Randomly slow EmulationStation menus on RPi 4

myt

Hi. I'm having performance problems in ES menus. I posted this on the GitHub issues page here but was told to post in the forums instead. There, they indicated it wasn't a problem with ES but rather with the KMSDRM graphics driver.

I noticed that switching between systems on the main page results in an occasional drop to 30 FPS from 60. If I turn on the frame rate counter, it is either a steady 30 or a steady 60, so it doesn't appear to be a performance problem in terms of too much for the Pi to handle. It also isn't related to thermal throttling because I never get the thermometer icon in the menu.

I noticed that if I have a system without theme art it seems to perform better on that system's menu than the others so I'm wondering if it's an image or transparency processing issue.

It will fix itself sometimes when I switch out of a script menu or a system menu (or exit a game), but not always.

This is an RPi 4 4GB model using a 16GB SanDisk card, with all updates of Raspbian and the core packages applied.

mitu

PI4 support is ongoing, so some bugs may be expected.

You said you're up-to-date - how did you install RetroPie on the PI4 ?

Darksavior

@myt Yep I get that problem too. If I exit retropie-setup, ES is 60fps. Otherwise, it's 30fps.

Swampy

Same problem. I installed retropie via raspbian lite. But I can wait, until you support the rpi4.

myt

@mitu Sorry for the late reply. If I recall correctly it was with a weekly dev build from the Reddit thread, and then I ran sudo apt update and the updates from retropie_setup.sh. I think I updated everything the first time, and then ran it again later to do kernel and system updates.

Swampy

For me it only happens, if "TRANSITION STYLE" is set to "FADE" in emulationstation.
Perhaps someone else may help this.

myt

@Swampy I have mine set to "Instant" but it still does it :/ Sometimes changing the animation style back and forth will fix it; however, today I think it also fixed itself just by going from one menu to another. I didn't enter a script menu (like raspi-config) or a game.

qrayg

@myt i was having the exact same issues on the official pi4 release of Rp... as well as very strang handshake issues. I permanently fixed all the this by editing the config.txt and forcing HDMI mode (instead of auto CRT detection) and setting HDMI boost to on. Now ES is super fast and I no more handshake issues.

mitu

@qrayg The Pi4 doesn't have the 'auto CRT detection' as previous models, the analog port needs to be explicitly enabled via enable_tvout and it also ignores the config_hdmi_boost option. You probably have a 4k TV and the Pi4 defaults using a 4k@30hz video mode, hence the slow interface.

TheFloW

@mitu any steps as to how to do this?

this is giving me a headache looking at it man

mitu

@mitu any steps as to how to do this?

To do what, exactly ?

TheFloW

@mitu I was referring to how to get to HDMI boost and TV mode. however I did find a workaround that worked for me

I had a USB Dongle for keyboard and mouse and a USB drive for roms plugged into my Pi. my ES menus were slowing down alot.

HOWEVER >:)

The solution I found was to unplug all of those and boom, fast menus. maybe it was a power issue?

hoped that helped for someone, cuz I guess it worked for me :)

mitu

@TheFloW said in Randomly slow EmulationStation menus on RPi 4:

I was referring to how to get to HDMI boost and TV mode

HDMI boot configuration is not available for the Pi4, as for the mode selection, you can just use raspi-config and select 1080p as default video mode.