ZMZ questions / lite alternatives to RA

General Off-Topic
#1

Hi. My first post here, so, please, bear with me. Recently, I’ve learned about ZMZ’s existence and found that to be a great little project since I’m only interested in very few emulators ported to Libretro. I’m looking for simple interfaces and “lite” installations, which keep the Windows system as “fresh” as possible, especially when the emulation itself is running. One could say that why not using the original emulators as they’re served (pre-Libretro), but I guess we all know here that many interesting changes are being developed for the Libretro cores, and only for them. Brunnis’ modifications to improve input lag in SNES9X and BSNES’s cores are a good example, not to mention you can’t use Genesis Plus GX without a Libretro frontend.

So, being a newbie to Libretro stuff and not having tried RA yet since it doesn’t look what I’m looking for, my first question is, which are other good alternatives to RA and ZMZ (for, essentially, Super NES, Mega Drive and PC Engine cores) I could try?

Regarding ZMZ, has somebody tried to use it with up-to-date SNES9X and BSNES cores (so that you can taste the aforementioned Brunnis’ modifications)? Could you use/configure the frame delay option like with RA as explained in that thread? Has somebody succeeded in using Genesis Plus GX or Mednafen cores with it? I’m asking of course because I couldn’t manage to use other than the included SNES9X core, I’m afraid.

Thanks for any hint!

#2

ZMZ doesn’t work with all cores unfortunately, but there is a frontend that sounds like what you’re looking for: Alcaro’s minir: Win64: http://www.mediafire.com/download/s8c6ltly6am4br8/minir64.exe Win32: http://www.mediafire.com/download/9r6bb0l9cbek7ak/minir32.exe You could also try bsnes-qt if you can find a build of it anywhere, but I doubt it’ll work with much more than ZMZ.

#3

Thank you very much for that. So is it normal then that a recent SNES9X core (not to mention a recent BSNES one) won’t work with ZMZ?

Thinking about those issues, some may actually be due to the lack of libwinpthread-1.dll in my system. What’s a good place place to download it or what’s its exact size, uncompressed, please?

Alcaro’s Minir sounds really well indeed, though I obviously won’t pick it over RA if I’ll get worse emulation results/performance. One of the reasons I became so interested in ZMZ was your tests regarding input lag, where it ranked even better than RA. Reading this, it doesn’t seem as if the author is as interested in “low-latency fullscreen” as RA’s authors. I should have mentioned that another reason to look for simple, “lite” frontends is that I’m using a 15kHz CRT (with custom modelines), so if I somehow can’t get RA’s ability to use any non-standard video mode in my system (or features such as this), I’ll discard it beforehand.

Also, in general, for Windows 7 64 bits, should I download from x86_64_w32, x86_64, or x86?

Thanks again.

#4

x86_64 is the way to go for win64.

You should be able to get libwinpthread-1.dll from the ‘redist’ package on buildbot.libretro.com.

ZMZ with a recent snes9x build should be very close to ZSNES, and RetroArch should only be a little bit behind that, as far as latency is concerned. I haven’t used minir in a long time, so I don’t know if it has exclusive fullscreen or not.

I use RetroArch with my CRTs. As long as the custom modelines are already set and active, RA should have no problem snapping to it.

#5

[QUOTE=hunterk;44310] You should be able to get libwinpthread-1.dll from the ‘redist’ package on buildbot.libretro.com.[/QUOTE]

I’ve downloaded it and have tried on a 32-bits Windows with the “x86” files, placed it into ZMZ’s folder but Windows doesn’t like it when trying to load, for instance, a BSNES core. And still no luck with anything else than the stock SNES9X core packed with ZMZ, both, under a 32- and a 64-bits system.

So let me ask once again: if anybody has used the latest BSNES, SNES9X, Medanafen or GEN PLUS GX cores with ZMZ, please let me know it just to know that I’m doing something wrong…

I haven’t used minir in a long time, so I don’t know if it has exclusive fullscreen or not.

I see, thanks.

I use RetroArch with my CRTs. As long as the custom modelines are already set and active, RA should have no problem snapping to it.

