GoldenEye 007 Nintendo 64 Community, GoldenEye X, Nintendo 64 Games Discussion

[bmw]

Just a few questions about framerates in-game vs framerates as shown on PJ64 -

I've noticed that in 2-player mode, I get generally 50-60 fps on most maps, and when its anything less than 60, the "system idle" is at 0 percent. When its at a full 60 fps, the system idle ranges anywhere from 0 to 30 percent.

But when in 3 and 4-player mode, I actually get a full 60 fps more often, but with a higher system idle, BUT also with jerkier in-game play. Its like the emulator is not fully utilizing resources to keep the in-game framerates maximized.

I also ran into this problem when working on a control room map. Even in just 2-player mode - I'm getting 60 fps with the system idle at 50 to 60 percent. But the in-game play is VERY jerky.

Is there any way to get around this through emulator settings or possibly through memory settings in the 21990 table?

[SubDrag]

The memory settings in 21990 just adjust how much is allocated. So it probably wouldn't make a huge difference for emulation. I'm not sure what's going on, are you on a dual core?

[bmw]

Has anybody out there ever played around with the COUNTER FACTOR setting in the advanced tab?

I've seen this in other emulators (like gameboy advance) and as best I can tell it is effectively a framerate cap, skipping frames. The default factor of 2 for goldeneye would cut from 60 to 30, correct?

I tried setting it to 3, my guess is that it caps emu framerates to 20 fps? On my slower computer, this improved emu-related jumpiness drastically, increasing the emu framerates back to 60 with sufficient free cpu space.

So my question is this - in 3 and 4 player mode, would the game actually play smoother on a very fast computer if the counter factor was set to 1 ? My comp only runs the emu at 30 fps or so when I set it to 1, I was wondering if anybody out there with a fast computer got better performance out of the game by setting the counter to 1

I also wonder if setting it to 3 on a slower computer would improve online gameplay?

[zoinkity]

Are you talking about the counter value in the rom's header? If you are, don't screw with it. There's this silly rumour going around that this overclocks games, but it doesn't. It sets the cpu counter factor which effectively *can* run games faster, but totally bugs any counter math used.


The reason you're seeing high emu framerates but jerkiness in 3-4 player is mostly because the CPU is working harder and in-game framerates are lower as a result. What happens is like so:
Each player is allocated a certain amount of memory for their own viewport. Anything rendered in their viewport is thrown into a display list (consisting mostly of pointer-type arguments) and all of this is rendered seperately. So, for each additional player you get another call to the RDP for another complete world instance, and after all this mess the screen output is placed in a buffer and sent to your TV at each VI.
So, imagine this. 2 player is like doing everything you did for multiplayer, but twice. 3 player is like doing everything for solo, but three times. I think you get the point. The CPU is (for argument's sake) 2, 3, or 4 times as busy. That's why you see the spike in processing drain and the jerkiness.

GE isn't the most efficient game out there. There are huge chunks of redundant code, a lot of discarded code that has to be repeatedly reloaded between jumps and returns, etc. The biggest achievement in PD was skimming the fat from GE's codebase. Still, absolutely brilliant work.
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[bmw]

Yeah, that's the one I'm talking about. By default for the original rom, its set to 2. On my slower computer, increasing it to 3 does improve emulator performance, as in, the emu framerate hold 60 fps much better. In-game play has a lower framerate, but at least the game itself doesn't run "slow" as a result of it not running at 60 fps.

[bmw]

I just finished building a custom computer for a friend of mine - put in it an AMD 3200+ processor and 512 megs of ram. I cannot believe just how much better Goldeneye runs on this system than my own - I'm having 50-60 percent of the CPU unused even in CPU-intensive multiplayer maps.

Which brings me back to the counter factor. I set it to 1 - the computer can just handle it, using about 90 percent of the CPU. In-game performance is much smoother, less jerky, and firing speed of the guns doesn't slow down nearly as much when CPU action is high.

So I'm still convinced that on a really fast computer, goldeneye runs best with the counter factor changed from 2 to 1, and on a slower computer may need to be set to 3.

[fantsu]

Would it be possible to run GE in... let's say 65 or 70 fps?
More frantic and faster?

[fantsu]

And btw. bmw, I did put the counter factor 1 in PD (haven't tried it in GE) and yes it runs like silk: every map, 4 players, 8 simulants... whatever, it really runs good, no lags, no lost in frames, nothing, way better that PD in N64.

I got 1 gig of memory and ATI X1800GTO.

I think the GE would also run like this, very nicely.

[The Extremist]

The only time that PD slows down for me online is when I'm turning left or right.
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[Dizzy]

Hi guys, new here.

First, I bought a new computer last week, mainly to play Goldeneye. I was thinking of buying a gameshark, but since I read that the framerate drops like hell in some custom maps, I decided to go with a Pc.

My Pc is a Core2Duo E4500 (2.20GH) + 2 GB of Ram + Nvidia 8500 GT.

That being said, I tried Goldeneye with Project64. The game looked amazing, but the framerate was almost the same as the N64 (PJ64 always said 60fps though).


bmw, after reading this post I decided to mess around with the "Counter Factor" myself. And you were absolutely right!!!!!

I set it on "3" and it's amazing how the game runs now. 60fps in a 4 players match!!!!!. I even tried "heavy" stages like Crandle and had the same result.

Maybe this is old news, but I wanted to thank you for this tip, and should be stickty or something.

bmw, you're the man, Goldeneye in 60fps, even in multiplayer. I'll love you forever for that.