afternoon and etc, the whole game slows down to like 10 fps during the phase changing.

I have added a save state for you guys to test the issue.

[Josh]

This is my sound setting. I just did not turn on Advanced SPU logic. The sound crackling only occur at the end of Ubisoft logo animation.

Update: I turned on the Advanced SPU logic and the crakling sound is still there but less obvious.

[zeromus]

Slow down.png clearly shows your system is adequate and the game is running slow on purpose. It is inappropriate to complain about the speed of a game without checking it against a real cart. Testing against another emulator which is loaded with speedhacks is not usfeul data. Try it in nocash. But even that's not useful data, it's just for your own interest.

[rogerman]

Yup, the game itself is definitely running the 3D at less then 60 FPS, as shown when you turn on View > HUD > Display FPS. Usually, it runs at 12 FPS, but sometimes goes to 15 FPS or 17 FPS at certain times. After watching some YouTube videos of this game being run on a hardware NDS, I'm pretty convinced that the typical 12 FPS rate that this game runs at is accurate. And interestingly enough, even the screen tearing in the Ubisoft intro video was also shown on the hardware NDS, so the screen tearing also seems to be a non-issue as well.

Just so you know, 60 FPS represents the refresh rate of the NDS LCD screens. In other words, 60 FPS is the maximum visible FPS for any game. However, that doesn't necessarily mean that a game will run at 60 FPS -- a game can run at less then 60 FPS whenever it wants. It seems like Miami Nights is pushing a typical 12 FPS, which is significantly less then most other games. However, it is still perfectly legal for Miami Nights to do so.

As for the sound crackling problem, I'm sure that it's a problem on your end, most likely your host hardware. I used the same settings you posted in "Sound Setting.png" while wearing Shure SRH940 professional studio headphones, and I didn't hear one bit of crackling.

Closing, due to user error.