Optimizing emulators on Windows

[BlackVega | 583]

I'm not really fond of playing emulators and I am one of those people who absolutely needs to use real hardware with real carts/Everdrives but often times there are situations where emulators are completely unavoidable. What puts me off from using emulators is that broken and unstable piece of crap called Windows running tons of "legal spyware", sending data, updating and connecting to the internet all the time and just disrupting the stability and dropping frames. Like seriously emulators under this stupid shitty modern binbows are so broken and inconsistent I just lose any sort of interest of playing. Is there anything to improve this or maybe even completely eliminate all silly problems? My question specifically targets Windows 10. I remember there was a decent function under Windows 7 where you could set priority to high in task manager and that solved the problem for the most part. Unfortunately this functionality has been cut from 10 for some reason. Any suggestions please? Anyone have been in the same boat and resolved this? Thanks

[RH | 5,429]

Well, you might not want to hear this but I went from a MacBook Pro to windows and the emulation on the MBP was far better than windows. In fact, my whole gaming experience was better.

Maybe find a cheap MBP from 2017/19, and use it or get a Mac Mini? 

[wongojack | 373]

You can still set priority on Win 10 and Win 11, but you have to go to the "details" page of task manager.  On Win 10, there are tabs at the top of the window for processes, performance . . . details.  On Win 11, they are little icons on the left side.

 

• Once on the detailed list, find your process, right click, choose "set priority"
• You likely must be a local administrator (just like every other version of Windows)
• You can also choose which programs start with the computer from task manager.

 

FWIW, I have tried other platforms for emulators like RPii and various dedicated devices (haven't touched Mac though), and I always fall back to Windows.  I am typically using emulators to try hacks, homebrews or other things on the edge of classic gaming, so I don't mind updating my emulators or even re-dowloading a new version.  That sort of experience suits me fine as compared to the (what I would call) strange move toward dedicated emulation devices.

[Link | 2,952]

1 hour ago, BlackVega said:

Windows running tons of "legal spyware", sending data, updating and connecting to the internet all the time and just disrupting the stability and dropping frames. Like seriously emulators under this stupid shitty modern binbows are so broken and inconsistent I just lose any sort of interest of playing. Is there anything to improve this or maybe even completely eliminate all silly problems?

Is there some reason you can't disconnect from your network?

[BlackVega | 583]

13 hours ago, wongojack said:

You can still set priority on Win 10 and Win 11, but you have to go to the "details" page of task manager.  On Win 10, there are tabs at the top of the window for processes, performance . . . details.  On Win 11, they are little icons on the left side.

Oh crap I missed that. Under processes tab it is impossible to set priority but it is in fact possible to set it under details tab. Thanks a lot!! So that at least puts me back into initial square 1. Still are there any more advanced ideas to get it even more reliable? (other than getting a faster PC of course)

[BlackVega | 583]

13 hours ago, Link said:

Is there some reason you can't disconnect from your network?

Well, kind of captain obvious answer but to be fair I'm not sure if that would even help

Another solution could be to just...... install another partition or USB drive with Linux/Ucuntu. Another lightweight system could be helpful for having very critical consistency but switching entire operating systems is a little bit of too much effort

[Sumez | 3,218]

Problems with lag usually isn't really caused by all the spyware and other shitty software running in the background, or high CPU usage (though they definitely don't count). Things like external libraries, USB and video encoding, etc. is more likely to add additional frames to your input/output feedback. This is true for all modern software, including consoles.

[Tanooki | 5,270]

I used this on WIndows 10, worked quite well to shut down and block WIn10's shenanigans.

https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10

 

The top few on this list in general are a good way to neuter windows from running garbage you don't want to being a snitch.  https://www.geckoandfly.com/25083/free-tools-disable-stop-windows-spying-tracking-you/