Stuttering on Pi Zero

lion2

Hi everyone I've tried searching these forums for a solution but none have helped. On the Pi Zero I'm getting stuttering for Atari 2600, 7800, SNES, Genesis and GBA emulators. The only emulators that work well for me are NES, Gameboy and Sega Master System games. However I tried Lakka 2.0 and all those emulators do not stutter there. Is there settings that can help me get no stuttering on RetroPie.

I did try overclocking the GPU and Memory to 500MHz and that did not do anything.

Here is a video I recorded that demonstrates the stuttering
https://1drv.ms/v/s!Ats-PEwhX9ZLg79SoX2V0wD3Oiij8A
Even though it's on a GBA shell I built, I get the exact same stuttering using 2 different televisions and my computer monitor.
The games I've tried:
SNES9x2002: Super Mario World
picodrive: Sonic the Hedgehog 1
Atari 7800(lr-prosystem): Donkey Kong

Can anyone help?

This is what I have:
Pi Model: Raspberry Pi Zero W (I used 2 different Pi Zeros)
Power Supply used: Canakit 1amp, Canakit 2.5amp and Samsung 2amp power supplies
RetroPie Version: 4.3
SD Card: Class 4 and UHS-1(Class 10)
Built From: Pre made SD Image on RetroPie website (retropie-4.3-rpi1_zero.img)
USB Devices connected: Xbox 360 Gamepad & USB Keyboard on a powered USB hub. Also
Controller used: Xbox 360 USB Gamepad
Error messages received: No errors recieved
Guide used: No guides used.
Emulator: Retroarch cores: SNES2002, Picodrive, lr-prosystem

barbudreadmon

iirc, you can't overclock a Pi Zero, and not being able to emulate gba properly on a Pi Zero (which is equivalent to a Pi 1 performance wise) seems legit to me.

Pietze

Very interesting topic. I've seen better performance on other Retropie zero handhelds. Do they all overclock their devices? I ordered a RaspiBoy and I hope its possible to get the GBA running...

lostless

My pi zero runs gba, With gpsp decently. It not as compatible as mgba but runs smoothly. Check that your not using mgba. It’s slow on the pi zero

lion2

I am using gpsp for Gameboy advance because mgba runs a lot slower. However, I'm not even concerned about the Gameboy Advance performance. I care more about the Genesis and SNES stuttering.

The version of Lakka I'm using uses Retroarch v1.5 and Retropie uses Retroarch 1.6. I tried switching the binaries but get errors in Retropie when I try to run a game. Is there anyway to downgrade retroarch on Retropie. Maybe that will help.

barbudreadmon

As mentioned earlier, i read somewhere you can't overclock a Pi Zero, but perhaps it was only the CPU.

If you ended up overclocking successfully GPU and Memory, that won't be of any help on emulators that don't need 3D rendering (like N64 and PSX ones), and could actually be the cause of CPU throtling (too much heat). I would strongly advise you to remove those overclocking settings, you don't need them, they could be harmful.

The other thing i would check is that the rewind feature in retroarch is disabled, it is known as being resource hungry.

edmaul69

@lion2 for genesis improvement switch to lr-genesis plus gx. For super mario world i dont know what to tell you. I always would get random slowdown in that game. I have never overclocked a pi zero so this is my own personal experiences.

lion2

I disabled the overclock once I saw it did nothing to help my issue. However I did find a solution to the problem. Turns out the stuttering only happened when I was connected to my wifi network. When I disconnected the stuttering was completely gone. Even gameboy advance games work beautifully now.

However, I don't understand why Lakka would work without stuttering while connected to Wifi and Retropie doesnt. No matter I prefer RetroPie anyway, and I won't need to connect to wifi often. I hope this helps other people with the issue.

HAPz

@lion2 I tried going under the wifi setting to disable the setting, unfortunately I can not disable it. When I attempt to enable the wifi, my network doesn't appear at all. I get the lag with SNES as well as the regular gb when I tried running Aladdin.

RetroPie Current configuration:
PiGRRL_ZERO IMG (9/12/16 version)
NOOBS LITE V_2_4
ADAFRUIT PITFT 2.2
PowerAdapter: 5.25V - 2.4A

lion2

@hapz I never disabled wifi, I just disconnected the Pi Zero from my wifi network. Are you getting stuttering in all SNES games? I heard that some games will stutter no matter what on SNES. Not sure why regular gameboy would stutter, because that system never stuttered for me.

HAPz

I checked in my network to see if the Pi would show up but it does not. Either way I get no wifi regardless on the PiZero W. In regards to the GBA, I forgot how the frame rates were on it lol but it seems to be normal. I will check up on a few more Roms on the SNES when I get back home to confirm if it's only a few games being affected.
Thanks for your input