Help- upgraded to XP, now ZSNES slow...

BCprogger · Post by **BCprogger** » Fri Aug 04, 2006 7:43 pm

My computer was running windows 98SE about a month ago, and had been for almost two years, during which ZSNES (for windows) worked perfectly fine. But now, I upgraded to XP, and it runs at only 6 FPS where it ran at 50 before! (this is Super Mario World) I've tried changing the Vsync, and all sorts of other options, using a different ROM, but can't seem to figure this out. SNES9X works OK, but I hate that emu, since I keep forgetting to press Shift to save...

Any help would be appreciated. Oh, heres my configuration:

AMD k6-2 3D-NOW
128 MB of RAM
ATI 3D Rage Pro AGP 2x on Dell 21' Monitor
Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 1
Maxtor 1.86 GB Boot
Fujitsu 8GB D:\
Fujitsu 4GB E:\
HL-DT-ST 52x32x52x CD-burner

Ah, And I just tested, and the DOS version works at full speed (normally) I'd just need to fix the sound. I still prefer the windows version. Any help appreciated.

Deathlike2 · Post by **Deathlike2** » Fri Aug 04, 2006 7:47 pm

There's a pretty good chance that a combination of drivers+OS that is making ZSNES slow...

The only thing I can think of to improve performance is that you need to install/update the AGP GART drivers for your mobo.

Sapiens · Post by **Sapiens** » Fri Aug 04, 2006 11:27 pm

Something tells me that running 128MB of RAM in XP probably isn't helping much either. How fast is your processor? Have you updated all of your drivers to the 2K/XP versions?

BCprogger · Post by **BCprogger** » Fri Aug 04, 2006 11:52 pm

Hey, 128 MB is better then the 96 MB I was running with just yesterday. Actually, now that I think about it, I think ZSNES DID work after I upgraded. In fact, I think that was one of the first programs I tested after. I am using a different Monitor, though. Could that cause the problem? It's still using the standard PnP driver, at 60Hz. I'll try installing drivers for this Dell monitor...

MisterJones · Post by **MisterJones** » Sat Aug 05, 2006 12:14 am

BCprogger wrote:Hey, 128 MB is better then the 96 MB I was running with just yesterday.

WinXP bare minimal requirements include 128 mb ram (win 98 is 16/32 mb). Which is why you should expect a performance loss.

BCprogger wrote:Actually, now that I think about it, I think ZSNES DID work after I upgraded. In fact, I think that was one of the first programs I tested after. I am using a different Monitor, though. Could that cause the problem? It's still using the standard PnP driver, at 60Hz. I'll try installing drivers for this Dell monitor...

I don't think it should make a differnece. Check if your video card is not using generic drivers.

adventure_of_link · Post by **adventure_of_link** » Sat Aug 05, 2006 12:28 am

what no

XP's minimum RAM is 64MB, recommended is 128MB

also minimum for 98 is 16MB, recommended is 24MB

BCprogger · Post by **BCprogger** » Sat Aug 05, 2006 12:33 am

I actually was somewhat reluctant to upgrade at all, since I wasn't sure if my Need for Speed games would work as fast. Thankfully, they do. Besides, I disabled XP themes, which I've heard consumes a fair amount of memory (not to mention all the calls to GradientFill()). In addition, SNES9X works perfectly fine, and the DOS ZSNES works too (without sound, which I cannot get to work...). The problem is that it isn't necessarily the fact that ZSNES emulates slowly, but that it runs slowly. What I mean is that immediately after starting it, the cursor is all jerky. Which is why I originally suspected the DX9 drivers included in XP (my 98 computer was using DX8). But even after upgrading DirectX, no success. fiddling with video, disabling sound. No success. It seems that all my other games work perfectly fine (within the constraints of my AMD 350 Mhz cpu (there you go Mister Jones), such as NFS2 (perfect, fast FPS) and NFS3 (just as speedy) as well as High-stakes (same, as long as I reduce certain graphics options). ZSNES is the only one with a problem. And if by generic drivers you mean those installed by default by XP, then yes. I haven't upgraded the Video Drivers from the default XP. (shut up, I know I should have done that first. I'll try it now...)

