Amiberry 3.3 / RPi 4 slow

gordonfreemanjr

For some reason every Amiberry Amiga game on my RPi 4 works, but slowly and the sound is all choppy. I have not meddled in the Amiberry settings at all, everything is out-of-the-box.

All my games are stored on an external USB.

Amiberry version: 3.3
RPi version: 4 4GB
Power supply: official
External accessories used: 2 XBox 360 gamepads, 2TB external drive, keyboard, mouse
Resolution: 1080p

Thorr69

@gordonfreemanjr You skipped the most important piece of info: What version of Retropi are you running and where did you install it from?

gordonfreemanjr

@thorr69 Oh, sorry for that. I updated the script 2 weeks ago, but the original install was the original image file.

gordonfreemanjr

@thorr69 I just wiped the SD card due to some other trouble and my Retropie is all brand new and shiny. Still, the Amiberry performance is the same as before: bit slow, choppy sound.

I used the official Retropie image earlier today.

What do I do?

gordonfreemanjr

@gordonfreemanjr It’s not an Amiberry problem. It’s related to the global framerate. Case closed.

Thorr69

@gordonfreemanjr The only advice I have is to make sure your pi resolution is 1080p and not 4k. That is to say, set the resolution in the initial launch script of emulationstation. Beyond that, I have no experience with this issue.

mitu

@gordonfreemanjr said in Amiberry 3.3 / RPi 4 slow:

It’s related to the global framerate. Case closed.

Can you be more specific ? It might help other users that experience the same issue ?

gordonfreemanjr

@mitu Sure. Apparently the 4K resolution caps my RPi to 30 FPS. That’s exactly the framerate my Amiberry gets, according to the Amiberry status bar.

The problem is I’m unable to change my resolution, but that’s a separate issue, I think.

Here’s the new topic I’ve started on the issue:
https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/29495/30-fps-cap-at-4k-workarounds

Thorr69

@gordonfreemanjr I believe that's a hardware cap on the Pi4 and you won't be able to get it to 60.

gordonfreemanjr

@thorr69 Are you sure? I discussed the issue with an Amiberry guy and he said he never heard of an Amiberry emulation running slow on RPi 4, and the usual Amiberry framerate is 50/60.

gordonfreemanjr

@thorr69 I quote: „ That sounds weird, I've never seen a game that doesn't run full speed on the Pi4.
You can enable the Status bar from the Amiberry GUI (check the Misc panel), to see how many FPS it's doing. PAL games should run at 50, NTSC ones at 60”.

Thorr69

@gordonfreemanjr No, you missed my point. 30 fps at 4k resolution is a hardware limitation. You can do 50/60 on pal/ntsc at 1080p no problem. Pi4 can output 4k, but it doesn't do it very well. Emulation is taxing and Pi4 just can't handle it without stuttering and frameskips, even at 30fps hard cap. That's why you'll find dozens of threads here saying to set your resolution to 1080p.

gordonfreemanjr

@thorr69 Oh, sorry. Got it.

Yes, switching to 1080p would probably fix my problem. There problem is I’m unable to do it. Each time I use the raspi-config to switch to any other resolution than the „monitor preferred”, the EmulationStation never comes back. I’m stuck at back screen on boot indefinitely and when I to raspi-config most of the resolution options are gone, including the working „monitor preferred”.

All I can do at this point is to wipe the SD and start over. Happened to me three times already, even on clean install.

asinoladro

Ha, I found this thread as I had the exact same problem – Amiberry running slow on my RPi 4, with the latest Retropie image. And... I went right ahead and changed my resolution to 1920x1080 without reading @gordonfreemanjr 's last post... and now emulationstation isn't booting!

I've not figured out a solution to this yet (suggestions very welcome!) but:

Possibly telling you something you already know, but just in case: you can press the F4 key to get to your terminal. From there, you can type sudo raspi-config to get back to try your luck mucking about with screen config some more.

I found the StackExchange answer below, which suggests using the "G2 GL (Fake KMS)" GL driver before changing the resolution – though I've not had any luck with this. (Maybe it'd have worked if I hadn't already broken my config?!)

https://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/84375/raspberry-pi-crashes-when-i-try-to-change-screen-resolution

Not a full answer, but hopefully this gives some leads and we can figure out a solution from here... I'd rather not wipe my sdcard and start over!

gordonfreemanjr

@thorr69 @asinoladro I managed to switch to 1080p eventually after modifying config.txt. And... no change. Amiberry’s still slow and choppy.

asinoladro

In case anyone stumbles into this thread, here's how you can edit config.txt manually:

https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=283629

asinoladro

@gordonfreemanjr I've now got this working – got Cannon Fodder playing with totally smooth audio and a good framerate :)

My understanding of what's happened in my case is as follows – I think there's a good chance this'll work for you too:

As discussed in this thread – Amiberry (and most other emulators) are extremely slow in 4k.
There are many different "1080p" display modes, and they won't all work on your TV or monitor. You need to pick the right one for your monitor.
If you don't pick the right one, then either you get a black screen, or... your system just ignores your requested mode and defaults right back to 4K (though in settings it'll show your chosen 1080p option, and you won't see any error anywhere!)

Here's what I did to pick the right 1080p display mode:
4. Following the instructions under Which values are valid for my monitor? in https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/configuration/config-txt/video.md, run /opt/vc/bin/tvservice -m CEA and /opt/vc/bin/tvservice -m DMT. (See https://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/7332/what-is-the-difference-between-cea-and-dmt for what CEA and DMT mean)
5. As I'm using a monitor, I thought I needed a DMT mode, so I updated my /boot/config.txt with hdmi_group=2 (=DMT) and hdmi_group=82. I then rebooted with sudo reboot now...
6. ...and yet, checking /opt/vc/bin/tvservice -s, I was still on a 4k display mode! Argh!
7. I went back to /opt/vc/bin/tvservice -m CEA and /opt/vc/bin/tvservice -m DMT and noticed there was a CEA display mode that had native next to it, so I decided to go for that. For me, that meant hdmi_group=1 (which is CEA, confusingly) and hdmi_group=16.
8. After a reboot, the difference was obvious even in emulationstation – suddenly navigating the menu was super smooth. And sure enough, booting up Amiga games, no slowdown at all.

Let me know if this works for you! Good luck!

dankcushions

@asinoladro said in Amiberry 3.3 / RPi 4 slow:

I found the StackExchange answer below, which suggests using the "G2 GL (Fake KMS)" GL driver before changing the resolution – though I've not had any luck with this. (Maybe it'd have worked if I hadn't already broken my config?!)

note that retropie/raspbian already use fkms by default. you would have to actively turn on pure kms to need to disable it.

gordonfreemanjr

@asinoladro I’m glad you god this working - also, thanks for the detailed tip.

It’s not working so far on my end. I managed to change the resolution to 1x16 (CEA 1920x1080 60Hz), clock 148MHz), but the Amiberry is just as slow as ever.

I followed your path regarding the tvservice option. This is my list. None of the resolutions are desrcribed as ‘native’, and one is desribed as ‘preferred’ - but that’s 30Hz, so no.

My output:
https://ibb.co/jfrVtLd

Not sure what to do now. Should I just check them all and see if any works?

gordonfreemanjr

@asinoladro Aargh. Even with the 1x16 setting forced in config.txt, apparently I’m still in the wrong mode:

https://ibb.co/DKWkXbV

Damn.