Low framerate on main EmulationStation menu - Pi 4

roslof

@rilight for Gambatte, I'm running 1.88 - Gambatte (v0.5.0-netlink).
Normally, I get a solid 60FPS, and with speed-up enabled, I literally get >1600 FPS (with overclock) and that's with a 5-pass gb shader enabled.

Is your RA Threaded Video set to enabled?

Let's compare our RetroArch video settings. Launching "RetroArch" from the Raspberry Pi settings menu, mine are:

Output:
Video: (gl)
Monitor Index 0 (Auto)
Video Rotation (Normal)
Force-Disable sRGB FBO (Disabled)

Fullscreen Mode:
Start in Fullscreen Mode (Enabled)
Windowed Fullscreen Mode (Enabled)
Fullscreen Width (1920)
Fullscreen Height (1080)

Windowed Mode:
Windowed Scale: (1.0x)
Window Opacity: (100)
Show Window Decorations (Enabled)
Remember Window Position and Size (Disabled)
Window Width: (1280)
Window Height: (720)

Scaling:
Integer Scale (Disabled)
Aspect Ratio (Core provided)
Crop Overscan (Enabled)

Synchronization:
Vertical Sync (Vsync) (Enabled)
Vertical Sync (Vsync) Swap Interval (1)
Frame Delay (0) 
Hard GPU Sync (Disabled)
Max swapchain images (3)
Sync to Exact Content Framerate (Disabled)

Threaded Video (Enabled)
Black Frame Insertion (Disabled)
GPU Screenshot (Disabled)
Bilinear Filtering (Enabled)
Auto-Shader Delay (0)

...and no Video Filter set.

rilight

It looks like I have the same version of Gambatte as you do. Here's my video settings from the RetroArch menu after launching the game:

Output:
  Video: gl
  Monitor Index: 0(Auto)
  Video Rotation: Normal
  Force-Disable sRGB FBO: Off

Fullscreen:
  Start in Fullscreen Mode: On
  Windowed Fullscreen Mode: On
  Fullscreen Width: 1920
  Fullscreen Height: 1080

Windowed Mode:
  Windowed Scale: 3.0x
  Window Opacity: 100
  Show Window Decorations: On
  Remember Window Position and Size: Off
  Window Width: 1280
  Window Height: 720

Scaling:
  Integer Scale: Off
  Aspect Ratio: Core Provided
  Crop Overscan: On

Synchronization:
  Vertical Sync (Vsync): On
  Vertical Sync (Vsync) Swap Interval: 1
  Frame Delay: 0
  Hard GPU Sync: Off
  Max swapchain images: 3
  Sync to Exact Content Framerate: Off

Suspend Screensaver: On
Threaded Video: On
Black Frame Insertion: Off
GPU Screenshot: On
Bilinear Filtering: Off
Auto-Shader Delay: 0

Video Filter: N/A

I'm not sure why I'm missing some of the options you have, maybe you have an advanced settings option enabled? The only difference I see here is that my windowed scale is set to 3x instead of 1x.

roslof

@rilight said in Low framerate on main EmulationStation menu - Pi 4:

I'm not sure why I'm missing some of the options you have

Hmmm... Maybe:
RetroArch / User Interface / Views / (enable everything except "Display Start Screen)
RetroArch / User Interface / (enable "Show Advanced Settings")

rilight

Ah, enabling "Show Advanced Settings" did the trick. I'll edit my post to add the missing values.

rilight

The only other differences I notice now are GPU Screenshot being on and Bilinear Filtering being off, I think that's everything.

roslof

@rilight Boo. Between config.txt for overall video setting, and RetroArch video settings, seems all good.

I can't argue with @mitu 's logic at this point. The software appears to be correct, and unless I'm missing something, this only leaves hardware between your Pi 4B and your TV.

Silly, terrible questions:

You are using physical video port 0, correct?
Can test your setup on a different TV?

rilight

If port 0 is the one next to the USB-C port, then yep! I'll go ahead and hook this up to the TV instead of my monitor, I probably should have thought of doing that earlier.

rilight

Same issue on the TV.

rilight

Also @roslof, the issue isn't happening just with RetroArch but also in the main menu of EmulationStation... but it's not slow all the time. If I move from a custom category (unthemed, so no background) to a regular category, the animation is noticeably smoother than when I move between themed categories.

rilight

@roslof I remembered this HDMI adapter came in a two-pack, so I dug out the other one and tried switching it out. Still the same performance... either this adapter is just bad in general (which I wouldn't guess from the reviews saying it worked great with the Pi 4), I got shipped a bad batch, or the issue is something else.

d3sim8

I am having the same issue. Fresh install of the 4.6 image. Using a genuine Raspberry Pi HDMI cable. Tried another cable, tried another TV. Limited the resolution to 1080p / 720p. Turned Wi-Fi / Bluetooth off.

Still getting a low framerate in ES. I also experience tearing in lr-fbneo and lr-genesis-gx-plus.

Running a game then exiting seems to mitigate the framerate problem in ES. Turning off threaded video seems to mitigate the tearing in games.

I'm at a bit of a loss as to what is causing the problem too!

roslof

Two people with the same symptoms. Hardware ruled out (TV/Cables)...

Couple of other things I could think of that we haven't discussed...

Upgrading/Upgraded PiOS (software/Kernel)
Graphic Drivers

PiOS/Kernel
I'm reaching here, but as an example, last year, I remember the kernel changed and GPU overclock was broken for a couple/few months. This is just an example of how Kernel changes can impact systems.

Use uname -a to get your Kernel version.
Mine:
Linux retropie 4.19.118-v7l+ #1311 SMP Mon Apr 27 14:26:42 BST 2020 armv7l GNU/Linux
I wager mine is older with that Apr 27th date, but I know this works for me.

Link to Updating and upgrading
(should backup everything first before attempting an upgrade/downgrade)

Graphic Drivers
I know least about this area, but wondering if there have been recent changes to the graphic drivers/dependencies that are causing issues. Maybe others could help suggest if this could be an area to investigate. Not sure which drivers may affect both ES and RetroArch (since the issues being reported here seem to affect both). Not sure how to surface driver versions or the best way to revert if desired.

Other than these two areas, I'm stumped.

mitu

The low fps in EmulationStation was reported during the Pi4 beta period - usually by running at 30 fps. This happens on certain themes - less likely with the default, Carbon, theme - but it goes away once a game is launched. You can see what FPS EmulationStation runs by toggling the Show Framerate option from the ES menu.

roslof

@rilight which theme are you running?

rilight

@roslof: I updated the OS during my installation process, so I'm currently on 5.4.51-v7l+.
@mitu: The FPS counter does show that when it seems more laggy, it's running at 30 fps. However, launching a game then exiting doesn't seem to solve the issue for me like it does for others? As I mentioned in my first post, I'm using the pixel-metadata theme and it does perform better on Carbon. However, even there it doesn't reach a consistent 60fps.

rilight

If anyone has more suggestions, let me know. For now I'll probably just deal with the low framerate and graphical problems and/or force it to run at 720p but I'd really like to figure out what's going on.

Krakatoa

To improve the themes try bumping up the vram. I was getting terrible performance in cardcrazy with the default vram (80). Once I upped to the max all my issues went away.

rilight

@Krakatoa I just tried cranking up the VRAM Limit setting to the max and restarted EmulationStation, no change. It still sits at 60fps when idle then drops down to 30-45fps or so when switching categories.

rilight

Oh, I also noticed that ES stays at a consistent 30fps when I'm in the start menu. No idea why that would be different than sitting on the main menu, but it is.

rilight

It looks like a few others have reported the same issue off-forum: