Some games feel stuttery (FBAlpha)?
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@greenhawk84 I know it was a wild ride through this, but if it is any consolation, I know I messed with the threaded video setting on my previous build while I was trying to improve input lag. Of course, I did a lot of things in addition too, so I wasn't really in a position to zero in on this, but I am fairly confident now that you have narrowed it down that this is also why I saw the same thing in FBA.
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@caver01 I did see a note within the config editor that warned threaded video "may improve performance but introduce stutter" or something close to that statement. I wonder which cases threaded video is useful, perhaps older Pi's needed it to get a leg up.
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If you've modified the
video_max_swapchain_images, it's most likely the problem.Many "low latency" guides suggest setting this setting to 2 in order to reduce latency. Due to quirks in the Broadcom graphics driver, this setting didn't have any effect until special support was implemented in RetroArch, sometime in November-December. You're probably seeing the stutter because you've updated to a newer RetroArch build that now applies this setting correctly. Unfortunately, setting this to 2 introduces stuttering on intensive (16 bit or later) systems.
Set this back to 3 and performance should go back to normal.
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@caver01 @GreenHawk84 Hmm this is still weird that i get no issue with threaded video on, so it's most likely a combination with another setting, perhaps the audio driver since threaded video will create separate video and audio threads ? As mentioned, i use alsa, not alsathread.
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threaded video on has been the retropie default for as long as i can remember. it doesn't cause a stutter in a default retropie setup, at least.
i think @psyke83 is probably on the right lines. maybe one of the 'dangerous tweaks' here have been applied? https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/wiki/Input-Lag
or a shader?
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@psyke83 I never heard of video_max_swapchain_images, and I have not modified anything there. I can check to see what the value is but I am not sure where to access this. Funny you mention later 16bit games because I believe threaded video is enabled on Genesis/SNES cores and does not cause an issue. I played Sonic and Contra III to confirm stutter on my other cores and saw nothing like FBAlpha. I have to confirm again later when I am home from work.
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@dankcushions would you like any of my files to take a look at and see if anything is out of wack?
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@greenhawk84 sure! what directory are your roms in? that will determine which .cfg file is at play. also we would need to see the /opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch.cfg
do you have any per-game or per-core overrides set?
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@dankcushions - I use the Arcade, Neo-Geo, Megadrive (Genesis), SNES, and NES folders (I think that's all of them)
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@psyke83 - as of now none of my cores use threaded_video only vsync. I tested Megadrive, NES, and SNES today and the games are very smooth.
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You could potentially have configuration in the system-specific retroarch.cfg that would override what's in the shared configuration. The simplest way to check is to open a game using the FBAlpha core, then check the video settings menu. It's listed as
Max swapchain imagesthere, and needs to be set to 3. -
@greenhawk84
did you manage to save ''threaded video=off'? Mine is always turned on again after I restart a game. I tried saving the options on game. It's the only option I believe that isn't saved. -
@greenhawk84 @coldnpale you should probably edit the configuration files directly. To be honest i wouldn't be surprised if your version of retroarch was suffering from the same issue lr-fbalpha suffered with hiscores (not saving properly), since the buggy cross-platform file handling library that was used in lr-fbalpha was first used in retroarch.
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@barbudreadmon
Would updating retroarch be helpful? I have the version that came with retropie 4.3. Also, is lr-fbalpha still suffering with a buggy hiscores or is this fixed now? -
@greenhawk84 said in Some games feel stuttery (FBAlpha)?:
I use the Arcade, Neo-Geo, Megadrive (Genesis), SNES, and NES folders (I think that's all of them)
thanks! right ok, so we need to see:
/opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch.cfg
/opt/retropie/configs/arcade/retroarch.cfg
/opt/retropie/configs/neogeo/retroarch.cfg
/opt/retropie/configs/megadrive/retroarch.cfg
/opt/retropie/configs/snes/retroarch.cfg
/opt/retropie/configs/nes/retroarch.cfg -
@coldnpale said in Some games feel stuttery (FBAlpha)?:
@barbudreadmon
Would updating retroarch be helpful? I have the version that came with retropie 4.3. Also, is lr-fbalpha still suffering with a buggy hiscores or is this fixed now?I helped fixing it last month on lr-fbalpha, the fix should have been backported to retroarch in the next few days, so yes updating should help.
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@coldnpale yes I was able to save my .cfg to threaded video "false." Remember there are multiple .cfgs that we have to worry about. I still need to get home later and upload them for viewing.
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@greenhawk84 said in Some games feel stuttery (FBAlpha)?:
so that all looks fine for fba to me - i only checked fba but /all/retroarch.cfg looks fine, and so does /fba/retroarch.cfg other than video_threaded = "false" (i have nothing set, which means it's "true" as per /all/.cfg). not sure if we've proved that's not your issue or not but anyway:
so unless there's some core/game overrides going on, the only other place i can think is the /all/retroarch-core-options.cfg file. can we see that please?
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@dankcushions - I added it to the folder. Let me know if there are any other files.
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