Hacking Acekard RPG + AKAIO 1.7

[kineticUk]

Been using 1.7 now for a few days after using the 1.6 RC's previously and I dunno ... I wanna love 1.7 but.

Loading games is quicker but once loaded they seem to be lagging more. In general white/black screens before intros start etc are on screen noticably longer than normal.
Im finding akaio to be more responsive/stable inside the menu but outside of that, inside games its noticably slower and far worse now. I don't normally have options like cheats enabled etc. So all of this is just what I have experienced so far on normal settings.

Animal crossing (E) is so slow in 1.7 its unplayable. The lag is so serious I guess this is more a dma problem or something to do with the loader. Worked ok with previous RC2. Not that I'm that bothered about playing the game but seeing that got me worried. I should stay away from that game after updating next time cause I didn't get off to a good start there. Scary.
Metroid prime hunters is real slow now, I can feel the wait between screens and this is just navigating the menu screens before playing a game. The sound stutters when I go back from the options menu to the main menu... cannot remember noticing it this bad before. Pokemon platinum seems to have suffered as well. Browsing items in your bag it properly lags from section to section. It is noticably slower scrolling down through items... feels heavy as. Same as with a lot of games now it seems to be sitting on black or white load screens for excessive periods when you go from one place to another or into a building etc.
Nintendo browser crashes if you close your DS.
New super mario bros now freezes if you go into the mingames and then back out to the title screen again.
Rumble (EZ3in1+) doesnt work with commercial roms but only rumbles inside akaio and in homebrew.

Btw this is only re: akaio 1.7 and the acekard RPG. I tried akaio 1.7 with ak2.1 and had a totally different experience, I was blown away (although I still couldnt get rumble to work with that either in any commercial roms). I was so excited to hear the RPG engine had been updated for 1.7 (mentioned on the news topic) but Im not feeling it at all tbh.

Any RPG users here notice anything like the above or similar slowdown in games since 1.7?

 

[lolzed]

May I suggest Wood RPG?It's designed for RPG users.
Also try reformatting your card(remember make a backup)

 

[dib]

That's the last straw. Can we have a new rule on GBAtemp that anybody responding to topics with "use Wood RPG" be instantly banned without warning or recourse? Possibly castrated. Just banned would be fine.

That's like telling somebody with a Windows issue to go buy a Mac. I'm seeing this a lot lately and it's annoying and more to the point piss off.

I'm glad to see this post because now I know it's not just my imagination. You know how sometimes you can just sense that a song on the radio is being sped up slightly because you've listened to the CD umpteen times? Or when there's a slight lag on a PC that the casual user is entirely oblivious to? It's very much like that. Something about 1.7 just seems 'off'. Black screens seem to hang slightly longer than before. Processes have a small pause, as if it has to think about it where it never did before. But I haven't played the DS in so long I couldn't be certain it was just me, or exclusive to my hardware. I use a classic DS afterall and often experience problems that nobody else seems to encounter.

 

[kineticUk]

Just for future reference I know about woodRPG.. I'm just talking about akaio 1.7 on acekard RPG to discuss this with other RPG users here in the hope that we can all help each other out etc.

Shout to dib!

glad to hear from a fellow rpg akaio hed.

Back to this.
I have been up all night messing about and I have formatted my mSD card just to be sure a couple of times over the last week while I have been trying to figure this out. I think I have a better idea of what is going on or isn't going on..

I think the problem is DMA. For some reason I don't think that akaio 1.7 on RPG is using DMA.

Animal crossing aside (which has bigger problems I think), all the other games are showing symptoms of a lack of DMA. Every game is suffering and the only games without noticable slowdown or lag are those which don't really push the RPG enough for DMA to necessarily make a noticable difference (eg puyo puyo).

But basically I'll get to the point/reason I'm convinced and replying to my own thread now..
As an experiment last night I took akaio off my rpg. I loaded wood onto it and disabled DMA and tested the same games. Same glitches, metroid prime stuttering between title screen and options screen. Avalon code, music stuttering once into about the middle of the intro movie and slowdown. Some games ran ok, puyo puyo for example was ok without DMA I could load it without noticing it was slower. But it was also ok in akaio so it backed up what I thought.
Turned on DMA and the problems disappeared. All the games that didnt feel right in akaio 1.7 or wood (without DMA) worked perfectly as you would expect once DMA was activated.

So for the time being I'm kinda stuck here, I can test other games but I think the results will be the same, I honestly think either there is a big problem with akaio RPG DMA mode or its just not activated at all.

What do you other rpg owners think?
I hope someone off akaio team will check this post out and ask normmatt, cause I havent got enough to post a bug report (I'm still not sure what the bug is but I think 100% DMA).

 

[spark1223]

Im not an rpg owner but have you tried other dma modes? the new yellow mode that is now default is causing lots of new issues, it seems.

 

[dib]

Sounds like your tests have yielded good results. Definitely enough for anybody working on AIO to investigate, if they were wont to do that.

I'm happy with it on the whole. Dumping a save file seems faster under 1.7. Plus, games are working now that weren't before. 1.6 didn't work with cheats so I was stuck with 1.5 until now and it's an improvement despite the slow down.

 

[kineticUk]

I'm happy with it on the whole. Dumping a save file seems faster under 1.7. Plus, games are working now that weren't before. 1.6 didn't work with cheats so I was stuck with 1.5 until now and it's an improvement despite the slow down.

Yeah me too. Like I said as well its only in game that I felt there was a problem, as far as the akaio OS (call it that) goes its all improved a hell of a lot and I think it feels quite the opposite when browsing, saving, doing anything outside games. It feels slightly more responsive and robust (just a feeling).

Anyway hopefully things will continue to improve over time. Cheers.

 

[dib]

The only way I see anything improving would be if the guy working on Wood RPG ditched that project and started contributing to AIO. Otherwise his firmware will always be inferior and lacking the polish and features of AIO, but AIO will always lack acceptable RPG support because you have a few thousand kids out there with $12 AK2s and RPG users are the minority.

 

[Miser]

I suggest that you try WoodRPG.
It's very good and since it's made specifically for the RPG, it just works.

 

[GH0ST]

I mentioned some troubles with AKAOI in the main thread and I agree with most comments here. I'm back to the more polished Wood RPG. I hope Normmatt is still working in conjunction with YWG so we can expect some improvements in the next release.

 

[azotyp]

I Tested akaio 1.7 and wood rpg with infinite space game, wood loads games faster, akaio have sometimes choppy animation (lag) didn't want to investigate more, changed to wood afterwards (seriously only thing that akaio is better that wood for me is ability to backup saves (but I can copy save and paste it elseware, it have gba support if you are using ram, it have faster light switching, you can turn on/off dma mode in menu as well as option for passing some ap protections).

 

[Rydian]

That's like telling somebody with a Windows issue to go buy a Mac. I'm seeing this a lot lately and it's annoying and more to the point piss off.

Considering you can run the same ROMs and homebrew natively, I don't see how that's a proper comparison at all.

Something that fits better might be the suggestion to use a different window manager on linux, as the same programs and such will still run, but the interface will look and act different which not many people like.