MAMEWorld Forums - The Loony Bin - Re: I may get flamed for this, but this IS the loony bin so... (Retroarch Bounty)

Basically reducing the lag that comes after the core emulation to one frame, then depending on the game and your PC's strenght you can adjust frame delay to conquer even more terrain over that last remaining frame.
It works on nVidia GPUs just as well afaik. AMD ones are compulsory only for using with crt_emudrivers.

> My understanding is they only just recently
> implemented the beam racing technique. If that's true, was the previous method a hack
> job?
It's just two different methods achieving the same level of lag reduction, but beam racing when it works is much less resource-hungry.
Problem is unlike frame_delay it doesn't work with every MAME driver.

> You still have the additional lag intruced by the emulator itself however many frames
> that is.
In short you have the core emulation (driver) which assuming is coded correctly by the MAME devs produces its own delay which is the same as the original game/hardware and we shouldn't defeat if we care about shit being accurate and people playing fair.
Then there's what comes after which is mostly frames used to synchronize the picture to the display, and this is what frame_delay AND beam racing work on, NOT the core emulation's natural delay.
Only ShupMame before by using hacks denaturing the proper core emulation, and RA with run-ahead when it's abused (set to more frames than it should), are touching what shouldn't be.

> How is Groovy's system reqs compared to mainline?
Same, no additional cost when you only set it to bypass the frame queue, it's when you use frame_delay to 'assault' the last remaining undesirable frame that it demands more juice.
With that use compared to run-ahead it is not much different in terms of muscle requirements.

Understand: it's not that I find run-ahead bad, it's pretty great! the problem is that it can be used to produce abusive lag reduction that defeats even the original game hardware's own natural lag, which is anti-accuracy, allows the user to overperform those playing on real hardware or normal conditions emulation, and this 'cheat' ability is basically what run-ahead is popular for as we could see from many press articles and even giving people the motivation to make and share a build like that ShmupArch which is stupid.

The excuse of that cheat ability 'benefiting people who own laggy displays' is as poor as the frequent complaint that emulation requires a strong PC anyway.
One wants to game in good conditions using emulators with cutting-edge features like lag reduction and shaders ? : he must buy a good PC and fast display and stop kidding. Often the same people have no issues playing PC games on a monster pc, latest PS4/Xbone games on a fancy 4K TV, or mobile games on a $800 smartphone. Yet they want the best performance for their cheap student laptop or RPI3. Well no.

> Can you provide some examples of these lag free flat panels? I think even the best
> ones still add 1-3 frames. Could be wrong.
Yup that's wrong. There's a number of reviews websites that have been around for many years that test lag among other aspects, for monitors and also TVs.
tftcentral, pcmonitors, Rtings, displaylag etc to name only a few. there's also blurbusters site and forums for more learning and info.
A lot of people though do not fully get what they read there, because they don't know much about how flat panel displays work and what the readings (which are not done exactly the same way depending on the site) mean.
Anyway there's been many low and lagless flat panels available on the market over the years, starting to draw the frame at way under one frame of delay, I've owned and tested many myself, telling you about model names would be pointless because the product series are renewed almost evry year and the availability varies depending on the zone and sometimes even the country. Go visit specialized websites, they also often provide detailed guides to help readers.

> People who just want to play games aren't interested in swapping perfectly good TVs,
> computers, etc. If there is an available solution that gets them the results they
> want right then with what they have on hand, they're going to jump on it.
> Again, just offering up real-world observation.
I know people just want to have fun, but what surprises me is how fiercely they will defend what they've found and gives them immediate satisfaction, against people who know better, just because hearing the possibility that the thing they love and the ideal situation they've built around it in their minds, might not be as cool as they thought, is too annoying or even insulting to some.

All I've learned over the too many years that I've been following and using all possible kinds of hardware and software stuff in the world of 'retro' gaming is that I'm retro too now...er I mean, that in our case here proper core emulation, running on proper hardware, with proper non-destructive settings and features whatever they are, is what to desire. Compromising with hacks and dodgy roundabouts that disrespect the essentials is only extremely rarely worth it, should be used with much precaution and only temporarily.
I'm not against options that bring closer or to exact accuracy, I'm not even against conveniences such as savestates and autofire, I'm against what betrays the code supposed to reproduce the real world, and against stealthy use of conveniences.

Conclusion; I like run-ahead, but it should be limited on a per-game basis to never allow to go down below the game's natural lag. And people should care about buying good displays, if we stop caring about the products performance, manufacturers will do too, and trust me it's real: several have made effort regarding things like input lag only after hearing customers complain for many years.
A TV with over 1 frame of lag even in game mode will never be one suited for fast gaming period.
Regarding lag reduction in mainline MAME; maybe it will happen some day, when they have found an acceptable solution and they have time to include, after all they never said that thay would never provide any, just that we can deal with that on our own in the meantime, with alternate builds or just buying a FreeSync or G-Sync setup.
protip: even some TVs feature FreeSync now, nVidia also make TV-sized G-Sync monitors, and with HDMI 2.1 variable refresh rate (VRR) will become another standard.

> MAME isn't about playing the games anyway.