Issue with NDS running on a quad-core processor...
Issue with NDS running on a quad-core processor...
I've faced this problem with my NDS emulator, it's frustrating. I used an old laptop with a single-core Intel Celeron M, which handled no$gba smoothly. Then in 2012, I switched to an ASUS K55N with a quad-core AMD A8 APU. Compared to my older machine, the performance dropped significantly. I initially blamed AMD for the poor quality of their APUs, thinking they were always low-end. I tried adjusting emulator settings, but it only improved speed on one core instead of all four. It wasn't until recently that I noticed no$gba was using just 25% of my CPU power, meaning it was limited to a single core. I realized that fewer cores and threads actually improve performance. *facepalm* Is there a solution to get no$gba to utilize all my cores?
Yes, it was really bad. The game ran much slower than expected, the graphics were unstable, and it didn’t work well on my system. No$GBA 2.8a helps a bit but doesn’t fix the problem... I’m looking for a way to run it smoothly across all of my CPU cores.
I finished Pokemon on an emulator at my school's PCs. It was a dual-core 2Duo if you were lucky, and I could speed it up to 10x easily. The graphics and sound were top-notch, and the saves worked perfectly. I thought Desmume was the reason, but later I tried NoGBA too—they both ran smoothly. It performed well even on my single-core Atom N270 @1.6GHz, which means it wasn’t a hardware limitation. There might be some setting or compatibility issue there. I admit I didn’t read the original post; it’s possible the emulator was single-threaded, and you can’t really change that.
Are there multi-threaded emulators available? Running them on Intel hardware may reduce lag due to improved single-thread performance.
i used only single-threaded emulators, which makes me curious since there aren’t many multithreaded options available. i thought the GBA’s single main CPU would make it hard to run multi-threaded games, but it seems possible to work around it by using another core for audio processing. some developers on the internet discuss this, and it appears you could potentially achieve better performance with extra cores, though it requires more time and higher CPU usage. the link i mentioned is about performance trade-offs. i usually run emulators on intel hardware and they perform well without needing powerful machines. i’m planning to try it again later—i’m currently using a dual-core at 2GHz.
Consider setting your system to run on one core for better performance.