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    Good news regarding tearing and low EmulationStation performance on Pi 4

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    performance vsync pi 4 kernel 5.4
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    • George SpiggottG
      George Spiggott
      last edited by

      Does anyone know if KMS is now at a stage where it is possible and practical to use the new audio drivers with it rather than the legacy ones?

      Currently running:
      Retropie 4.7 on a Pi 4B 4GB (Overclock Settings: CPU 2100, GPU (V3D) 850) - On hiatus
      Emulationstation on a NUC 8 (i5, Windows 11, 16GB RAM)

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        bluestang @George Spiggott
        last edited by

        @george-spiggott said in Good news regarding tearing and low EmulationStation performance on Pi 4:

        Does anyone know if KMS is now at a stage where it is possible and practical to use the new audio drivers with it rather than the legacy ones?

        Yes. I’ve been using the vc4-hdmi driver without any issues.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • George SpiggottG
          George Spiggott
          last edited by

          @bluestang Great news, How did you set it up in your config file?

          Currently running:
          Retropie 4.7 on a Pi 4B 4GB (Overclock Settings: CPU 2100, GPU (V3D) 850) - On hiatus
          Emulationstation on a NUC 8 (i5, Windows 11, 16GB RAM)

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            bluestang @George Spiggott
            last edited by bluestang

            @george-spiggott said in Good news regarding tearing and low EmulationStation performance on Pi 4:

            @bluestang Great news, How did you set it up in your config file?

            In order to use the KMS video and audio driver you need to do the following after doing a full sudo apt update and full-upgrade:

            1. Edit vc4-hdmi.conf as posted here. Requires sudo privileges to edit the file.

            2. Comment out the dtparam=audio=on

            3. Enable dtoverlay=vc4-kms-v3d (remove noaudio)

            4. Reboot. You may need to start the desktop to select the audio output i.e. - HDMI

            George SpiggottG ectoE 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • George SpiggottG
              George Spiggott @bluestang
              last edited by George Spiggott

              @bluestang I did all that apart from starting the desktop. I have no desktop AFAIK on Retropie. I currently am not getting any sound.

              After the upgrade I have the following:

              Kernel: 5.10.17-v7l+
              Mesa: 19.3.2-1~bpo10+1~rpt3

              Currently running:
              Retropie 4.7 on a Pi 4B 4GB (Overclock Settings: CPU 2100, GPU (V3D) 850) - On hiatus
              Emulationstation on a NUC 8 (i5, Windows 11, 16GB RAM)

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                bluestang @George Spiggott
                last edited by

                @george-spiggott said in Good news regarding tearing and low EmulationStation performance on Pi 4:

                @bluestang I did all that apart from starting the desktop. I have no desktop AFAIK on Retropie. I currently am not getting any sound.

                After the upgrade I have the following:

                Kernel: 5.10.17-v7l+
                Mesa: 19.3.2-1~bpo10+1~rpt3

                I had to install the desktop and then make sure that the sound output was enabled by clicking the sound applet in the desktop taskbar.

                I don’t believe there is an option in raspi-config for this yet as the KMS driver is still in testing.

                Although this specific sound issue, is something I’ve come across before and warrants a fix by the RPi dev team IMHO.

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • GreenHawk84G
                  GreenHawk84
                  last edited by GreenHawk84

                  Today I was playing around with overclocks by monitoring the ARM freq live while I flipped the ES menu and started games. I noticed that Mortal Kombat 2 Plus (mk2p) on Mame2003 Plus had significant tearing vs. Mortal Kombat 2 (regular mk2) on Mame2016. Not sure if maybe different cores are handling this differently? Just something I noticed.

                  FYI I have decided to leave my ARM clock as default for now.

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • roslofR
                    roslof @akamming
                    last edited by roslof

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

                    I noticed some errors on the console. Haven't noticed them before. The only change i lately did was the move to 5.4 using the kms driver. So i think it is related.

                    mmal: mmal_vc_component_create: failed to create component 'vc.ril.hvs' (1:ENOMEM) 
mmal: mmal_component_create_core: could not create component 'vc.ril.hvs' (1)

                    All works fine, dos anyone know what they mean and how to fix (or how they can be supressed, alle seems to work fine...)?

                    @akamming I just started tinkering with KMS and my console also displays these errors each time a video snap plays (using VLC). Like you, I'm having no visual/audio issues, but these errors appear on the console. The Interwebs were not much help. Were you ever able to find a solution?

                    B SaturnXS 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
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                      bluestang @George Spiggott
                      last edited by bluestang

                      @george-spiggott said in Good news regarding tearing and low EmulationStation performance on Pi 4:

                      @bluestang I did all that apart from starting the desktop. I have no desktop AFAIK on Retropie. I currently am not getting any sound.