BCprogger · Post by **BCprogger** » Sat Aug 05, 2006 12:36 am

Oh. My bad. XP has DX 8.1. regardless.

Deathlike2 · Post by **Deathlike2** » Sat Aug 05, 2006 12:44 am

BCprogger wrote:In addition, SNES9X works perfectly fine, and the DOS ZSNES works too (without sound, which I cannot get to work...).

If you think DOS ZSNES was gonna have sound by default in XP, you are sadly mistaken. You would need something like VDMSound or DOSBox to get any sound emulation (and the fact that you need to run an external program will further drain resources).

ZSNES is the only one with a problem. And if by generic drivers you mean those installed by default by XP, then yes. I haven't upgraded the Video Drivers from the default XP. (shut up, I know I should have done that first. I'll try it now...)

Most of the time, the drivers provided by XP give "basic acceleration". This means you get craptacular performance in general.

PHoNyMiKe · Post by **PHoNyMiKe** » Sat Aug 05, 2006 12:50 am

I think in the zsnes docs it says you need like an 800mhz cpu to run good in xp. get a new processor man! I didn't think a 350mhz system would run a typcial xp install (shut up you nerds with your 'xp needs 13.4MB ram and 98.2MB of hard drive space minimum shit')

adventure_of_link · Post by **adventure_of_link** » Sat Aug 05, 2006 12:57 am

(here we go again)

XP Minimum: 233MHz Pentium MMX, recommended: 300MHz Pentium II-MMX
98 minimum: 486DX2 @ 66MHz, recommended: ???

BCprogger · Post by **BCprogger** » Sat Aug 05, 2006 1:03 am

Oh crap. Now I can't even get past the Log-on screen. Great. I installed the XP ATI video drivers off ATI.com, and now, after I enter my username and password, it pops up a dialog that says:

Windows Product Activation (title bar)

A problem is preventing Windows from accurately checking the license for this computer. Error Code: 0x80070002.

Now I have MUCH bigger problems then ZSNES going slow...

And to the one who says my 350 can't run a typical XP install, I say, I am, and it works pretty quick, as long as you disable the retardedly hoggy theme crap, as well as the new "Easier to use" (my ass) start menu, which just gets cluttered with crap.

Que · Post by **Que** » Sat Aug 05, 2006 1:17 am

adventure_of_link wrote:(here we go again)

XP Minimum: 233MHz Pentium MMX, recommended: 300MHz Pentium II-MMX
98 minimum: 486DX2 @ 66MHz, recommended: Pentium 133

adventure_of_link · Post by **adventure_of_link** » Sat Aug 05, 2006 2:30 am

Thank you sir.

Also, it should be known that 2000's minimum is Pentium 133, and iirc the recommended is 200.

Also, is this a blue screen error ? cos iirc in SP2 it just says you may be a victim of software counterfeiting, and in Vista, it just makes a prompt about it and it goes slow as hell.

PHoNyMiKe · Post by **PHoNyMiKe** » Sat Aug 05, 2006 3:39 am

when people say minimum, it's hard to say what that means. I think of minimum performance, so choppy gameplay is expected. I got a 3ghz laptop, plays zsnes full screen 3x screen filters whatever full speed 100% of the time, so I could rate that as overkill.

zsnes windows xp minumim

- 200MHz processor (500MHz recommended)
- 32MB of RAM (64MB recommended)
- 3D graphics accelerator required (nVidia GeForce 2 or equivalent recommended)

now what does recommended mean? average framerate like say 40-50 fps? I just remember having an 800mhz processor with windows 98 installed, and by tweaking zsnes by running in a 16 bit video mode, and other low performance settings, I was able to get 60fps. so again, with xp running in the background, I don't see how you're gonna get any enjoyment out of zsnes, but you can try. or just use snes9x if that works for ya.

so get the latest driver for your vid card, download the latest direct x. and that's all you can do without getting a faster processor.

