Wii Virtual Console lag issues

[oldskooljuba]

I just recently got my OSSC, and tested it with some Wii Virtual Console titles. So far I’ve played the old Mario and MegaMan games on the Wii VC through an old CRT — they’re practically unplayable on my “better” TV (Samsung UE32D6517) — due to input lag, and the reason for me buying the OSSC was in part to get rid of the bulky CRT and its blurry image.

First I tried connecting the Wii+OSSC to the Samsung TV, but a (surprisingly) large amount of lag remained, even though I set the TV on “game mode” and disabled everything I could find from the menus which sounded like image improvement. There was still some motion smoothing left in the image which I could not find a way to disable. I’m not sure if one should be able to turn off all processing, but I kinda gave up on that display.

Then I tried connecting Wii+OSSC to my computer monitor, a HP ZR2440w (1920×1200 resolution). The lag was noticeably reduced, compared to the TV, but still a bit bothersome, most notably with Super Mario World. Interestingly, I felt that NES games had less lag than SNES games, and I found the former quite enjoyable and good-looking in “LineX4” mode. Is this difference an expected observation? I guess my monitor may not be ideal for this use, but should I be able to improve the situation by tweaking OSSC’s settings?

Another thing: There’s a setting “custom scaling” on my monitor, with possible values “Fill to screen”, “Fill to aspect ratio”, and “One to one”. I didn’t observe any difference in lag between these settings, but the image itself was a bit surprising: With the display on “One to one”, playing Super Mario World on the Wii VC (OSSC screen reads “AV1: RGBS 625i 15.62kHz 50.00Hz”), and, from the OSSC output settings, 480i/576i set to “LineX2 (bob)”, I see a small image with correct aspect ratio in the middle of the screen. Then, changing the OSSC setting to “Passthrough”, I get a double wide and same height (i.e. double area) image. Is this expected to happen?

[Harrumph]

The OSSC produces no perceptible lag (I believe Marqs once stated it was about two scanlines, ie less than 130 microseconds).
Virtual Console however, like all software emulation it will have certain lag that you cannot avoid. And yes, SNES emulation is known to have more delay than NES. I don’t remember precicely, but for the ones used in Recalbox I read somewhere for NES it’s something like 2-3 frames while SNES is 3-5.

[paulb_nl]

Why would you be surprised that you still have input lag if you use the exact same TV? The TV is the cause of lag. With the OSSC you will only remove deinterlace lag which should be around 1 frame.

If with motion smoothing you mean motion blur then its probably that you are playing a 50Hz game. I see much more motion blur on my TV if I play at 50Hz compared to 60Hz.

With 240p/480i passthrough the OSSC outputs double the horizontal resolution (1440) so a double width image is expected with 1:1 scaling.

You should set your Wii to output 240p with Super Mario World. Look here for instructions:

[BuckoA51]

Here’s the instructions for the Wii 240p mode:- http://retrorgb.com/wiivsclassic.html

It’s a common misconception that scaling causes lag, usually it’s entirely down to deinterlacing and picture processing. Deinterlacing can often be way more than a frame, so it really depends on the TV as to how much lag you eliminate by using the OSSC.

[oldskooljuba]

The emulation lag (NES or SNES) did not bother me when playing on the CRT. Perhaps my monitor introduced more lag when receiving the SNES-emulated signal? Or did it add equal amounts of lag to NES and SNES, making me feel the emulation lag difference? 🙂 Well, I guess I’ll just start looking for a new, better display to hook the OSSC to.

I didn’t really know what to expect when hooking up the OSSC for the first time, so perhaps I was more disappointed than surprised when the lag wasn’t noticably reduced.

Unfortunately I could not switch Super Mario World to run on 240p. The procedure given in retrorbg.com worked when I tried it on Super Metroid and Link to the Past, but not on SMW.

[paulb_nl]

If your Samsung TV has the same input lag as the Samsung UE40D6530 here then it has 46ms input lag compared to a CRT. The HP ZR2440w has about 20ms input lag. Both are not really the fastest.

The emulation lag on the CRT is probably just below your lag threshold. Now adding the display lag you are starting to notice it. If you use original consoles you might be able to use your HP monitor.

[oldskooljuba]

Final update on the topic: I got myself an ASUS VE247H to replace the HP monitor, and the lag doesn’t bother me anymore.

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