Pi4B throttling?
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Howdy everyone,
I'm very excited to see that EmulationStation is in beta now for Pi4s. I took a plunge and installed it before beta and got it working thanks to YouTube and a kind gentleman with some comment posting.
One of the things I noticed after installation was that the Pi4 B (I'm using 4GB) CPU seemed to be throttled back from it's listed speed of 1.5 GHz to a paltry 600 MHz. I tried using the command line to 'rectify' the situation by 'overclocking' a CPU that was supposed to run 'out of the box' at a much higher speed but it didn't really seem to affect the experimental builds on EmulationStation all that much and there was noticeable hitching in nearly every emulator, including much older super-stable ones like snes9x.
I guess my overall question is if these throttling issues were discovered and in this beta release if there's something that unlocks this CPU cap and makes it run better than the way the Pi3 B would, like it's supposed to or if it's something hardware related that's not really fixable through software alone? Older emulators ran like a dream my Pi3 B and I simply chalked up the Pi4 B performance to not being fully supported. Strangely enough, even though there was awful hitching on older emulators (and newer ones for that matter) I got some really good results running a handful of experimental/unsupported emulators like Dreamcast, Saturn and even PC-FX. They had tolerable framerate and even with the 'throttling' problem still greatly outclassed the older Pi3 B.
Rambling aside, I don't see any real posts discussing this CPU speed cap and was hoping it was something that can be eliminated with a fresh installation of RetroPie and EmulationStation. I have zero qualms with getting everything back to terrific, stable speeds by doing a completely fresh reinstall. I'm trapped in my house for at least another week due to this stupid quarantining so I might as well do something with my time, eh?
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@ultrakev9 said in Pi4B throttling?:
I'm very excited to see that EmulationStation is in beta now for Pi4s
It's called RetroPie :)
seemed to be throttled back from it's listed speed of 1.5 GHz to a paltry 600 MHz
This is normal. It always throttles back to 600 MHz when it's idle. It'll run at 1.5 GHz once you start an emulator or anything that requires the speed. :)
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@ultrakev9 said in Pi4B throttling?:
One of the things I noticed after installation was that the Pi4 B (I'm using 4GB) CPU seemed to be throttled back from it's listed speed of 1.5 GHz to a paltry 600 MHz.
Didn't notice this ever since I had the PI4. Are you measuring this while playing or when the system is idle ? If it's the latter, then - as @muldjord said - it could be normal.
Are you using a 4k TV and a 4k resolution with RetroPie ?
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Yes, 4K TV and pretty sure 4K resolution. I am measuring at idle but I don't really have the tools to measure at load unless it can be done in Pixel Desktop. I am a Linux idiot and don't know any command line functions other than what someone else pretty much spoonfeeds me.
I will update everything in the next couple of days and do some comparisons. I'm very hopeful that the majority of issues was my punishment for attempting to use razor's edge technology. I don't normally run anything that's not at least in a beta state but I was getting ancy for some Saturn emulation and couldn't help myself. Everything was working but the framerates on many emulators was subpar compared to the stable Pi3 B I was running before.
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The Pi 4 is still too weak for a full 3D accelerated 4k resolution, so you should change the default resolution to 1080p. You'd still be able to use the 4k resolutions for movies or games (toggle from the Runcommand launch menu), but the default it's still best to be kept 1080p.
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Ah, okay. I'll keep that in mind when I update. Thanks so much. Maybe that was part of the problem.
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Thanks for all the help. Everything is reinstalled and the resolution has been locked at 1080p. Everything runs great. Even got decent performance out of PSP and PC-FX. Was having a weird problem where all my PC Engine CD games quit working. Sega CD games ran fine so I installed Pixel Desktop and found that the syscard3.pce file wasn't in the BIOS directory. Problem solved and all PCE-CD games work. Dunno why that happened but whatever.
N64 runs okay, Saturn and Dreamcast are still a little iffy. Saturn works a little slow and the sound is screwy but it's playable.
Good stuff. Keep up the good work!
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@ultrakev9 said in Pi4B throttling?:
Dreamcast are still a little iffy
Have you tried the redream emulator? It's in the experimental section and it runs really good. I have had almost no real issues with it.
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Is ReDream the one with the GUI?
I used FlyCast and it .... worked.... One of the emulators crashed on me but I don't recall which one. I'll try ReDream again as it did load but seemed a little goofy but that's probably due to my inexperience with it. Took me a few minutes to realize the mouse was working and had to exit using the commands and not through RetroArch. I'll give it another whirl.
Part of the problem is not really having anything off the top of my head that I would specifically play on Dreamcast. Nearly everything over the years that I had has either aged terribly and not worth the trouble or has been updated or remade on better systems.
PSO has been redone and done better, Skies of Arcadia is on GameCube, etc.
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