Retroarch 1.7.5 causing FPS drops for CPS 3 games

BuZz

@redbatman did you update all packages? I rebuilt the latest FBA in recent days. Can you provide more info - maybe downloading a 4.4 image and just updating retroarch to see.

RedBatman

@buzz I did update all packages and to be safe I re downloaded FBA again and there was still lag. Actually I noticed something else too is that audio stutter happens with CPS3 games too. I tried Street Fighter 3 2nd impact and I was getting bad audio lag which was causing alot of issues with the FPS. CPS2 and Neo Geo games however run fine, both at 60fps or slightly above. So whatever happened to FBA recently affected CPS3 games. Please can you revert to a previous build?

BuZz

@redbatman not without more concrete information and other users being able to replicate the problem.

RedBatman

@buzz Well I tested it and like I said only CPS3 games seem to be affected, I haven't done anything to change my settings in months and it was still fine till the latest retroarch/ fba

Darksavior

My pi3b+ underclocked to 1200 (for this test with SF3) was getting dips as low as 57fps for a fully updated retropie 4.4 with binaries of lr-fbalpha and Retroarch 1.7.5. No change when using 1.7.3.

I dug out my original pi3 to re-test. Official Retropie 4.4 stock image. No updates. Stock speeds with crtpi shader at 1080p output res.SF3 Third Strike.

Included binaries of lr-fbalpha 2.97.42 with Retroarch 1.7.1:
60fps some of the time with dips as low as 59.5-59.7fps some of the time.

lr-fbalpha 2.97.42 with Retroarch 1.7.5:
60fps most of the time with dips as low as 59.7 maybe once or twice per round. Performs better.

Updated binary of lr-fbalpha 2.97.43 with Retroarch 1.7.5:
Bingo. 55-58fps. Scratchy audio. It's the emulator. Maybe @barbudreadmon can shed a light at the situation.

RedBatman

@Darksavior said in Retroarch 1.7.5 causing FPS drops for CPS 3 games:

My pi3b+ underclocked to 1200 (for this test with SF3) was getting dips as low as 57fps for a fully updated retropie 4.4 with binaries of lr-fbalpha and Retroarch 1.7.5. No change when using 1.7.3.

I dug out my original pi3 to re-test. Official Retropie 4.4 stock image. No updates. Stock speeds with crtpi shader at 1080p output res.SF3 Third Strike.

Included binaries of lr-fbalpha 2.97.42 with Retroarch 1.7.1:
60fps some of the time with dips as low as 59.5-59.7fps some of the time.

lr-fbalpha 2.97.42 with Retroarch 1.7.5:
60fps most of the time with dips as low as 59.7 maybe once or twice per round. Performs better.

Updated binary of lr-fbalpha 2.97.43 with Retroarch 1.7.5:
Bingo. 55-58fps. Scratchy audio. It's the emulator. Maybe @barbudreadmon can shed a light at the situation.

Pretty much my situation, don't know why the audio gets so bad.

Darksavior

@RedBatman If fps drops below 60 in any game then expect scratchy audio. The situation is the performance of fba, with at least the cps3 driver, got a huge slowdown with the latest version.

RedBatman

Hmm so is there any way to roll back the update or is there going to be a fix eventually? CPS3 are some of my favorite arcade games.

Darksavior

@RedBatman No idea if it'll be fixed. Post the issue on fba's github. You can extract .42 from the official premade image.

grant2258

When an emulator improves sometimes it comes with a cost of speed. Other times its speed up hacks accidentally removed. Retropie runs on more than a pi.

If this problems exists on more powerful machines it would be a problem at that point.

RedBatman

Hi I just wanted to say I found a fix. I downloaded Ir-fba-alpha2012. Once I used this my CPS3 games were back to 60fps with no audio stutters or anything. So just to let this be known that if FBA 2.97.43 ever gets fixed again or its still causing issues then FBA 2012 is now needed for CPS3 games now for raspberry pi users.

Darksavior

@grant2258 Yes, that's what I experienced with the 4player Konami games. I need to use fba2012 for my pi2 (when I was using it). Still, I'd like a definitive answer if the cps3 problem is a mistake, or just emulation accuracy making it slower.

grant2258

I only use that core havent looked at the code base to be honest just check the history in the cps3 driver in github to see the recent changes here.

https://github.com/libretro/fbalpha/commits/master/src/burn/drv/cps3/cps3run.cpp

grant2258

you could try revert d313472bf07332ee429a80f906252dca348975e5 commit compile and see how it runs

https://github.com/libretro/fbalpha/commit/d313472bf07332ee429a80f906252dca348975e5#diff-d51bfb6a692321f4224209e955b76d48

Darksavior

@grant2258 No idea how to do that.

RedBatman

@grant2258 said in Retroarch 1.7.5 causing FPS drops for CPS 3 games:

you could try revert d313472bf07332ee429a80f906252dca348975e5 commit compile and see how it runs

https://github.com/libretro/fbalpha/commit/d313472bf07332ee429a80f906252dca348975e5#diff-d51bfb6a692321f4224209e955b76d48

I don't know how to do that either. But if FBA 2012 works good still then I'm fine with it, just as long as the current fba doesn't get any worse.

DarishZone

There's a way to revert to an older version of Retroarch?

UDb23

@RedBatman A new version is available. Is the issue still there ?

Darksavior

I retested using lr-fbalpha 2.97.44 from source. No change. To compare the differences to .42, using my pi3b+ overclocked to 1450, it runs as fast as a stock pi3 non + used to run at which is 60fps most of the time with dips of ~59.5-.7.

barbudreadmon

Ok, i didn't know about the speed regression. There was indeed a huge CPS3 patch a few weeks ago to fix some bugs (it was mostly for jojoba actually, until very recently the combo meter in this game wasn't working properly in any emulator, see https://mamedev.emulab.it/haze/2018/10/02/little-changes-part-2/ for the news). I'll look if something can be done about it, however i won't revert a fixed code to a buggy code, as far as i understand this bug is not even happening if you own a rpi3b+ or if you overclock your rpi3...