Posted: 1/27/2015 10:09 AM
Post subject: New to BizHawk, seeking help.
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The_Brookman
Player (181)
Joined: 10/8/2006
Posts: 145
Greetings Bizhawk enthusiasts. I'm new to this emulator and I have some questions about running this emulator effectively. What are the minimum system requirements to run bizhawk effectively? I seem to be having trouble running it unfortunately and that will prove to make my TAS efforts very difficult. I'm on a Dell with intel core 2 duo cpu p8400 2.26 ghz with 4.00GB ram. Bizhawk is running my SNES game at ~25 fps. and i can't increase or reduce the frame rate significantly even at 6400% increase it runs at ~25 fps. If i open the movie editor it goes down to almost nothing.
Posted: 1/27/2015 10:20 AM
Post subject: Re: New to BizHawk, seeking help.
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Patashu
He/Him
Joined: 10/2/2005
Posts: 4017
Bizhawk uses for its SNES core lsnes, which is extremely CPU intensive. You can use snes9x 1.5x instead if your computer is too weak. Submissions on this emulator are accepted.
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Posted: 1/27/2015 10:41 AM
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Samsara
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Senior Judge, Site Admin, Expert player (2123)
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2794
Location: Northern California
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Your system specs are okay. The framerate isn't really an issue, since when you're TASing you'll be working primarily frame-by-frame anyway. TAStudio is also still in beta at the moment, so I wouldn't rely on it for working until it's more "official".
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Posted: 1/27/2015 12:15 PM
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The_Brookman
Player (181)
Joined: 10/8/2006
Posts: 145
looks like it'll have to be 1.5x for now then. Thanks. I'd still like anyone else's opinion on the frame rate for bizhawk tho.
Posted: 1/27/2015 2:41 PM
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ALAKTORN
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Player (99)
Joined: 10/19/2009
Posts: 2527
Location: Italy
DS TAS of 2012
25fps should be plenty enough if what you’re doing is creating a TAS and not just casually playing the game. I don’t see the problem.
Posted: 1/27/2015 2:42 PM
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adelikat
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Emulator Coder, Site Developer, Site Owner, Expert player (3599)
Joined: 11/3/2004
Posts: 4739
Location: Tennessee
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1) He said 25fps BEFORE recording a movie, movie recording (with the bsnes core) has even more overhead to ensure sync stability. I don't think sub-25fps is a reasonable TASing experience. 2) That's a suspiciously low fps even for your computer specs (which are bad). What kind of fps do you get with for example, NES Super Mario Bros?
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Posted: 1/27/2015 3:17 PM
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The_Brookman
Player (181)
Joined: 10/8/2006
Posts: 145
it only dropped to horribly low fps when I opened the hex editor in playback of the movie. While recording it floated around 25. I also tried Lsnes and had similar low FPS. Obviously My hardware is just not up to date with the requirements but there's nothing I can do about that immediately. Basically, I have a run that I'd been working in circa 2010-2011 that was done on Snes9x 1.43rr. Due to personal/professional circumstance I was never able to complete the movie for submission at that time. Now I'm just trying to understand the best way for me to approach completing the run and I would love to use the most accurate and up to date emulator to do that.
Posted: 1/27/2015 3:20 PM
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adelikat
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Emulator Coder, Site Developer, Site Owner, Expert player (3599)
Joined: 11/3/2004
Posts: 4739
Location: Tennessee
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The Brookman wrote:
and I would love to use the most accurate and up to date emulator to do that.
Well that is bsnes (which lsnes and bizhawk both use). It is slow, but it is insanely accurate to the real SNES. And snes9x is very much not accurate to the real SNES. bsnes is greatly preferred, if you can suffer through low FPS, or get better hardware.
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Posted: 1/27/2015 5:05 PM
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creaothceann
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Editor
Joined: 4/7/2005
Posts: 1874
Location: Germany
The Brookman wrote:
Basically, I have a run that I'd been working in circa 2010-2011 that was done on Snes9x 1.43rr. [...] Now I'm just trying to understand the best way for me to approach completing the run
Note that movies created with one version of SNES9x are relatively likely to not sync with other versions of SNES9x / bsnes / real hardware, so you might have to redo the movie.
Posted: 1/27/2015 5:37 PM
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The_Brookman
Player (181)
Joined: 10/8/2006
Posts: 145
so basically I should proceed from scratch with bizhawk or lsnes? I see bizhawk's editor is in beta. does Lsnes have better movie editor support??
Posted: 1/27/2015 10:07 PM
Post subject: Re: New to BizHawk, seeking help.
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FractalFusion
Editor, Skilled player (1941)
Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 3247
Glitchy TAS of 2013 Gameboy TAS of 2013 PSX TASer of 2010
The Brookman wrote:
I'm on a Dell with intel core 2 duo cpu p8400 2.26 ghz with 4.00GB ram. Bizhawk is running my SNES game at ~25 fps. and i can't increase or reduce the frame rate significantly even at 6400% increase it runs at ~25 fps.
Would disabling "Use Ring Buffer IO" improve the fps for you? (When SNES ROM is loaded, SNES -> Options -> Uncheck "Use Ring Buffer IO".)
Posted: 1/27/2015 10:10 PM
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zeromus
Editor, Emulator Coder
Joined: 8/7/2008
Posts: 1156
you should probably check whether your performance is any better in lsnes
Posted: 1/27/2015 10:16 PM
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The_Brookman
Player (181)
Joined: 10/8/2006
Posts: 145
@FractalFusion: I have already tried with unfortunately no improvement. However, thanks to the information I've gathered from all of you esteemed TAS'ers on the forum and IRC I've decided to start from scratch with bizhawk. Per Masterjun's scolding: I will forget that I ever had a nearly complete TAS on the obsolete snes9x 1.43rr and just start from scratch. I'm operating in frame by frame exclusively so as to ignore my inability to otherwise control the speed. I appreciate all of your support.
Posted: 1/27/2015 11:14 PM
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creaothceann
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Editor
Joined: 4/7/2005
Posts: 1874
Location: Germany
Some background info... bsnes was the name of byuu's emulator and came in 3 flavors: "compatibility" (default, renders a scanline instantly), "accuracy" (slower, renders pixel by pixel, fixes Air Strike Patrol's plane shadow) and "performance" (old, less accurate version with speed hacks). byuu then split the emulation cores from the interface (which is called higan now). BizHawk uses the "compatibility" and "performance" cores. Once a movie is created on at least the "compatibility" core it'll most likely continue to work in all future versions of the emulator and on a real SNES (unless there are analog variances or the game uses uninitialized RAM). lsnes, Mednafen and RetroArch also use one or more bsnes cores.