lr-duckstation - Experimental new PlayStation 1 emulator

dankcushions · 16 Jun 2021, 22:14

do you have any particular examples which slowdown with the default hardware (OpenGL) renderer on pi4? ideally with a way i can quickly verify them.

in lieu of vulkan i can be tempted to make software the default renderer for pi4 (and pi2 and 3?), but i haven't seen any performance issues in my (limited) testing of the default hardware renderer - open to ideas!

i note that a few of the PGXP enhancements are on by default - i'm not sure if they are applicable to software mode, but if they're not i would be tempted to turn those off by default if i can provide full performance.

MrPacMan17 · 17 Jun 2021, 12:25

@dankcushions Hi there.

Thanks for the advice but it doesn't work :(. What is strange that the file you mentioned contains NO other entries for Duckstation what so ever.

See pastebin for the verbose log of Runcommand: https://pastebin.com/LXzAgGwS

And pastebin for the retroarch-core-options.cfg: https://pastebin.com/e8p3jr7E

Guess something is not okay here. And thanks a lot for your help here, much appreciated.

stoo · 17 Jun 2021, 12:36

@dankcushions I've tested a handful of games on the Pi4 (arm 2000/v3d 700) and found:

OpenGL
All tested games seem to run full speed at 1x native ~~with or without PGXP enhancements~~ tested more and it seems PGXP can cause slowdown in certain scenes. It's not terrible, but it's definitely there.
1x native with any form of antialiasing introduces slowdown in certain scenes, with or without PGXP.
2x native and higher introduces slowdown
Some of the time the emulator fails to initialise the OpenGL renderer, simply trying a second time with identical settings seems to fix it.

Vulkan
AFAIK, Vulkan is not officially available in RetroPie yet, at least on RPi platforms.
[ERROR] Requesting Vulkan context, but RetroArch is not compiled against Vulkan. Cannot use HW context.

Software
Everything seems to run full speed.
Scaling, antialiasing and PGXP are not available in software.

stoo · 17 Jun 2021, 12:37

@mrpacman17 Turn on logging in retroarch and post that log. Settings - Logging - Log to file.

Logs should appear here:

/opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch/logs

dankcushions · 17 Jun 2021, 12:47

@mrpacman17 can you please show your config files:
/opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch.cfg
/opt/retropie/configs/psx/retroarch.cfg

dankcushions · 17 Jun 2021, 12:49

@stoo said in lr-duckstation - Experimental new PlayStation 1 emulator:

Vulkan
AFAIK, Vulkan is not officially available in RetroPie yet, at least on RPi platforms.
[ERROR] Requesting Vulkan context, but RetroArch is not compiled against Vulkan. Cannot use HW context.

that's right - it's nether included in raspi pi OS yet, nor does retropie compile retroarch for vulkan on pi platforms

MrPacMan17 · 17 Jun 2021, 16:44

@dankcushions Hi there.

See here: From ALL folder: https://pastebin.com/VAHGAUQk
From PSX folder: https://pastebin.com/yJqykEM0

Cheers,
Marnix

MrPacMan17 · 17 Jun 2021, 16:48

@stoo Hi there. Thanks a lot for your efforts, much appreciated. Please see here: https://pastebin.com/mNe4uETa

dankcushions · 17 Jun 2021, 17:02

@mrpacman17 said in lr-duckstation - Experimental new PlayStation 1 emulator:

@dankcushions Hi there.

See here: From ALL folder: https://pastebin.com/VAHGAUQk

this is a non-default config, unfortunately. i would reset it by updating retroarch, which will generate a retroarch.cfg.rp-dist default file in th same folder. delete/rename your old retroarch.cfg and then rename retroarch.cfg.rp-dist to retroarch.cfg

that said, the line i was curious about is

video_driver = "gl"

try instead with

video_driver = "glcore"

From PSX folder: https://pastebin.com/yJqykEM0

looks fine

MrPacMan17 · 17 Jun 2021, 17:08

@dankcushions Thank you, will do as advised. Many thanks again for your hard work and time.

MrPacMan17 · 17 Jun 2021, 18:26

@dankcushions I did as requested. The file is default now and I changed the videodriver to glcore as requested. But the issue persists, see Runcommand log: https://pastebin.com/YcmcpvLM

mitu · 17 Jun 2021, 18:33

@mrpacman17 glcore is not supported on a Pi4. Use gl as the video driver. Also, RetroPie doesn't support running it in a desktop session on a Pi, you should run it outside the desktop environment.

MrPacMan17 · 17 Jun 2021, 18:38

@mitu I am running Xubuntu on an HP laptop (ProBook 6550B). I did as adviced but still the same issue is at play.

mitu · 17 Jun 2021, 18:40

@mrpacman17 said in lr-duckstation - Experimental new PlayStation 1 emulator:

ProBook 6550B

I see, even this way glcore would not work. According to HP's spec page, the GPU included doesn't support OpenGL 3.3, which is needed for glcore.

MrPacMan17 · 17 Jun 2021, 18:44

@mitu Okay, video is set back to GL. Still no luck though. I am doing something wrong but I don't know what. Sorry for my basic level of understanding here.

mitu · 17 Jun 2021, 18:46

@mrpacman17 Try to force the Software renderer in Duckstation by modifying retroarch-core-options.cfg and setting

duckstation_GPU.Renderer = "Software"

dankcushions · 17 Jun 2021, 18:53

@mitu we tried that :) ~~i believe even in software mode duckstaiton needs a valid gl context. methinks this hardware is getting nothing. perhaps a linux driver issue.~~ nah it should fall back to software... https://github.com/stenzek/duckstation/pull/908 - weird.

@mrpacman17 i'm afraid i'm out of ideas. i don't have this hardware. if you know how to use gdb you could get a backtrace of the crash. you could also try the libretro and duckstation discord for advice.

MrPacMan17 · 17 Jun 2021, 18:58

@dankcushions Hi all. Well I am not a Linux specialst whatsoever. So I leave it at this. Thank you very much for your time and effort. I really appreciate it. I will run my PSX games with another emulator. Still I appreciate all your hard work. Thanks to you I can play retro games, which is totally awesome!

MrPacMan17 · 17 Jun 2021, 19:03

@dankcushions and @mitu: It WORKS!!! Just for a last effort I added the line as I did before. And now it WORKS!!! Totally happy I am. Guess all the previous steps combined with the software rendering did the trick. Woohooo!!! Thank you guys!

stoo · 18 Jun 2021, 10:11

As well as the emulator sometimes failing to initialize OpenGL after changing resolution settings (even at low x values), I've noticed that after changing settings a few times (scaling, AA, PGXP, etc.) the emulator will become choppy and slow even when set to 1x native with all enhancements disabled. Restarting the emulator is the only way to get performance back. Not sure what's going on here.

I'll see if I can replicate it and if there are reproducible steps to cause it.