Mame slow compared to Windows 7

[phulshof]

After a few recompiles and optimizations I think mame64's running about as fast as I can get it on my 12.04 system (about 7 times faster than it ran originally). Unfortunately, for e.g. pacman that's still about 5 times slower than it runs under Windows 7 (about 700% on Linux vs 3500% on Windows 7, the same dual boot system). That makes many of the later games still unplayable under Linux while they run fine under Windows 7. Anyone willing and able to help me figure out what the cause for this difference is?

[BigSilly]

Have you tried a different DE? It could be Unity that's slowing things down. I use Cinnamon and have no issues with games on my very humble system. You could go for something even lighter, but I don't think there'll be a lot in it. and Cinnamon could be fine.

It could be a number of things though, unrelated to the DE. Nvidia? Proprietary driver or Nouveau free driver?

[thatguruguy]

After a few recompiles and optimizations I think mame64's running about as fast as I can get it on my 12.04 system (about 7 times faster than it ran originally). Unfortunately, for e.g. pacman that's still about 5 times slower than it runs under Windows 7 (about 700% on Linux vs 3500% on Windows 7, the same dual boot system). That makes many of the later games still unplayable under Linux while they run fine under Windows 7. Anyone willing and able to help me figure out what the cause for this difference is?

From your description, it's obvious what the problem is.

[MikeCyber]

Compiz or some misconfigurations? On my system it works perfectly and even faster than on windozw.

[phulshof]

From your description, it's obvious what the problem is.

Please share your wisdom with us? It's clearly not obvious to me yet.

[thatguruguy]

Please share your wisdom with us? It's clearly not obvious to me yet.

No one can help you without information. For instance, you might want to share with us a description of your hardware.

[phulshof]

No one can help you without information. For instance, you might want to share with us a description of your hardware.

Fair enough, though I was hoping for some requests on what information exactly was needed, and perhaps the commands needed to get them. In any case, for starters:

Computer: Alternate Laptop
CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2630QM CPU @ 2.00GHz
GPU: AMD Radeon HD 6900M
RAM: 8 GB
glxgears: about 1280 FPS

[phulshof]

Have you tried a different DE? It could be Unity that's slowing things down. I use Cinnamon and have no issues with games on my very humble system. You could go for something even lighter, but I don't think there'll be a lot in it. and Cinnamon could be fine.

It could be a number of things though, unrelated to the DE. Nvidia? Proprietary driver or Nouveau free driver?

A quick test shows about 10% speed increase under OpenBox; it might be the ATi driver though.

[BigSilly]

Well, your system is much better than mine, and I get -

bigsilly@bigsilly ~ $ glxgears
26627 frames in 5.0 seconds = 5325.238 FPS
28157 frames in 5.0 seconds = 5631.218 FPS
26991 frames in 5.0 seconds = 5398.030 FPS
28185 frames in 5.0 seconds = 5636.889 FPS
28221 frames in 5.0 seconds = 5644.181 FPS
28022 frames in 5.0 seconds = 5604.253 FPS
28015 frames in 5.0 seconds = 5602.441 FPS
28063 frames in 5.0 seconds = 5612.406 FPS

- using Mint Cinnamon, but then I am using a desktop GPU. It could be your driver; do you have the latest one from Additional Drivers? Have you configured it via the Catalyst panel? Perhaps you could take a look in the mame.ini file and check that openGL is enabled? It should be in /etc/mame/mame.ini.

[thatguruguy]

What do you get when you type the following in a terminal?

fglrxinfo

Do you have hybrid graphics on that computer?