Memory split advice in Docs

zaNX5jgh9w

The Memory Split page (https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Memory-Split/) in the docs (and on Github) seem misleading or possibly outdated.

After doing a manual install of Retropie on a raspbian stretch image, I had problems in emulationstation where graphics would appear white, fonts weren't displayed, and various other bugs. The Wiki says that the issue was resolved with Retropie 4.2. But upon inspection, my GPU memory was only 64M and changing this via raspi-setup to 256M seems to have resolved the issue.

Maybe the Wiki's advice only applies to official images, rather than using the manual installation script. In that case, it should point that out.

My setup:
RPi 3B+
installed retropie on an pp-to-date install of Raspbian Stretch
Retropie Version: 9cac54

mitu

@zaNX5jgh9w Thanks for reporting this.
Did you use the stock theme (Carbon) or the issue appeared with another theme ? What Raspbian Stretch image did you use (Lite/Desktop/version) ?

hhromic

@zaNX5jgh9w yes this was (relatively) recently updated. See: https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/commit/abef07013194fdf45d4b9dd1ce92950639eb79da

The memory split is no longer forced on the EmulationStation scriptmodule as it resets whatever custom settings users do post-install. Therefore, as you guessed, the memory split is now set on the official RetroPie image builder instead.

As you suggest, I agree the documentation should be updated.

BuZz

If you install manually you now have to set this yourself. We used to switch it but this overwrote people's customisations. It's set on our image.

Just noticed this has already been explained by @hhromic

mitu

I updated the Wiki for the manual installation and the memory split, adding the default values use by the RetroPie image.

hhromic

@mitu maybe actually it is better to update the Manual Installation section of the documentation instead with this information and just give a pointer from the Memory Split section?

People manually installing RetroPie not necessarily will check the Memory Split section. Also at the beginning of the section it is stated that the Manual Instructions are meant to "replicate the official image", which should include the Memory Split options.

What do you think?

herb_fargus

@hhromic there are a bunch of little tweaks in the image, of people are trying replicate it with a manual install shouldn't they just install the image? Then just remove packages they don't want? Seems like a simpler workflow to me.

hhromic

@herb_fargus I did not write the Manual Installation documentation, so I don't really know what was the original motivation for it, I just quoted what the doc itself says at the beginning about replication of the image :)

While I agree with you that there are a number of tweaks done by the image.sh script and any user attempting manual installation should familiarise with it if they plan to go advanced, I also don't see damage in documenting that most of the times they will want to configure the memory split on an RPI device.

hhromic

Ah! I just realised that @mitu indeed also updated the Manual Installation documentation in the GitHub Wiki, but the official documentation mirror is not yet updated. Looks good!

zaNX5jgh9w

@mitu I used the desktop version.

As this is a dedicated retropie device, I could have just downloaded the image. But at the time I was setting up three different RPis, two of them file servers. So it made sense to create them all from the same image, and avoid configuring them all individually.

Previously, my RPi wasn't a "dedicated" Retropie, so that was a manual install too.