Everyone having lag issues with HS...please read

[billpa]

I am inclined to think quite a few of my themes might cause some lagging issues. Although RAM cache is dumped at a certain point, some of my more animated themes might be exceeding that limit. So for everyone running HS on older computers and experiencing some lag, I want you to try this.

Go into your MAME database. Make a copy and put it somewhere in case you want to revert back to the original. In the database, remove the following themes:

Bomb Jack
Chicken Shift
Centipede
Double Dragon
Elevator Action
Sunset Riders

Now launch HS, go to the MAME wheel. Those games should not be present in the wheel. Start scrolling through and see if the lag continues. Please let me know if it gets any smoother or if it remains the same. If you can post your system specs, that would be great too.

Thanks,
billpa

[billpa]

bump

[BobBorakovitz]

testing now, will edit topic in a few minutes, sorry i didn't get to it earlier. ;)

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ok - I removed the games you recommended in the list and everything works much better now! I think you're on the right track! Crystal Castles seems to do the same thing as you're talking though, once I use it the rest of the FE becomes basically unusable.

Gradius II also runs really really slow but doesn't cause problems once you leave it, while 1 + 3 are perfect. I'm not sure if there are other problem themes, I'll try to test more this weekend and get back to you.

thanks for your help!

[Cakemeister]

I think you would do well to deconstruct the .flv into components and remake the themes.

It was a good decision to not allow the .flv videos in future themes, due to the .flv video requiring so much more horsepower than the regular themes.

BTW Chicken Shift is my favorite theme so far, I enjoy watching it.

[billpa]

Yea I like the really animated themes but I think I am going to stop doing them on account of the extra horsepower they need plus the fact that they take a lot longer to make. I did talk to BBB and most likely the problem is everything is vector based SWFs for my animated themes. This takes a lot more calculations. The upside is that they are very small files so I can do more. When I start rasterizing these animations, they get big. But I have a few plans to get them to play nice with the older computers, stay at a relatively decent size, and look good. We will see.

If anybody else is having slow down problems, it would also be helpful to run task manager while you go through HS. This way you can monitor the amount of CPU and RAM you are using. I know there were a couple of problems with some of my themes not dumping (actually running in the background) but I believe everything has been fixed in this past build.

Cheers,
Bill

[smegleg]

Hi Bill,

I'm one of those having lag problems, though it definitely isn't just down to your themes. Having removed them, I still get lag issues with a lot of the themes still left. This is on my desktop PC which I use for gaming, with an E6600, X1950pro and 2 gigs of RAM. As I mentioned in another thread, it performs almost identically to my cabinet, which is a P4 2.8 with onboard graphics and 1 gig of RAM. Watching task manager, Hyperspin uses at most 200 megs, usually under 100, but it uses 100% of one of my cores when the animation gets choppy. Changing the resolution and running in a window makes no visible difference.

Any ideas?

[Wade]

I tried HS yesterday on my home PC for the first time, and it was choppy especially for certain themes. I'll try it again and add more info to this thread.

The PC is a P4 2.4ghz. My MAME setup only has an Athlon 1700 or something in that ballpark, so I'm afraid I won't be able to use HS. Can't justify buying a hotter PC just for the Frontend.

I really do love the looks of it and the themes. I am even willing to drop all games from my cabinet except for those with complete skins, because I really like a complete and polished system.

Wade

[cathaldub]

I get wheel up/down scroll lag when hyperspin has been running for a few days, I find if I exit it and go back in its fine again
2GB of ram, P4 2.8ghz

this doesnt happen with the left/right scroll though

[Aabra]

Guys, if you're having lag problems download the latest version which was released late last night. Then go into the settings.ini file in the settings directory and change the useadvanced setting to false.

If you're still having slowdown problems. (unlikely) Then you can set Animated to false as well.

The major slowdown problems are the extremely complicated background transitions.

I had serious problems before - everything runs silky smooth now. I'm using a P4 3 ghz with 1.5 gigs of ram.

[tk375]

OK, I hope this help a little bit
2 computers

Computer 1:

Pentium 4 1.7GHZ with 512MB very little to not noticeable slow down.

Computer 2:
Intel Quad Core Duo Q6600 with 4GB of Ram runs flawless.