                      After the upgrade I have the following:

                      Kernel: 5.10.17-v7l+
                      Mesa: 19.3.2-1~bpo10+1~rpt3

                      Update - @George-Spiggott

                      There are 2 routes you can choose:

                      1. The most simplest one is to delete the .asoundrc file in your home directory. This will enable audio output from the KMS audio driver, however, mixing is not available. So if you have a BGM or any other music audio playing in the background it will not play as this configuration only allows for a single audio source output.

                      2. The PulseAudio solution will overcome the mixing limitation as described above. Check to see if you have PulseAudio installed -- apt policy pulseaudio. If not, install from apt and then run systemctl --user enable pulseaudio. Reboot and you should have sound from the KMS audio driver.

                      RPiOS ditched the default ALSA sound configs in favor of PulseAudio back in Dec '20.

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                      • B
                        bluestang @roslof
                        last edited by bluestang

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

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

                        I noticed some errors on the console. Haven't noticed them before. The only change i lately did was the move to 5.4 using the kms driver. So i think it is related.

                        mmal: mmal_vc_component_create: failed to create component 'vc.ril.hvs' (1:ENOMEM) 
mmal: mmal_component_create_core: could not create component 'vc.ril.hvs' (1)

                        All works fine, dos anyone know what they mean and how to fix (or how they can be supressed, alle seems to work fine...)?

                        @akamming I just started tinkering with KMS and my console also displays these errors each time a video snap plays (using VLC). Like you, I'm having no visual/audio issues, but these errors appear on the console. The Interwebs were not much help. Were you ever able to find a solution?

                        MMAL is incompatible with the KMS driver. These are just msgs that are gracefully saying that it is incompatible.

                        roslofR 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • roslofR
                          roslof @bluestang
                          last edited by

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

                          MMAL is incompatible with the KMS driver. These are just msgs that are gracefully saying that it is incompatible.

                          Thanks bluestang. By chance, are you aware of a way to suppress these messages?

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                            bluestang @roslof
                            last edited by

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

                            Thanks bluestang. By chance, are you aware of a way to suppress these messages?

                            Not really...there is ongoing work with the KMS video driver to support hw acceleration video decoding using V4L2 codecs. I believe Kodi is already using them...10-bit and 8-bit HDR hw video decoding are part of the KMS feature set.

                            MMAL is a Broadcom blob, whereas V4L2 is open-source API and is standard on Linux distros.

                            I failed to mention to you that using the KMS driver, as it currently stands, disables hw acceleration of video decoding. Eventually, this will be fixed in KMS but I don't see it as too big of a deal since I don't consume a lot of video media on my Pi4. Video snaps in ES typically are not that cpu intensive so it seems to be OK for the time being.

                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                            • SaturnXS
                              SaturnX @roslof
                              last edited by SaturnX

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

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

                              I noticed some errors on the console. Haven't noticed them before. The only change i lately did was the move to 5.4 using the kms driver. So i think it is related.

                              mmal: mmal_vc_component_create: failed to create component 'vc.ril.hvs' (1:ENOMEM) 
mmal: mmal_component_create_core: could not create component 'vc.ril.hvs' (1)

                              All works fine, dos anyone know what they mean and how to fix (or how they can be supressed, alle seems to work fine...)?

                              @akamming I just started tinkering with KMS and my console also displays these errors each time a video snap plays (using VLC). Like you, I'm having no visual/audio issues, but these errors appear on the console. The Interwebs were not much help. Were you ever able to find a solution?

                              @roslof @akamming I just moved my Pi4 onto the full KMS driver on kernel 5.10.17 and noticed the same errors on my console when I have video snaps on (VLC). Likewise, I don’t experience any audio/video issues and turning off video snaps and rebooting stops the errors.

                              Been trying to scour the web but nothing came up. Just wanted to share that I’m seeing the same and also looking for a solution.

                              B 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • B
                                bluestang @SaturnX
                                last edited by

                                @saturnx

                                https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/25370/good-news-regarding-tearing-and-low-emulationstation-performance-on-pi-4/162?_=1616553266707

                                SaturnXS 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                • SaturnXS
                                  SaturnX @bluestang
                                  last edited by

                                  @bluestang ah thanks for that clarification!! Much appreciated.

                                  GreenHawk84G 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                  • GreenHawk84G
                                    GreenHawk84 @SaturnX
                                    last edited by

                                    I am honestly confused by this whole tearing thing because my Pi4 setup runs a lot of stuff pretty great, even PS1 games, but then Flycast had bad tearing (if you look at the floor of the stage in Soul Calibur). Yet, I see posts and videos raving about Dreamcast performance on Pi4. Is this really an issue for 100% of up-to-date Pi4 builds using all default drivers? It makes me want to start fresh again, which is a royal pain, just to see if something went sideways along the way.

