Amiberry 3.3 / RPi 4 slow

gordonfreemanjr

@mitu I just called Samsung and they confirmed that upscaling the resolution is what a Smart TV does and there’s no internal setting to change it.

...

Still, when I connect the Pi via HDMI, the TV asks me what kind of equipment it is. I usually pick Game Console. Maybe I should ID the Pi as something else to avoid the upscaling? A decoder? A toaster?

At the same time I find it weird that I’m the first RPi4/Smart TV user to encounter an error like this one.

Cna

@mitu I know nothing about Rpi4 but i encoutered real slowdowns on Rpi3 with enable_uart=1 which set core_freq to 250Mhz instead of 400Mhz on Pi3.
You may give a try on removing this.

quicksilver

@cna that setting doesn't seem to affect the gpu core frequency on the pi 4 the way it does on previous pi models. With it on I still get 500mhz frequency for the core clock.

mitu

@gordonfreemanjr said in Amiberry 3.3 / RPi 4 slow:

I just called Samsung and they confirmed that upscaling the resolution is what a Smart TV does and there’s no internal setting to change it.

That's not exactly true. When using hdmi_safe, it reported the resolution correctly (640x480).

quicksilver

@gordonfreemanjr the solution @mitu suggested to limit the maximum resolution doesnt work by itself on my vizio tv either for some reason (it should work but I have learned my vizio has some weird quirks)

What worked for me was also setting this in my config.txt

hdmi_ignore_edid=0xa5000080

gordonfreemanjr

@quicksilver Thx. Was that the only additional line or have you included the one @mitu proposed as well?

quicksilver

@gordonfreemanjr That setting plus mitu's works for me.

gordonfreemanjr

@quicksilver IT WORKS.

This is the only combination of settings that did it for me. Both need to be active at the same time. Now, when I press the HOME remote button to inspect the resolution, it's 1080p / 60 - and it shows in the emulation speed. For the first time ever, Amiberry works at full speed.

This is the gamechanger for me.

@quicksilver @mitu Thank you both for your help. It's been a long topic and couple days, but this is it. It works.

Thank you!

So, to sum up. The final working combination to fix the resoution for the RPi4/Samsung Smart TV combo:

[hdmi:0]
hdmi_max_pixel_freq=200000000
[hdmi:1]
hdmi_max_pixel_freq=200000000
hdmi_ignore_edid=0xa5000080

mitu

@gordonfreemanjr Well, glad you sorted it out.

I'm wondering if the TV's EDID is not broken and/or lying about the TV's capabilities. Can you get the EDID contents from the TV with

tvservice -d myTV.edid
base64 myTV.edid

then post the output of the last command.

gordonfreemanjr

@mitu Sure. If you don't mind, I'll just attach the .edid file itself. My Ubuntu is unable to open in correctly.
https://we.tl/t-VITH1B471s

That’s how it appears on the screen though:
https://ibb.co/wKk2p4L

mitu

@gordonfreemanjr said in Amiberry 3.3 / RPi 4 slow:

@mitu Sure. If you don't mind, I'll just attach the .edid file itself. My Ubuntu is unable to open in correctly.

It's a small binary file which isn't meant to be seen as a text file. You need a program to decode it - like edid-decode- , and see the details.

I don't see anything out of the ordinary here, apart from the 4k video modes being filtered out (probably because of the configuration).

gordonfreemanjr

@mitu @quicksilver Our case has made it to Amiberry FAQ:

https://github.com/midwan/amiberry/wiki/FAQ

slimbrick

[EDIT: I fixed my issue, so I tried to delete the post but it wouldn't let me]

BuZz

@slimbrick it would be more useful imho to leave your post and reply with your fix.

slimbrick

@buzz
You have a good point.

I had a very similar problem to this thread. I replaced my Pi 3 retropie with a Pi 4 and retropie was behaving in a jittery fashion with Emulation Station and the games weren't smooth. I also have a 4K Samsung Smart TV as did the original poster. Although I wasn't using Amiberry, I was using mame, daphne, and jzintv and I figured the same solution that @gordonfreemanjr used would work for me. So I added the five lines to my /boot/config.txt file that he listed in his "IT WORKS" post but lo-and-behold it did not work for me. tvservice -s was still showing a 4K connection when I expected 1080p.

My solution was simple with a twist. Starting from the stock config.txt, I uncommented and modified the following:

hdmi_group:0=1
hdmi_mode:0=16

It was necessary for me to add the :0 to get it to work. Now there are no jitters, the motion is smooth, and tvservice -s reports a 1080p connection.