My advice, is that is you are going to have Hyperspin, spend a couple hundred dollars on something that is going to run this great front end the way is supposed to run.

I have seen dual core computer at Frys Electronics for 199 Dollars

TK 375 Out!

[billpa]

Guys, if you're having lag problems download the latest version which was released late last night. Then go into the settings.ini file in the settings directory and change the useadvanced setting to false.

If you're still having slowdown problems. (unlikely) Then you can set Animated to false as well.

The major slowdown problems are the extremely complicated background transitions.

I had serious problems before - everything runs silky smooth now. I'm using a P4 3 ghz with 1.5 gigs of ram.

Just reiterating what Aabra stated. If you do not have the latest release, download it. You can either download the exe and edit your original ini files or you can download the whole package and replace your ini files with the new one. There is new code that will allow you to turn off advanced background transitions OR background transitions alltogether. This has been the reason why most people have experienced lag so far. A few of my heavy SWF themes may run a little slower but not to the point that you would consider it laggy (at least not on my P$ 2.4 ghz machine).

So try that out. Link to latest HS announcement here:

http://www.hyperspin-fe.com/forum/showthread.php?t=769

[jtslade]

I have hyperspin running on

P4 1.7 1.5gb ddr ram / Nvidia 5200FX AGP

its very, very slow. I will use the set false options in the ini and try to see if it helps.

[thintwowin]

I turn background animations off.
Set both main menu and mame wheels to vertical.
Alpha wheel in mame to .3

If you look at each theme going thru mame wheel as intended it runs just fine.
when you fly thru the wheel i get some lag, when you stop at the nexted theme.

I i do get a problem sometimes with art or background images from a preivous theme not leaving the screen. example canyon bomber plane stayed on screen when i went to all other themes. I just go back to main wheel and back in mame it disapears.

Stoping the background animated really help me.
I think it runs just fine overall

[EvilDindon]

I had the same issue of artwork still displaying while changing to another theme, but the bug seems to have disappear with HS 0.6.0.7

[t0rc]

removed those titles and it runs noticably smoother.

I only have 512 mb of ram i think thats a little thin, i'll bump it up to 1gb.

[Chito]

ive noticed that there is lag in the flv videos untill the theme has finished fully finished animating the theme in. when the artwork files are at rest then the video runs at smooth normal frame rate. ive noticed (might be just me) the thing that makes the Vids lag the most it seems the background animations. anything using a alpha blend or fade, stretch or chop effect has the strongest effect. even for themes that seem to have a random background animation run fine if the animation is a simple one, press down then up and if the animation is as mentioned then there is lag in the flv vids. ive seen this lag on even the simplest of themes. could be cause hyperspin is applying the animations in real time. but even creating flash files with super heaps complicated animations and using really large pixel based artwork dont lag so badly. i really think the problem is in the code for hyperspin somewhere. there has to be away to make the frontend more CPU friendly

[Lashek]

What are your cab's specs? I haven't had a slowdown at all since changing from a single core processor.

You can edit your HS Settings and turn off the advanced effects if you are experiencing latency/slowdowns, etc.

[Chito]

well the comp im using for that observation is a dated dual core... also i must admit i have quite a few background apps running. the comp isnt pure gaming, its more of a work comp. i think that advance effects will do the trick thou...

i also had the res on 1280 x 1028 or something like that. i want to start creating themes and was testing it stuff out.

[Lashek]

i also had the res on 1280 x 1028 or something like that. i want to start creating themes and was testing it stuff out.

This could also have a large cause to your problem due to HS being designed for 1024x768. Anything different requires upscaling and downscaling depending on the resolution, which further adds to the stress and demand of what's needed.

What happens when changing over to 1024x768 with everything default? Does it still lag?

[Chito]

barely noticeable and the native resolution... still there but only if your really looking other theme animation work great to at that res....

i was was wondering though. since i want to create my own themes is it better to have my art work as vector swf's or png's? if the res is different then the demand would be around the less for the swf then png and the image quality would be better. additional i would be able to add nested animation in the swf...

what do you think? which is the way to go?

[Lashek]

Whichever improves or enhances the theme to your tastes. I'm no expert on that portion of things, so I would recommend posting in the theme discussion board for better help on that. :)