Some emultors/roms running slowly on my Pi
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Hello all! I have been gone a few months at school, but just came back to town and plugged in my arcade to play. I've noticed a number of roms seem to be running slowly, lagging quite a bit and I'm not sure what is up... if it is the pi, the power source, the roms, the emulators... what have you. I am also not sure how to go about solving the problem. Obviously, the rasp-pi is a mini computer so you cant expect it to run everything perfectly, but I am seeing issues with my NeoGeo emulator, MAMA, and SNES emulator that I remember worked just fine back over the summer.
About my Rig:
My pi is a Raspberry Pi 3. I had two arcade boards setup each on separate USB cables so I could play two player (I could wire both up to one board, I have an external speaker hooked up running out of the audio jack (external power), I thought I had the pi over clocked (months ago so I can't remember), I have a mini board hooked up that runs power to the pi and to a simple lighted switch that turns the pi on and off with a scripted program (it reads ATXRaspi), and I had a USB powered light strip coming from the pi to back light my marque. I unplugged the lights and player 2 usb just to see if they were causing a power drain, but it is still lagging.Again, not sure if connecting to wifi and updating will fix anything, If I could have lost my OC, if I am draining too much power... The ATXRaspi was installed and soldered so if is causing a power drain it may be more difficult to remove. Although I have never noticed problems in the past...
Any ideas what my problem might be, how to fix my lagging? Hopefully without removing or uninstalling any components. Thanks Guys and gals for any advice.
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@jimd0586 please fill out https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3/read-this-first
we need a specific example of a game that is slowing down
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Mario allstars with Mario World... while playing Mario world it runs slowly.
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Pi Model: 3
RetroPie Version Used: 4.01 (I think, I just upgraded through the in system update option)
Built From: Pre made SD Image on RetroPie website
USB Devices connected: Keyboard only when modifying, 2 Xin-Mo Arcade Controllers
Controller used: Xin Mo Arcade Controller
Error messages received: No Specific Error Received
Log found in /dev/shm/runcommand.log (if relevant): N/A
Guide used: N/A
File: Rom (Depends, some Roms work just fine, some are slow and prone to lag)
Emulator: SNES, Neo Geo Emulator (FBA), Mame 2003, and some others
Attachment of config files: No Idea how to find this
How to replicate the problem: The issue WAS just some lagging games, Sunset Riders on FBA or Mario World on the SNES emulator would at times just slow down slightly... Mario RPG is much more prone to it.Additionally, I have a switch to turn the arcade on and off soldered on and running through a ATXRaspi controller for power. I also installed the script for that.
So, I now have two problems because I tried to fix this on my own and didn't want to bother you all. First, the above listed games (and others I am sure, some of the metal slugs) lag a bit. So I removed all the filters I had running and reduced the resolution in the advanced options to the lowest possible, I think 60 HZ 4:3 640x...
Still no change. I cant overclock via the menu as it says my model wont allow it.
Now, I JUST went into the advanced options and saw the GUI I enable menu about updating for some kind of desktop GL or something... I thought this would help with speeding up the games so I updated and restarted and now I am stuck on the command line. I cannot get emulation station to start. I type in "emulationstation" and it runs a few lines then back to the Pi@ line. I would give more details but can not remember and can't get back into emulation station to tell you exctly what I did. I can tell you I went into the Retropie setup list, then through there the advanced options, then into a bios menu list and chose some kind of open GL desktop update or something. It seemed to install fine and then restart but now stuck on the command line. Sadly, I don't remember any commands now!
Any help to 1) get emulation station back up and running, and 2) after that, removing lag from a few of the emulators would be great.
I'd give more detail but now I can't access anything!
Sorry guys about the lack of detail.
- Jim
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@jimd0586 the slowdown stuff is tricky as often it's just the original hardware. e.g. metal slug games have a lot of slowdown when played on a neogeo, so that slowdown also appears in emulation. it's not your hardware failing to perform. the only way to avoid it is with hacks in the emulator.
i'm not sure if your other examples have slowdown in the native hardware but it's very possible.
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also as a general rule, the default settings we have in retropie are almost always the optimum for your hardware. if there was some magic option to make things better we would use it by default :)
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Thanks Dank, I appreciate the input. I'll deal with it.
Any idea with the Open GL problem and not being able to access retropie? Should I repost with a new subject?
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@jimd0586 if you've done a bunch of stuff that you can't remember it's difficult to revert! i would suggest running a full retropie binary update again.
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The opengl desktop acceleration is incompatible with retropie. Run raspi-config and disable it.
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Any idea how to disable? Can I do it from the command line? I cant even get into retropie/emulation station.
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@dankcushions
Ok. Thanks. How would I do that from the command line? -
@jimd0586 type
raspi-config -
Got it. Thanks Buzz. While I am sure that Dank is correct, that some roms and emulators will run slowly on a pi, any idea why my pi 3 is running slowly? I hear that pi 3's can run N64 roms. Are there individual rom or emulator settings that might help?
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@jimd0586 what is running slowly apart from those mentioned? N64 isn't perfect and some games have slowdowns for example.
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Honestly, the only emulators that I play are neo geo, MAme 2003, and SNES
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@jimd0586 please give me an example of something that is running slowly.
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Ok. Well, the SNES emulator should be able to run on a Pi3 easily enough. The best example I can give is Super Mario World Allstars + World. But generally, I imagine that the Pi3 should be able to run the SNES emulator without problems. I wonder if my RaspiATX card that controls the power is draining too much juice from the Pi3 thus reducing performance. Is that a possibility? I do have the switch that controls the pi from the board as an LED switch... ie it uses electricity as well.
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