Colecovision sound stutters

[mediamogul]

@BuZz

Tested on a Rpi3 running RetroPie 4.1.11 here with Donkey Kong. I've just updated the setup script to 4.1.12 and updated CoolCV. I'll test with a few more games and get back.

[BuZz]

ignore my comment about compile options - it's binary only. So as far as I know nothing has changed, unless we updated our binary (Which I don't think has happened).

[mediamogul]

@BuZz

I don't know what to attribute it to, but something has definitely happened. I'm not completely sure that the game play itself has slowed down, but the sound sputters along at a crawl. I've now tried, 'Donkey Kong', 'Donkey Kong Jr.', 'Spy Hunter', 'Burger Time' and 'Lady Bug' and the sound is affected in all of them.

[BuZz]

I will look into it.

[BuZz]

@mediamogul if you boot with 16 bit framebuffer depth, does it make any difference ?

[mediamogul]

@BuZz

I dropped down to the command line, set fbset -depth 16, reloaded Emulation Station and the launched a game and it still had the sound issue. I hate to yell fire in a theater and leave, but unfortunately I have an appointment to make. I'll help test further in any way I can when I get back. Thanks for looking into this.

[raymate]

OK I did a test, downloaded 4.1 retro pie image and installed onto a new freshly formatted card.
Enabled the coleco emulator. Added a few roms my goto is donkey kong. Played perfect no sound issues.
Updated script to latest as of right now, 4.1.12 updated everything and tried again, sounds is messed up. So something changed.

A few versions back I cant remember say 4.1.8 ish when it finished a script update, after you shutdown the PI using the menu to shutdown system it started to say a problem with the coleco missing something then shutdown.

Running a RP3.

[BuZz]

@raymate thanks. I will try and reproduce and debug it.

[mediamogul]

@BuZz

Over the past couple of days, I've been thinking here and there on what changes might have been implemented in RetroPie since the last time I successfully used CoolCV, which was about two weeks ago. While there are no doubt many changes that I'm not aware of, the automatic USB mount addition came to mind. Although it was introduced in December, I was using the fstab method at the time and only decided to use auto mount last week when I was redoing my setup. After looking at the CoolCV release page to see if anyone there was having issues, this post stood out as also mentioning the use of external USB. Is it possible the new USB auto mount is different in any way from the fstab method that could affect performance?

[edmaul69]

@mediamogul i dont have mine on a usb mount and it lags directly on the sd card too. I also tried different versions of the emulator. Same issue. Really slow and laggy

[mediamogul]

@edmaul69

Are you using this particular method?

[BuZz]

@mediamogul I don't think that can be related.

[edmaul69]

@mediamogul nope. Two ways it doesnt work for me are having the es_systems.cfg point to my sd card or my hard drive. I dont use that method at all.

[mediamogul]

Pardon my language, but shucks.

[svc123]

Hi there. I'm the one who posted the same concern as this on the CoolCV support forum. I did a fresh install of Retropie 4.1 and installed the CoolCV script from the retropie setup. I then updated CoolCV to the latest version manually. I tested games running from the microSD card and a manual USB mount and as long as I dont update the Retropie setup script CoolCV performs fine. As soon as I update the Retropie setup script everything messes up.

Hope this helps.

[EVEGames]

@svc123 said in Colecovision sound stutters:

I did a fresh install of Retropie 4.1 and installed the CoolCV script from the retropie setup. I then updated CoolCV to the latest version manually. I tested games running from the microSD card and a manual USB mount and as long as I dont update the Retropie setup script CoolCV performs fine. As soon as I update the Retropie setup script everything messes up.

I agree with svc, I recently updated the CoolCV core manually and I have encountered no slowdown or stutter whatsoever. RPi3, RetroPie 4.1.12. Is my assumption correct that at this time, when you update the CoolCV core through the RetroPie GUI, you do not get the very latest version, which is v0.6.4? I say this because after updating through RPi, the multi-keypress input binding option did not work for me, but after manually updating with the binary from coolcv_v0.6.4_all.zip, it did work. Not to mention, the byte count of the binary from the zip is bigger than the latest one I was able to obtain through the GUI.
Can we get the RPi update script pointed at the very latest release?
Sorry if these are newbiesque questions, I'm still learning RPi.
Thanks,
-Dave

[herb_fargus]

@EVEGames I'll have to look at the binary we have hosted on our server. I feel like there was a reason we left it... Or maybe just forgot to upgrade. I'll have a chat with @BuZz .

[dman2552]

I recently built a Retropie box from image on a SD card with a Pi 3 B and can confirm the CoolCV sound issue. I've updated to Retropie 4.1.14 and manually updated CoolCV to the latest with no difference. The game slows slightly when there is lot's of sound and although the sound stutters, it doesn't seem to be related to CPU load. I thought I would see the CPU load spiking when there was stuttering sound but the load actually reduces. While playing Ladybug with it's short sfx sounds, CPU was sitting around 25-27%. When it plays it's little tune where the audio is continuous, CPU would drop to 18-20%.

Darren

[raymate]

Any updates on this, its still unplayable, keep updating each week with the hope it's fixed

:( miss the coleco

[mediamogul]

@raymate

The author of CoolCV is aware of the situation and has shown possible recent interest in updating the software with a few new features. If that happens, I'm sure he will address this slow down on the Pi as well. Be sure to watch this space for updates.