Good news regarding tearing and low EmulationStation performance on Pi 4

George Spiggott

Thanks @quicksilver. The fps drops to around 45 at times during the Hoth missions but this may be the normal frame rate for the game as the game doesn't seem that slow. I understand that some slowdowns can be expected with high end N64 games even on native hardware. The sound cuts in and out from the intro sequence onwards into at least as far as the Hoth missions. I'm using lr-mupen64plus-next.

I'm overclocked with the specs in my sig and running the emulator unmodified.

Rascas

@Darksavior To install 5.4 kernel headers, run the rpi-source to get the kernel source, go into the kernel dir (should be /home/pi/linux-xxxxx) and run:

make headers_install INSTALL_HDR_PATH=/usr

quicksilver

@George-Spiggott Without getting too far off topic. Try mupen64plus-gliden64. It seems to run full speed for me. Generally it is faster than lr-mupen64plus-next.

Darksavior

@Rascas said in Good news regarding tearing and low EmulationStation performance on Pi 4:

make headers_install INSTALL_HDR_PATH=/usr

Thanks, but that did not work.

Rascas

@Darksavior Works fine here. With that command, headers are installed to /usr/include/ like it is normal but you can change the path to where you want to install them.

Darksavior

@Rascas There might be an issue with the pad driver compiling with it, I really have no idea what I'm doing. I'll create a new thread and see if anyone can help.

Darksavior

Ignoring my gamepad problem, I briefly tried these drivers.
It doesn't support 4k60? 4k30 makes ES's menu glitch out and it eventually crashes to the terminal. 1080p seems fine and smooth.
No audio since it defaults to this new hdmi audio driver. I found some way to make the old driver the default in alsamixer, but it didn't last.

Swampy

First tests with raspberry pi 4 and kernel 5.4 and no problems so far.
I can confirm, that emulationstation runs in full speed now.

Till now, I didn't test all emulators. I will post again, if I find any problems.

saccublenda

Does ES work with kms driver, that is setting dtoverlay=vc4-kms-v3d-pi4 in /boot/config.txt?

Swampy

@saccublenda, for me it only works with the fake kms - driver dtoverlay=vc4-fkms-v3d. I tried it with kms, but I only get a never ending black screen.

Brunnis

@saccublenda Yes. It works right away and seems to fix all tearing issues in both ES and RetroArch.

EDIT: Actually, with latest firmware you can use vc4-kms-v3d. No need for ”-pi4” at the end.

EDIT: If you have boot issues, try removing any overclock.

saccublenda

@Brunnis I did install the last kernel and tried dtoverlay= vc4-kms-v3d, but it exits on the prompt saying:

Error creating SDL window!
Could not create GLES window surface

Swampy

@Brunnis, I can confirm, that it works with no "-pi4" at the end. Only the retropie splashscreen didn't show.

George Spiggott

Purely as a guide to how it may run on some possible future 64bit Retropie/Dolphin build has anyone tried these new drivers on a Gentoo/dolphin (or similar) build?

saccublenda

I managed to update the kernel to 5.4.29, but when I launch ES with dtoverlay= vc4-kms-v3d I get these flashing artifacts

Brunnis

@saccublenda That looks really weird... What resolution are you running at?

saccublenda

@Brunnis 1920x1080

saccublenda

@Brunnis I guess it is an overscan problem. Removing the overscan settings from /boot/config.txt makes the artifacts disappear.

cellux

Video works fine using the kms driver, I don't have screen tearing anymore in some more problematic mame and n64 games.

However, sound is gone. When I try to change settings in raspi config i get "there was an error running a4 audio"

Is there some solution for this? In raspberry pi forum I've seen some audio related posts, tried to switch to the new kms hdmi audio driver (editing vc4-hdmi.conf), that results in no default audio driver found messages.

Brunnis

@cellux Sorry, can't help with that. I started with a fresh RetroPie weekly image, updated to the 5.4 kernel and enabled the full KMS driver and audio just worked.