RA scares me a little for being designed for control pad usage and as a powerful GUI [for HD monitors]. May I ask if it’s a “portable” program and if it keeps Windows’ registry intact after closing it? RA uses exclusive full-screen no matter the core you pick, right? The original BSNES has always been “windowed” full-screen, hasn’t it? Is the video system of RA shared by all the cores and independent of what the original emulators did, then?

#6

Correct, Higan doesn’t have exclusive fullscreen in Windows. I think older versions of bsnes (as in, pre-v073… maybe earlier; there are some forks, bsnes-plus and bsnes-classic, floating around that pair the old GUI with backported emulation improvements) that probably have it.

RetroArch has a menu called RGUI that works perfectly at “240p”. It’s what I use in my arcade cab.

Yes, if it’s set to exclusive fullscreen (which it is by default), it will use it regardless of core.

And yes, RetroArch never touches the registry.

#7

Thanks again for your answers. Will try RA once I check some manuals and stuff. Is DirectDraw an option or only D3D and OpenGL APIs are used for the Windows version?

Regarding Super Famicom/Super NES emulation, have you tried SNESGT? I’m not sure if it’s based on SNES9X, but it’s supposedly more accurate (though I can’t get the scroll perfectly smooth with “Synchronous Update” on my 15-kHz setup).

#8

I haven’t used SNESGT but I don’t think it’s been updated in a very long time, in which case I doubt the accuracy comparison is still valid.

RA doesn’t use DirectDraw, but it’s a deprecated API anyway and runs very slowly/poorly in Win8+.

#9

Yeah, there’s no use for DDraw from W8 onwards, but there’s still W7. The problem with D3D (under an ATI card) is that it adds around 3 frames of video lag due to the frame queue it generates. Frame delay features such as Groovymame’s solves (bypasses) this issue, but the Libretro cores without it (all of them 'cept for current SNES9X and BSNES ones, if I’m not mistaken) will suffer from it, I’m afraid. Do you use an ATI card for your 15kHz Windows setup?

Edit: In this thread it was discussed for the first time the frame delay feature and how it affects D3D’s performance with Groovymame.

#10

RetroArch also has a frame delay option, and ‘hard gpu sync’, which is basically the same thing but automated (at the cost of greatly increased CPU usage instead of having to fine-tune it per-game).

I do use ATI for my setups, but I use Linux+KMS rather than Windows.

#11

Ah… Now I see, thank you. Do you use Groovymame with Linux? I don’t remember the reasons (most likely, I wouldn’t even understand them), but it’s kind of certified that you get more lag (1 frame) than with the Windows builds.

As I understand it, RGUI, is built-in, so I just need to download 2016-07-17_RetroArch.7z, right? Is RetroArch.7z just the same but with the whole core pack? What would be the first step to start RA with RGUI? Is there an option in the .cfg file I should enable before running the .exe? <code><code> </code></code>

#12

No, I only use RetroArch. There may be some extra driver-level buffering going on in Linux vs Windows but I prefer Linux anyway for a number of other reasons.

Open the retroarch.cfg config file and change menu_driver = “xmb” to menu_driver = “rgui”

#13

Thanks again!

#14

[QUOTE=hunterk;44310] I use RetroArch with my CRTs. As long as the custom modelines are already set and active, RA should have no problem snapping to it.[/QUOTE]

This might be an unexpected question, but, if one were to create/set the video modes in his Windows system just for RA usage, how would he know which are the one(s) best suited to every core, particularly the vertical frequency? For instance, Super Famicom/Super NES NTSC has been properly measured and the vertical refresh is always of 60,098475Hz no matter the resolution (BSNES’ author acknowledges this for his emulation), but what about say, the MSX2 or the PC Engine?

#15

I just set mine to 1920x240@~59.95 and it works with everything. RetroArch transparently resamples the audio to match the slightly different framerate.

#16

I see. I just realized that at least one DLL from DX9 is required to install RA on my system. Do you recommend installing DX9 just for this despite having DX11 already?

Also, given that my system is off-line, is there an option in the .cfg file to totally disable possible connection requests for updates, net gaming, etc.?

Thanks.

#17

Yeah, you’ll need to install directx9.0c.

I think you can compile it with --disable-networking but I don’t think there are any config options for that.