Slowdowns While Linking With Dolphin

[ShayHacohen]

Hey!

So, here's the deal:

I've got 2 games, Pokemon Ruby (GBA) and a Pokemon bonus disc (GameCube), and I wanna connect them so I can get a rare pokemon only obtainable that way.

 

So, I've got GBA-M and Dolphin, and tried to create a connection.

It all went well, untill I actually connected the 2 emulators, and then the gba game started moving really slow, like, 1 frame, then a minute of freeze, then another frame and so on.

I've had another version of Pokemon Ruby before, and the freezing stopped after about 30 minutes, but then I found out that it was the japanese version while I needed the US one so I had to find a new rom, and the freezing just doesn't stop, and it was on for a whole night.

 

I'm not really sure what's the build and stuff, but when I go to help>about VBA-M, then that's what I get:

Version: 1.8.0 (SVN1030)
Date compiled: Aug 13 2011

I tried to download the most recent version before opening this thread but when I'm trying to open it I get a message saying 'error opening event', and that's it...

 

I know I'm supposed to add a screenshot but I didn't know what screenshot to take and I don't know a good free software for taking videos, so I didn't do it, but if that's really necessary then let me know and I'll work it out.

Also, tell me what other details you need...

 

And another thing...

I'm really new to all these stuff, so please try to explain it with as much details as you can [img]<fileStore.core_Emoticons>/emoticons/tongue.png[/img]/emoticons/tongue@2x.png 2x" width="20" height="20" /> I don't even know if that's the right forum [img]<fileStore.core_Emoticons>/emoticons/laugh.png[/img]/emoticons/laugh@2x.png 2x" width="20" height="20" />

[Squall Leonhart]

So you're wondering about slowdowns when using an emulator that is pretty heavy on a single cpu, while running dolphin which is heavy on multi core cpu's. and didn't include your system details :banana_beam_up:

[ShayHacohen]

So you're wondering about slowdowns when using an emulator that is pretty heavy on a single cpu, while running dolphin which is heavy on multi core cpu's. and didn't include your system details :banana_beam_up:

 

Yeah, something like that [img]<fileStore.core_Emoticons>/emoticons/tongue.png[/img]/emoticons/tongue@2x.png 2x" width="20" height="20" />

except I can run several copies of dolphin & vba with no slowdowns (unless there's a link between them, of course) so I didn't think it's that.

 

and the specs are

Processor: Intel® Core i5-2300 CPU @ 2.80GHz
4 GB Ram

OS is Windows 7 64 bits

I don't even know if it's good [img]<fileStore.core_Emoticons>/emoticons/laugh.png[/img]/emoticons/laugh@2x.png 2x" width="20" height="20" /> but I know that I can run many games at the same time, is this link actually requiring that much CPU?

and if that's really the problem, then why is only the GBA game effected by it?

And when I used the other copy of the game, the one that was a japanese version, it stopped lagging eventually, how come? I didn't actually change anything [img]<fileStore.core_Emoticons>/emoticons/tongue.png[/img]/emoticons/tongue@2x.png 2x" width="20" height="20" />

 

And if that is the problem, what can I do about it? [img]<fileStore.core_Emoticons>/emoticons/laugh.png[/img]/emoticons/laugh@2x.png 2x" width="20" height="20" />

 

Sorry for all those questions, I'm just a begginer with all these stuff so yeah.

 

Thanks!

Shay.

[Squall Leonhart]

the link require both emulators to run at full speed, without frameskipping or hacks

 

i don't see why this wouldn't be the case, though shuffle2's joybus support might require more speed for synching the 2 emulators.

 

 

[xchronox0]

I don't think it's a slow hardware issue.

I can run VBA-M and Dolphin (both up to date) side by side just fine. But the moment I try to do any kind of linking, VBA-M runs extremely slow while Dolphin runs fine.

 

The two games I were trying to link:

Sonic Adventure 2: Battle <-> Sonic Advance

Sonic Adventure 2: Battle <-> GBA Bios

 

Dolphin would run at a constant 60 fps (100%) while VBA-M is reading 1%.

While unlinked, both run at 100%.

