Some games are slow

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What steps will reproduce the problem?
1. Open up Mother 3
2. Fight any enemy 
3. Listen to the music; it slows down

What is the expected output? What do you see instead?
Here's what I find weird; while on the world map, the speed/tempo
of the music is perfect, as there's no skipping/jittery sound. 
However, a few seconds after a battle begins, the music begins
to slow down, thus making it impossible to do combos. I'm not 
sure if this is timing related or if it has to do with core
optimizations. Either way, winning battles is not an easy task.
Normally, the speed should be constant and no skipping should be
present.

Does this issue occur on VBA-M
r778(http://mudlord.homebrewheaven.net/downloads/vbam_installer.exe)? If
so, please report the issue to the VBA-M forum.  No, I haven't noticed it. 

What version of the product are you using?
Any version from 001 up until 006 for the Wii.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by nintendo...@hotmail.com on 31 Dec 2008 at 6:35

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Confirmed here, using r117.

Original comment by hcho...@gmail.com on 31 Dec 2008 at 12:55

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Does this have to do with the complexity of porting VBA from x86 code to Wii 
PowerPC
code, or what?

Original comment by nintendo...@hotmail.com on 10 Jan 2009 at 2:23

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Issue 64 has been merged into this issue.

Original comment by dborth@gmail.com on 29 Jan 2009 at 1:53

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How would the music slowing down make it impossible to do combos? I'll have a 
look at 
this game, but I don't quite understand the problem.

Original comment by Carl.Kenner@gmail.com on 6 Mar 2009 at 6:27

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Carl.Kenner: Combos in Mother 3 are executed by pressing the "A" button in time 
with 
the music that plays during fights with the enemy.  When the music sometimes 
slows 
down, there is a sort of offset between the rhythm in the game and the rhythm 
as 
emulated, making it a bit harder to get the timing correct.  Does that make 
sense?

Original comment by hcho...@gmail.com on 6 Mar 2009 at 1:22

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Whenever you go into a battle, the moving background (the weird effects) slow 
the
music down and begins to make a crackling/popping noise, making combos 
impossible.
The overworld music plays just fine (~60FPS).

Original comment by nintendo...@hotmail.com on 6 Mar 2009 at 3:31

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I suck so bad I rarely ever even get 2 hit combos (though occasionally I'll 
suddenly
stop sucking, pull off 10 hits, and then never manage to repeat it on the same 
foe
again), but it seemed to me like each enemy's rhythm is independent of the BGM. 
I
didn't bother playing it on VBA GX since Mother 3 didn't get too good of a 
framerate
for me, which is probably the real problem. Or maybe it has nothing to do with
emulation issues at all because the timing is nigh impossible anyway :P

Have you tried putting an enemy to sleep? You can faintly hear their heartbeat 
when
you do that, see if it comes out okay on VBA GX.

Original comment by guywitha...@gmail.com on 15 Apr 2009 at 7:13

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That's only one side of the issue; the other side is that due to the funky, 
weird
backgrounds of Mother 3's battles, the sound gets choppy and slow. These 
in-battle
slowdowns do NOT happen on the windows port of VBA. Not to mention the overall
experience of battle becomes sluggish, thus making it seem more like a chore. I 
don't
want to sound like I'm demanding or come across as being rude, but this issue, 
among
others, has yet to be resolved or at least acknoweleged as a prioritized issue.
Again, due to the game slowing down in battle(it looks like it's frameskipped 
but is
not) as a result, the music slows down creating crackling/slower audio thus 
making
combos (and fighting in general) hard to do.  Only by fast fowarding does the 
music
get back to normal. And oddly enough, the music and framerate is 60fps when NOT
engaged in battle. I mean, what the crap is going on? Is the Wii really having 
a hard
time handling code that once was Intel x86 code?

Original comment by nintendo...@hotmail.com on 18 Apr 2009 at 5:33

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I'm sorry, you need to be more precise. I started playing Mother 3, but I don't 
understand about combos and timing. Battles look just like Final Fantasy so 
far. 
Taking it in turns, choosing what moves to do. There doesn't seem to be any 
timing 
involved. So far I have only played as the younger brother and the father 
though.

The steps to reproduce the problem need to be much clearer.

Original comment by Carl.Kenner@gmail.com on 28 May 2009 at 12:46

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Carl, this blog post may prove useful:

http://cruiseelroy.net/2009/01/mother-3-battle-music/

Original comment by hcho...@gmail.com on 28 May 2009 at 1:02

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Hmmm....What I meant was when you go into battle, the music gets slow and 
choppy,
hence making combos impossible and battles seem to drag on.  The overwold, 
however,
runs full speed.

Original comment by nintendonerd1889@gmail.com on 28 May 2009 at 1:46

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So I need to find an item before I can test it. hmmm.

