Re: [hatari-devel] Automatic frameskip

[Eero T. <oa...@he...>]

Hi,

On Friday 15 August 2008, Thomas Huth wrote:
> > What do you think of it?  Could it be something with a separate
> > configuration option (and maybe value of 4 instead of 8)?  If the
> > delay calculation would be accurate enough, it could be even replace
> > manual frameskip setting I guess...
>
> OK, this could work... but changing a ConfigureParams variable
> automatically all the time looks somewhat wrong to me (since this is
> something which the user has predefined)... maybe we should then rather
> introduce a new nFrameSkips global variable which is just
> pre-initialized with the ConfigureParams.Screen.nFrameSkips variable?

That's what I was also myself thinking, I just wanted first a minimal patch
for testing.

I think for first version we should leave the printfs so that people see how
it's working. I assume the nDelay values where the frameskip changes are
done may need fine-tuning.


> Or, as you said, get rid of the manual frame skip completely... good
> question...
>
> What does everybody else here think of this? Would a manual frame skip
> setting still be required if there is an automatic frame skip mechanism
> instead?

There are few reasons why one might want to have manual control:
* If there are machines where either the delay calculation or the framerate
   changing for some reason doesn't work well enough, or
* One wants Hatari to take less CPU than it would take at 0 frameskip
  (although the machine would be capable of using that) because it
  slows down the other programs  

Maybe the best option is in the Screen options just change "8" to "auto"
and interpret everything over 4 as maximum value for "auto".


	- Eero