 

Specs:

AMD Phenom II X6 1100T (6 core @ 3.3GHz)

8GB RAM

AMD Radeon HD 6570

 

Additional Notes:

VBA-M is running on 32* while Dolphin is running on 64-bit. (Editnote: Even tried 32-bit Dolphin, with same results.)

Both are running on the same machine, connected through 127.0.0.1

VBA-M begins running normally when I set the Dolphin controller back to {Nothing}.

Both programs are allowed by the firewall.

 

 

Google search shows other people having this issue, and never being resolved.

[Squall Leonhart]

Request Joybus linking support from the dolphin-emu project, its the product of Shuffle2's work and he maintains a version of vba-m he knows to work with dolphin interop.

 

Current VBA-M cannot be guaranteed to work with dolphin for a number of reasons, and the person who could shed any light on this refuses to work with us further.

[Tabris666]

I found this difficult to believe, VBA-M it works kinda different in linking in the first place and second you are running dolphin with minimum specs

 

Minimum specs Dolphin

AMD 2.6 Ghz Dual Core

2 GB ram

GPU Amd Radeon 512mb

 

As you can see in your case Dolphin have an special option to put others programs in second place like the linking to VBA-M if you want to do this you will need another computer with dolphin installed on it

 

This are the specs recommended for Dolphin

AMD 3.6 Ghz Dual Core or more

3 GB ram

GPU Amd Radeon HD 1.5 GB

 

Why i am telling you this is simple dolphin works with minimal specs in your computer so when you try to link VBA-M to Dolphin it detects the minimal configuration with frame skips, minimal resolution while the VBA-M runs at 60fps have higher resolution well you should have understand what is the problem.

 

By the way if you dont believe this, try using the same specs you are using in VBA-M on Dolphin and you will see, same resolution, limiting the fps to 60 on Dolphin,etc.

[Waluigi]

You are lucky, i have nothing, dolphin crashes at the same time for me.

[Nujuju299]

I found this difficult to believe, VBA-M it works kinda different in linking in the first place and second you are running dolphin with minimum specs

 

Minimum specs Dolphin

AMD 2.6 Ghz Dual Core

2 GB ram

GPU Amd Radeon 512mb

 

As you can see in your case Dolphin have an special option to put others programs in second place like the linking to VBA-M if you want to do this you will need another computer with dolphin installed on it

 

This are the specs recommended for Dolphin

AMD 3.6 Ghz Dual Core or more

3 GB ram

GPU Amd Radeon HD 1.5 GB

 

Why i am telling you this is simple dolphin works with minimal specs in your computer so when you try to link VBA-M to Dolphin it detects the minimal configuration with frame skips, minimal resolution while the VBA-M runs at 60fps have higher resolution well you should have understand what is the problem.

 

By the way if you dont believe this, try using the same specs you are using in VBA-M on Dolphin and you will see, same resolution, limiting the fps to 60 on Dolphin,etc.

 

It's by far not a hardware issue. I'm running two machines here and tested this with networking to get the emulators to link up, without any luck.

 

VBA-M and Dolphine both work fantastic on my machines as independent emulators, not even taking up more than 1% CPU usage with everything else running even. But when they link together, VBA-M slows to 0fps.

 

Dolphin is not in question here. VBA-M runs perfectly on either of my machines, and slows down connecting to Dolphin. With that said, my machine's specs are roughly this:

 

Machine 1

12core 3ghz CPU, 16GB RAM, Nvidea GeForce 680

 

Machine 2

8core 2.3ghz CPU, 8GB RAM, Nvidea GeForce 640M

[AdamN]

The issue is related to bottleneck on communication because it blocked cpu emulation while waiting for new data.

 

No matter how high is your spec there will always be degradation in performance trying to simulate raw data transfer with tcp/udp.

 

You can try changing the interval of checking for new data using the unofficial VBA-M svn1030e (i added an input to change the interval and also some other options related to joybus handling) http://web.archive.org/web/20150309103216/http://vba-m.com/forum/Thread-vba-m-r1030e-sourcecode

Here is the download link https://www.dropbox.com/s/l2vn877z7ducktd/VisualBoyAdvance-M1030e.zip

 

Shorter interval will cause more degradation (slower performance), and longer interval will cause less degradation (but have higher chance to desync)