Overlay + Shader = Massive Slowdown

djinnocide

Pi Model or other hardware: Raspberry Pi 3 (RPi 3) Model B
Power Supply used: UL Listed 2.5 Amp USB Power Supply with Micro USB Cable and Noise Filter
RetroPie Version Used: 4.2.18 (setup script?)
Built From: Pre made SD Image on RetroPie website
USB Devices connected: Samsung 128GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive Fit (MUF-128BB/AM), usb Apple keyboard
Controller used: 8bitdo SNES30
Emulator: (all of the default emulators)
How to replicate the problem: I am having an issue where I attempt to combine a shader and overlay (separately) to any of the default emulators that results in roms moving at a snail's pace. I can turn one off (doesn't matter which) and the rom plays at full speed. Anyone have any experience with this? I did some hunting around, but didn't find enough info to support that this is a common problem. I didn't do anything special regarding the overlays. So far I've placed them inside a folder in the root directory on my SD card where I could easily find them within Retroarch, and I've placed them in their own folder with the rest of the overlays inside the overlay folder on the SD card. I've also attempted to run them off a USB drive I use for my roms, but the result has been the same. I've set up the various emulators I use to have the crt-pi shader to come on as a default (set up through the individual emulator's config file), so maybe that's involved? I'm using Phil's Doodles Overlays (https://github.com/lipebello/retrorama-overlay-pack ) for these but I also attempted to use one of the default overlays you'd find through retropie's setup menu (the LTTP one in particular) and the results were the same.

I've tried troubleshooting this with Phil, but he was unable to recreate the problem. Would very much appreciate any help you guys could offer.

edmaul69

@djinnocide i am not a lot of help as i run both on a 1024x768 resolution just fine, but what resolution are you playing on?

simonster

I can't say I've ever seen this.

Have you tried writing the stock image to another SD card? If you put 1 or 2 roms on it and 1 or 2 overlays, just enough to test. If the problem goes away, at least we can then start narrowing down what is causing it on your current install.

davej

It sounds like you have turned threaded video off. See here for why most people are better leaving it on with the Pi.

Using shaders and overlays together really pushes the Pi hard. See here for the implications and what you can do to help.

djinnocide

@davej Looks like that's it! Turning threaded video on allows for both to coexist without the noticeable slowdown. Strangely enough, I have no recollection of having turned that off. Looking at that other thread you linked it would appear that "on" is the default, right? I will admit to the possibility that I may have switched it off not knowing what it was for, but I don't recall having done so. I'm also now finding that the Threaded Video reverts back to OFF after I exit out of a rom to retroarch, despite selecting to save the core override. When I check the contents of the retroarch.cfg threaded video is set to "true".

Any thoughts on that?

EDIT: After going into the RetroPie Setup It appears that while retroarch.cfg was set to "true", all of the problem emulators were set to "false" (which I believe overrides the retroarch.cfg). Going into them individually and changing them seems to have sorted this out. For anyone else who might be in the same situation, I found these by going to the RetroPie section in Emulation Station and hitting...

RetroPie Setup > Configuration / tools > configedit >advanced configuration>Configure Libretro Options>and then choosing the emulator/retroarch.cfg and turning video_threaded from false to true.

Thanks again for the help!