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Best Configuration PCEM

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First post, by andregb

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Hello everyone

I tried to emulate Braveheart using PCEM and the games load fine. However the game runs slow.
Could you recommend me the best settings for my host system?

OS Windows 10 64-Bit
AMD Ryzen 5 2600 Six-Core Processor @ 3.40 GHz
16 GB RAM
AMD RX 5500 XT 8GB

I'm using SLOT 1 Gigabyte GA 686BX Pentium II/233 128 MB
3DFX Voodoo 3 3000 Fast VLB/PCI

It uses 11% of the CPU but only 17 FPS...

Reply 1 of 7, by eddman

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That 11% is meaningless because it shows the overall load across 6 cores. PCem's CPU emulation is single threaded, since it's emulating single core processors.

A 2600 is not powerful enough to emulate a pentium 2.

Reply 2 of 7, by wiibur

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Is the game configured to run in software mode instead of using the 3dfx card? I see the game says Software in the top right.

Reply 3 of 7, by wiibur

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You can run brave.exe in the install directory for 3dfx glide mode. There is also bhd3d.exe for Direct3D mode and bhsoft.exe for Software mode.

Reply 4 of 7, by pentiumspeed

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eddman wrote on 2023-06-27, 10:26:

That 11% is meaningless because it shows the overall load across 6 cores. PCem's CPU emulation is single threaded, since it's emulating single core processors.

A 2600 is not powerful enough to emulate a pentium 2.

Okay, what other processors that has most powerful single thread?

Cheers,

Great Northern aka Canada.

Reply 5 of 7, by Cosmic

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pentiumspeed wrote on 2023-07-02, 20:03:
eddman wrote on 2023-06-27, 10:26:

That 11% is meaningless because it shows the overall load across 6 cores. PCem's CPU emulation is single threaded, since it's emulating single core processors.

A 2600 is not powerful enough to emulate a pentium 2.

Okay, what other processors that has most powerful single thread?

Cheers,

I was curious to see what the current top single thread CPU was today. It looks to be the Intel Core i9-13900KS [0]. According to UserBenchmark [1], this CPU is 121% faster in single-thread work compared to the Ryzen 5 2600.

If we assume a simple linear performance increase, then you should be able to play your current configuration at 37.57 FPS instead of 17 FPS. :D

[0] https://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html
[1] https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-C … /m2000819vs3955

Reply 6 of 7, by GloriousCow

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Cosmic wrote on 2023-07-02, 20:15:

According to UserBenchmark [1]

UserBenchmark is EXTREMELY biased against AMD.

edit: not that a i9-13900KS isn't a bajillion times faster, it is...

Last edited by GloriousCow on 2023-07-03, 01:32. Edited 1 time in total.

MartyPC: A cycle-accurate IBM PC/XT emulator | https://github.com/dbalsom/martypc

Reply 7 of 7, by mothergoose729

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GloriousCow wrote on 2023-07-02, 21:14:
Cosmic wrote on 2023-07-02, 20:15:

According to UserBenchmark [1]

UserBenchmark is EXTREMELY biased against AMD.

A more accurate test for emulation would probably be the Dolphin benchmark:
https://www.anandtech.com/show/18795/the-amd- … he-for-gaming/4

The AMD 2600 isn't listed, but the 13900ks is probably at least 100% faster.

OP I would say that a 133mhz pentium MMX is probably your target CPU.

The fps doesn't really matter when you are using PCEm. Look at the emulation speed. If is is consistently below 100% you need to try emulating a slower CPU.

I would try using dgvoodoo 2 instead of PCem. Just download dgvoodoo2, place the dlls and the conf file in the game directory, and launch the game.