Random slowdowns on PS Games with Retropie 3 B

stoo

@quicksilver @bobharris @tiagop @quicksilver I think maybe I've cracked tiagop's problem:

tiagop are you using the emulated BIOS instead of real PSX BIOS files?

I just deleted my BIOS files to test and the slowdown increased for me like 2x. Put them back and it's fine again.

You need scph5500.bin scph5501.bin and scph5502.bin in /home/pi/RetroPie/BIOS/

tiagop

@stoo I only placed the SCPH1001.BIN in /home/pi/RetroPie/BIOS, I will try to get those 3 files and put it there later today, fingers crossed!

BobHarris

@tiagop I don't think it will make a difference though as I am also using SCPH1001.BIN

stoo

@bobharris It absolutely does. Try it. Play Lara's Home with the 3 BIOS files I mentioned and without. You'll see a huge difference, particularly around the water and trellis climbing areas.

tiagop

@stoo That's exactly where I have problems! I'm gonna delete the SCPH1001.BIN and get scph5500.bin scph5501.bin and scph5502.bin. I will tell you guys how it went, it can't hurt :)

stoo

@tiagop Cool. There are still some framerate drops whenever the mansion is in view (like in the vid below at around 3mins 20secs), but I've tested and that is present in lr-psx-beetle as well, which means it's present on a real PS1.

tiagop

@stoo Yeah at the area at 3min and 20sec I get the same kind of stuttering and I'm OK with it. But the Venice level for example is horrible, I remember playing it on the PSP and having no issues on any level (can't remember if I played Lara's home there).

quicksilver

@bobharris same, I am also only using SCPH1001

BobHarris

@stoo I believe you when you say there is a difference between an emulated bios and a real ps1 bios, but why would there be such a difference between two real bios files? As I said before: I don't notice any of tiagops slowdowns and I share his bios file.
ButI agree it can't hurt for him to try it out.

Shakz

@tiagop Howdy Friend....this thread is huge but....has anyone suggested to you yet that it may be your power supply? I have a video showing the difference between a good power supply and a bad power supply (link to my channel in my sig). If I recall I used Einhander as a test PSX game.

When the Pi is not getting enough juice it will start shutting down cores in the CPU to conserve power. This causes bad performance, choppy audio and video. Do you ever notice any lightning bolts/rainbow squares in the top right of your screen when booting the pi or just randomly? This is a tell that your pi isn't getting enough power. It could also be the cord. I get a TON of questions on youtube ( I try to answer them all ) and either the power supply or the cord is the issue in most cases....

stoo

@bobharris PCSX-rearmed doesn't use scph1001. You're using emulated BIOS.

https://docs.libretro.com/library/pcsx_rearmed/

Lol, I just noticed the RetroPie docs say to use scph1001. I'm going to assume that the guys at Libretro are correct and the RetroPie docs are outdated.

tiagop

@shakz I'm using the oficial power supply which I have it for only 2 months and never noticed that rainbow. @stoo Nice find! I'm at home and will test it in the next hour

BobHarris

@stoo So you're saying almost everyone here is using an unsupported ps1 bios?
This is wrong information? :
https://github.com/retropie/retropie-setup/wiki/Playstation-1

stoo

@bobharris According to the Libretro docs, yes, that is wrong information.

BobHarris

@stoo I don't think so. I deleted my scph1001 bios and now when I start a ps1 game it suddenly says No playstation bios file found - add for better compatibility.

stoo

@bobharris Guess it can use both then. I still put more faith in the LR docs than the RP ones :P

stoo

OK, that's just weird as hell. I just removed the 550x files and replaced then with the 1001 file to test and now it performs the same: fine. Even emulated BIOS seems to work fine!

I'm confused.

BobHarris

@stoo I have 72 ps1 games and they all work great when using SCPH1001.BIN , but yes I'm sure other bios files can work great too.
I am curious if it changes anything for Tiagop.

BobHarris

@stoo Why do you call 1001 emulated? isnt it just the first bios made for the ps1?

stoo

@bobharris That makes two of us now. I really thought I'd solved it.

It's not emulated. I thought because of the performance difference I saw and because the LR docs say to use the 500x bios specifically that meant it wouldn't recognise other BIOS files.

It does, I checked runcommand.log. If it sees 550x BIOS it will use that, if it sees 100x BIOS it will use that. It only falls back to emulated if it sees no BIOS file at all.