Original comment by Carl.Kenner@gmail.com on 28 May 2009 at 2:24

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you should have what you need once you get to chapter 2 and meet Duster.  :)

Original comment by hcho...@gmail.com on 28 May 2009 at 2:43

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I don't like this game. :-(

Original comment by Carl.Kenner@gmail.com on 28 May 2009 at 5:52

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This issue also occurs with all the games, the sound effects and music don't 
always 
seem to be in sync with each other (though they are at certain times). I found 
that 
the best way to test this is with Rhythm Tengoku for GBA, that game is also 
rendered 
unplayable because the music is not in sync with the video.

Original comment by hyla...@gmail.com on 4 Jun 2009 at 9:15

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Every so often all games have a pop or skip in the audio.  This may be the same 
in 
VBA-M.

Original comment by westonl...@gmail.com on 10 Jul 2009 at 11:26

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Nope. Mother 3 in the Windows port runs flawlessly. Sure, the Wii's CPU may not 
be as
fast as a common PC, but in theory, 730MHz should be sufficient to emulate a 
16.8 MHz
32-bit ARM7TDMI CPU, right?  I know I don't have a lot of programming 
knowledge, but
surely, this issue (or these issues) can be resolved, am I correct?  But you're 
in
the fact that most, if not all games suffer from sound/speed synchronization 
issues.
 If I'm way off on this whole games-not-being-able-to-keep-up-with-normal-speed
thing, then I'm way off.  I'm just trying to make my opinions known.  If I 
could only
find a way to compare the Wii with the PC port, then I could show people what 
I'm
talking about and not end up having someone like me perceived as a noob who's
ungrateful for the work put into this emulator; rest assured, I am NOT one of 
those
people..... I know that the wii and PC are two VERY different platforms and use 
two
very different architectures, and I also know that this kind of issue isn't 
something
that can be fixed overnight, either. But are the authors, tantric and dborth, 
willing
to resolve these speed/sync errors so games will run at their intended speeds in
VBA-wii?  If they don't respond to this, then I will assume that either A) they 
will
prove that our issues are valid or B)that what I'm saying is BS and will prove 
that
our reports on these issues are invalid. It's not my intention to sound rude or 
act
like I'm going off on a tirade, but trying to get attention to these issues. 

Original comment by nintendonerd1889@gmail.com on 11 Jul 2009 at 12:10

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tantric = dborth. but yes, I've heard this complaint before. Whatever the 
reason, 
this emulator taxes the Wii to its max (and beyond) for ALL games. ALL games 
require 
some frameskip, and some more than others. Is it possible to make VBA run 
faster on 
Wii? Maybe. Do I have a magic wand to make it happen? No.

Original comment by dborth@gmail.com on 11 Jul 2009 at 3:08

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VBA is a rather slow base to work from. Back in the day, before I could afford a
not-crap computer, all I had was a Pentium III 350Mhz, 64MB Ram, and an 
integrated
nVidia Riva 128. VBA always needed more frameskip to run at a playable speed 
compared
to No$GBA, which actually ran at fullspeed with no frameskip on the vast 
majority of
games, and needed slight frameskip on a few ultrataxing games. Of course, 
No$GBA has
more problems and fewer features than VBA, but it's certainly faster.

Though I'm fairly certain that speed was because it was made in assembly, so it
wouldn't be feasible to port to Wii. That, and there's probably no way Martin 
Korth
would share the source.

Original comment by cov...@gmail.com on 11 Jul 2009 at 3:25

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Asking if Martin will release his source is like asking the Zsnes devs when 2.0 
will
be released.  But yeah, like you said, VBA is a very taxing emulator and like 
what I
said before is I don't expect these issues to be resolved overnight. It was 
never my
intention to come across as being irritating and/or annoying, no, but to make 
sure
that it's at least made known. Even if the improvements are made one step at a 
time,
that's fine by me. It doesn't, and probably shouldn't, be done all at once. If 
it can
be done, great.  If not, that's okay.    

Original comment by nintendonerd1889@gmail.com on 11 Jul 2009 at 4:48

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Original comment by dborth@gmail.com on 6 Nov 2009 at 5:50

• Changed title: Some games are slow
• Changed state: Accepted

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Issue 169 has been merged into this issue.

Original comment by dborth@gmail.com on 6 Nov 2009 at 5:51

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Original comment by dborth@gmail.com on 6 Nov 2009 at 5:52

• Added labels: Priority-Low, Type-Enhancement
• Removed labels: Priority-Medium, Type-Defect

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I'm playing the translated Mother 3 ROM right now using version 2.2.3 on my 4.2 
Wii through the Homebrew Channel, and I do not have this issue.  The music did 
not slow down, I was able to land combos easily.  The forest fire produced no 
drop in framerate for me either, while playing the game on No$GBA on my PC did.

Original comment by Jason.J....@gmail.com on 22 Mar 2011 at 4:06

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What the?! No slowdown in Mother 3? Weird. 

Original comment by nintendonerd1889@gmail.com on 22 Mar 2011 at 4:05

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It's great, although Golden Sun - The Lost Age still runs slowly.  

Original comment by Jason.J....@gmail.com on 24 Mar 2011 at 8:33

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Original comment by dborth@gmail.com on 25 Apr 2011 at 9:54

• Changed state: WontFix