Gamecube Adapter Input Lag (Raphnet vs Mayflash)

08-09-2015, 05:02 AM #1

I was reading this post on Reddit about playing Melee on Dolphin without lag, and I was confused about how Native Support worked.

I understand that Dolphin can poll the Mayflash and official Nintendo adapters faster than it can poll the Raphnet one, but what does this specifically translate into in terms of input lag? I have an old Raphnet from a few years ago, not sure if that makes a difference.

08-11-2015, 03:37 PM #2

bump - any info on Native Support would be appreciated, even if it doesn't entirely answer my question.

**JMC47** · 08-11-2015, 07:13 PM #3

It skips most of input common + is a high quality adapter. We skip xinput/dinput as well by using LIBUSB. Dolphin interacts directly with the device rather than relying on various APIs/drivers. Smash players claim that the Nintendo Wii U adapter is actually better than the Mayflash Wii U adapter, but I have both and find them identical in performance. The Mayflash 2 port on the other hand, is a mess.

**ulao** · (This post was last modified: 08-12-2015, 11:12 PM by ulao.)

I always looked at it this way.

Laq, the game dose not know when the controller will poll. All the game can do is request the function to get back data. The chain of commands from game to adapter can very.

Tech: Everything that works based on events (interrupts) has a cycle.
Your monitor (60mhz) 16.6 ms for each draw to the screen.
USB, 8 ms on windows at ubs 1/2 half duplex.
The amount of time the code takes to loop before it calls to DX.
ect...

So lag is essentially, the fact you can not line all of that up. On a console you can, as all hardware works together. So when using an emulator you just can not know what each piece of hardware does, unless you can communicate with it directly. AFAIK there are only 3 device with that potential. Nintendo Wii U adapter, Mayflash Wii U adapter, and Bliss-Box. As for the first two, I believe the dolphin team has written support for native communication. Although Bliss-Box also allow for bi-directorial communicate, dolphin has not made any attempts to communicate with it. I can not go in to details on how Nintendo and mayflash work but with Bliss-Box it's simple. You can send API calls to the box and adjust the poll cycle. Because of the overwhelming compatibility of the Bliss-Box the poll rates are 16ms apart. Most monitors at 60mhz are 16.66, once lined up, 0 lag is achievable.