AntoineWG · Post by **AntoineWG** » Sat Aug 05, 2006 7:58 am

Getting back on topic:

Try deleting your ZSNES config files. That may help.

Make sure you have good drivers for your motherboard. The default drivers that come with XP are generally crap. Sometimes you may have to grab an older driver version, not the most recent. This is especially true with VIA chipsets.

Stifu · Post by **Stifu** » Sat Aug 05, 2006 8:39 am

Hmmm, using zget to compile a ZSNES optimized for his computer may help a little, no ?

creaothceann · Post by **creaothceann** » Sat Aug 05, 2006 8:40 am

Probably not enough.

Deathlike2 · Post by **Deathlike2** » Sat Aug 05, 2006 9:23 am

Stifu wrote:Hmmm, using zget to compile a ZSNES optimized for his computer may help a little, no ?

I'm told it takes forever to compile on a uber slow system.. in the realm of 3+hours or something like that when compiling clean (this is based on someone else who has similar specs).

CheapAlert · Post by **CheapAlert** » Sat Aug 05, 2006 4:20 pm

sometimes disabling the cursor shadow helps, windows may be retarded and try to attempt to draw it over the overlay slowing the ooold card down

I know it helps on (sh)integrated chipsets

paulguy · Post by **paulguy** » Sat Aug 05, 2006 8:05 pm

as an AMD k6-2 owner, i know these are complete garbage. i have a K6-2 500 running win2000 SP4 with 192MB ram and i can barely manage 40FPS. i usually hover around 20-30FPS. And no it's not spyware or anything, this is a fresh install of windows 2000. (i remember it being faster though, can hardware actually decay and get slower? i got 60/60FPS in zsnes once using the 256x224 DR FULL mode that doesn't work anymore.)

Deathlike2 · Post by **Deathlike2** » Sat Aug 05, 2006 8:13 pm

paulguy wrote:as an AMD k6-2 owner, i know these are complete garbage. i have a K6-2 500 running win2000 SP4 with 192MB ram and i can barely manage 40FPS. i usually hover around 20-30FPS. And no it's not spyware or anything, this is a fresh install of windows 2000. (i remember it being faster though, can hardware actually decay and get slower?

Hardware doesn't really "decay" or get slow exactly.. but the bloating up the OS with more installs will slow it down further (well, it is significantly more noticable in Win9x). The performance would increase if you had a better video card (it is noticable when you have a slower processor).

i got 60/60FPS in zsnes once using the 256x224 DR FULL mode that doesn't work anymore.)

There is no such mode. D modes are only available in 512x448 and above. 256x224 R FULL will most likely work in a Win9x OS.

paulguy · Post by **paulguy** » Sat Aug 05, 2006 8:26 pm

ah yeah i meant R FULL. it didn't even work in win9x for that long. i blame upgrading videocard drivers breaking it. otherwise, even after fresh installs of an OS whether it be windows 98 or windows 2000, it's slower than i remember it to be. Not just in zsnes because i guess i hear it's been getting slower lately but in general. It was pretty snappy and responsive when i first got it but now it's all blahblahblah loading..., takes 2 minutes to load firefox..

franpa · Post by **franpa** » Sun Aug 06, 2006 2:03 am

its getting slower due to it becoming more accurate at emulating the original console.

Poobah · Post by **Poobah** » Sun Aug 06, 2006 3:13 am

franpa wrote:its getting slower due to it becoming more accurate at emulating the original console.

franpa, all evidence suggests that that is not the problem here.

I'm thinking that he's just changed from the really-fast DOS port in Win9x to the Windows port in Windows XP. I could get about 40-60 FPS in most games in Win9x using the ModeQ modes with the DOS port, using my Pentium-MMX 166MHz CPU and 2MB S3 Trio 64V graphics card, but the Windows port wasn't playable on that computer (let alone the resource-hogging Windows XP).