Good news regarding tearing and low EmulationStation performance on Pi 4

Jimi007

@saccublenda Hi I just wanted to find out hat theme is this that you are using. I like it

saccublenda

akamming

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

I got a nice tip though. It is possible to use the old sound driver:
dtparam=audio=on
dtoverlay=vc4-kms-v3d-pi4,audio=off
(and the old vc4-hdmi.conf)

Dit you get this to work? i cannot get audio (also not with this tip)

I only see the BCM2835 headphones driver, but i need either the 2835 HDMI 1 driver to work or the new kms audio driver. Can't get both to work...

I tried

dtoverlay=vc4-kms-v3d-pi4,audio=off (with dtparam=audio=on and old vc4-hdmi.conf)
and dtoverlay=vc4-kms-v3d-pi4 with new vc4-hdmi.conf

on both no audio. Does anyone have a tip?

Beretta9

I'm in the same situation. I can get the KMS driver to work but cannot get audio.

Rascas

Kernel 5.4 is still in testing and KMS isn't ready yet so issues may occur. For more information about it's current state check this thread:
https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=269769

bluestang

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

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

I got a nice tip though. It is possible to use the old sound driver:
dtparam=audio=on
dtoverlay=vc4-kms-v3d-pi4,audio=off
(and the old vc4-hdmi.conf)

Dit you get this to work? i cannot get audio (also not with this tip)

I only see the BCM2835 headphones driver, but i need either the 2835 HDMI 1 driver to work or the new kms audio driver. Can't get both to work...

I tried

dtoverlay=vc4-kms-v3d-pi4,audio=off (with dtparam=audio=on and old vc4-hdmi.conf)

and dtoverlay=vc4-kms-v3d-pi4 with new vc4-hdmi.conf

on both no audio. Does anyone have a tip?

It is not possible to use the BCM2835 and the vc4hdmi drivers at the same time.
What is your output when you type in aplay -l in the cmd line?

SeraphisCain

So I did a normal apt update today and apparently we're officially on 5.4 now? Using the KMS driver and new audio driver and everything seems to be working as intended, save for a "failed to find mixer elements" error with ES that's probably related to the new audio driver, but that's not much of a problem.

EDIT: Hm, maybe it's not working quite as intended after all. I'm getting audio dropouts on more demanding stuff (Dreamcast with Redream, some games that require MAME 2016) using the new audio driver). Think I'll go back to FKMS/old audio driver until the new stuff has been tested a bit more.

bluestang

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

So I did a normal apt update today and apparently we're officially on 5.4 now? Using the KMS driver and new audio driver and everything seems to be working as intended, save for a "failed to find mixer elements" error with ES that's probably related to the new audio driver, but that's not much of a problem.

EDIT: Hm, maybe it's not working quite as intended after all. I'm getting audio dropouts on more demanding stuff (Dreamcast with Redream, some games that require MAME 2016) using the new audio driver). Think I'll go back to FKMS/old audio driver until the new stuff has been tested a bit more.

I just confirmed this as well about the kernel update.

So in order to use the vc4hdmi audio driver, you need to disable the broadcom2835 one in your config.txt

Using both is not possible, or at least that is what was mentioned before. It was said that both drivers are fighting for the same resources hence why one of them needs to be disabled.

The vc4hdmi audio driver is a WIP, so results will vary.

Also, for the vc4hdmi driver you need to use an updated vc4hdmi.conf in the /usr/share/alsa/cards folder:

https://github.com/LibreELEC/LibreELEC.tv/blob/master/projects/RPi/filesystem/usr/share/alsa/cards/vc4-hdmi.conf

I am surprised that this file was not replaced with the new one with the kernel update.

SeraphisCain

For the moment I'm using dtoverlay=vc4-kms-v3d,noaudio along with dtparam=audio=on to use the new video driver along with the old audio driver until things get ironed out with the new HDMI audio driver.

bluestang

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

For the moment I'm using dtoverlay=vc4-kms-v3d,noaudio along with dtparam=audio=on to use the new video driver along with the old audio driver until things get ironed out with the new HDMI audio driver.

The correct usage is dtoverlay=vc4-kms-v3d,noaudio=on

You can verify by typing aplay -l in the cmdline and the vc4hdmi devices will not be present.

SeraphisCain

@bluestang

According to this:

https://github.com/raspberrypi/linux/pull/3640#issuecomment-639053905

noaudio and noaudio=on should have the same effect, since "on" is assumed if no parameter is given.

bluestang

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

issuecomment

Good catch. I haven’t used the driver in awhile. For me the lack of a mixer doesn’t make it a suitable driver.

Darksavior

Yep, looks like they officially released 5.4 and the gamecon driver still doesn't work. I have no idea what the problem is but I did post the problem to them months ago in their forum and got ignored.

mitu

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

I have no idea what the problem is but I did post the problem to them months ago in their forum and got ignored.

Well, it's not their driver - why would you expect them to fix it ?
You should have reported this upstream - https://github.com/marqs85/gamecon_gpio_rpi.

Darksavior

@mitu Well, I don't know of these things. A simple "not our problem" would've done it.
Buzz always tells people to post problems on the forum first, so I'm always hesitant to post problems at the github.

mitu

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

Buzz always tells people to post problems on the forum first, so I'm always hesitant to post problems at the github.

Yes, that's the preferred approach - though in this case it's not a RetroPie issue. It looks like the module uses a call to do_gettimeofday, which was deprecated in the Linux kernel in preparation for the 2038-pocalypse. I'll take a look at what changes might be needed and perhaps submit a patch upstream.

PhoenixJedi

Well now that 5.4 is official, is there any way to get kodi working with this KMS driver or no?

saccublenda

@PhoenixJedi I think we just have to wait for Kodi 19 to be released.

Rascas

@PhoenixJedi Nope, Kodi will only work with KMS in Kodi 19.

Beretta9

Now that the update is official, is the KMS driver enabled by default, or do you still have to add the line in the boot config? Is the audio fixed with the KMS driver?