VERY weird tearing issues

Uwirlbaretsidma.

Pi Model or other hardware: Raspberry Pi 3 Model B.
Power Supply used: The official Raspberry Pi 3 power supply.
RetroPie Version Used (eg 3.6, 3.8.1, 4.1 - do not write latest): 4.3.
Built From: The official Retropie image, downloaded from this website.
USB Devices connected: None.
Controller used: 8BitDo NES30 Pro with no issues.

So this is kind of a long story. Since the very first time I booted my brand new RasPi 3 with Retropie, I noticed some really weird tearing (if it is tearing, because it might as well be something else) at the bottom of the screen, ONLY during emulations (never when using any UI). It always appeared at the exact same area of the screen, cutting the bottom 1/8 of the frame, and thats why I think it may not be tearing at all.
Anyway, I somehow fixed it by overclocking my Pi exactly at 1550 Mhz for the CPU and 600 for the GPU, with the over_voltage value set to 6, and turning on VSyng with the swap interval set to 1. Doing only one of this things or any other wouldn't fix it.
But recently, I decided to get my old CRT TV out of my garage for a more authentic experience, bought the official Jack to RCA cable, turned on the sdtv_mode = 2 on, and for some reason couldn't be able to turn back my games' resolution to 4:3 (since for my modern TV I prefer 16:9), so went back to my modern TV. Changed back absolutely EVERYTHING and... surprise! Weird tearing is back. As a side note, I changed not only the aspect ratio but also the video mode in my attempt to get 4:3 picture. But changed it back, obviously.
Any ideas about why ANY of this is happening?

chipsnblip

@uwirlbaretsidma said in VERY weird tearing issues:

turned on the sdtv_mode = 2 on, and for some reason couldn't be able to turn back my games' resolution to 4:3 (since for my modern TV I prefer 16:9), so went back to my modern TV. Changed back absolutely EVERYTHING and... surprise! Weird tearing is back. As a side note, I changed not only the aspect ratio but also the video mode in my attempt to get 4:3 picture. But changed it back, obviously.

what make & model TV is it, and if possible can you upload a picture of the tearing?

Uwirlbaretsidma.

@chipsnblip said in VERY weird tearing issues:

@uwirlbaretsidma said in VERY weird tearing issues:

turned on the sdtv_mode = 2 on, and for some reason couldn't be able to turn back my games' resolution to 4:3 (since for my modern TV I prefer 16:9), so went back to my modern TV. Changed back absolutely EVERYTHING and... surprise! Weird tearing is back. As a side note, I changed not only the aspect ratio but also the video mode in my attempt to get 4:3 picture. But changed it back, obviously.

what make & model TV is it, and if possible can you upload a picture of the tearing?

I have tested it in a bunch of TVs, and had problems with all of them. All that I can say is that I used the same HDMI cable, but I also used it when it didn't have the tearing issues. I will post a picture of the problem if I can, but that won't be easy.

Uwirlbaretsidma.

I have some more information:
It appears to be hardware related. I did a backup and then a clean install and it has the same problem. So that specific overclock + config tweak is probably useless and the fact that it seemed to fix it was just some luck.
I used a different image, once again of the latest Retropie version.
It would be really nice if someone helped me with this. It is really beyond my understanding. How can it even happen? It doesn't make any sense to me.

chipsnblip

@uwirlbaretsidma said in VERY weird tearing issues:

I somehow fixed it by overclocking my Pi exactly at 1550 Mhz for the CPU and 600 for the GPU, with the over_voltage value set to 6

how did you arrive at those ~~insane~~ values? also, i'm sure there are plenty of people watching this thread who would like to help, and it could be as simple as an incorrect hdmi_mode setting, but how would they know where to start troubleshooting without a visual queue?

a picture is worth a thousand words, so if you could take a couple photos of the problem, that would be very helpful to those who are ready and willing to help you with this seemingly unique issue.. maybe someone has seen it before.

Uwirlbaretsidma.

@chipsnblip I used this fan + case bundle, which has nothing special except it's low prize.
And about the hdmi mode, and basically everything else in the config file, I doubt it is related in any way to the problem because right now it is exactly as it was when the problem was fixed. Anyway, if you need an image, I post it wjen I have one.