                                    quicksilverQ RanmaR 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                    • quicksilverQ
                                      quicksilver @GreenHawk84
                                      last edited by quicksilver

                                      @greenhawk84 flycast is especially jittery for me beyond just what normal screen tearing looks like. So I primarily use redream for dreamcast emulation.

                                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                      • RanmaR
                                        Ranma @GreenHawk84
                                        last edited by

                                        @greenhawk84
                                        Once I set gpu_freq_min to 500 then Emulationstation didn't cause me any issues, but yes in the 3D emulation like Dreamcast and N64 you will still see tearing. The way around this I found was to go into the video settings and set G-Sync to on. This got rid of the tearing (for some reason!) and now it performs well. Don't set that for 8/16 bit stuff though or you'll see problems there (I found). There are other ways around this (such as setting kms in your config) but for now I prefer this approach until these problems are resolved.

                                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                        • ectoE
                                          ecto @bluestang
                                          last edited by ecto

                                          @bluestang Hi, I just made the switch to kms / pulseaudio as by your tutorial some posts up.
                                          Now I seem to have audio crackling with lr-* cores. The standalone emulators work well.

                                          When I look into my syslog I find some errors. I don't know if it's related, though...

                                          Apr 16 11:48:57 retropie kernel: [   15.082526] vc4_hdmi fef05700.hdmi: ASoC: error at snd_soc_dai_startup on fef05700.hdmi: -19
Apr 16 11:48:57 retropie kernel: [   15.125366] vc4_hdmi fef05700.hdmi: ASoC: error at snd_soc_dai_startup on fef05700.hdmi: -19
Apr 16 11:48:57 retropie kernel: [   15.125771] vc4_hdmi fef05700.hdmi: ASoC: error at snd_soc_dai_startup on fef05700.hdmi: -19
Apr 16 11:48:57 retropie kernel: [   15.126146] vc4_hdmi fef05700.hdmi: ASoC: error at snd_soc_dai_startup on fef05700.hdmi: -19
Apr 16 11:48:57 retropie kernel: [   15.131393] vc4_hdmi fef05700.hdmi: ASoC: error at snd_soc_dai_startup on fef05700.hdmi: -19
Apr 16 11:48:57 retropie kernel: [   15.131601] vc4_hdmi fef05700.hdmi: ASoC: error at snd_soc_dai_startup on fef05700.hdmi: -19
Apr 16 11:48:57 retropie pulseaudio[587]: E: [pulseaudio] module-alsa-card.c: Failed to find a working profile.
Apr 16 11:48:57 retropie pulseaudio[587]: E: [pulseaudio] module.c: Failed to load module "module-alsa-card" (argument: "device_id="1" name="platform-fef05700.hdmi" card_name="alsa_card.platform-fef05700.hdmi" namereg_fail=false tsched=no fixed_latency_range=no ignore_dB=no deferred_volume=yes use_ucm=yes card_properties="module-udev-detect.discovered=1""): initialization failed.

                                          Also in the syslog, when I start retroach:

                                          Apr 16 11:50:04 retropie kernel: [   68.619700] process 'emulators/retroarch/bin/retroarch' started with executable stack
Apr 16 11:50:07 retropie pulseaudio[587]: E: [alsa-sink-MAI PCM vc4-hdmi-hifi-0] alsa-sink.c: ALSA weckte uns auf, um neue Daten auf das Gerät zu schreiben, doch es gab nichts zum Schreiben!
Apr 16 11:50:07 retropie pulseaudio[587]: E: [alsa-sink-MAI PCM vc4-hdmi-hifi-0] alsa-sink.c: Dies ist höchstwahrscheinlich ein Fehler im ALSA-Treiber »vc4«. Bitte melden Sie diesen Fehler den ALSA-Entwicklern.
Apr 16 11:50:07 retropie pulseaudio[587]: E: [alsa-sink-MAI PCM vc4-hdmi-hifi-0] alsa-sink.c: Wir wurden durch das POLLOUT-Set geweckt, allerdings lieferte ein anschließender snd_pcm_avail() den Wert 0 oder einen anderen Wert < min_avail

                                          Sorry to bother you. I also looking for a fix.

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                                          • B
                                            bluestang @ecto
                                            last edited by

                                            @ecto can you give me details about your setup? 32-bit or 64-bit? Is it fully updated via apt? What steps did you take to enable the KMS driver? What does your boot config look like?

                                            ectoE 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
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