Lincity-ng slow performance

retropi19

Hey there.i have installed and tested the Lincity-NG game with a Raspberry pi 3B+ and the game is performing really slow.

i also tried it with matchbox its faster there but the mouse pointer is not visible.

any suggestions ??

mitu

Can you please add more info about your system - as detailed in https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3/read-this-first.

What is 'matchbox' ? Is it a Linux distribution ?

retropi19

matchbox its a window manager etc matchbox-windows-manager its included in some ports configurations eg: the minecraft.sh has in the depends the xorg matchbox and inside the ports folder the minecraft,sh executable has the commands:

#!/bin/bash
xset -dpms s off s noblank
matchbox-window-manager &
/usr/bin/minecraft-pi

so it can run correctly

i have a Raspberry pi 3B+ with an official 2.5a power supply and a wireless usb mouse/keyboard 2in1 connected with a 8gb kingston c4 card in Latest retropie 4.4.12

mitu

I'll give it a test, if it does make a difference then we might change the scriptmodule. What screen resolution are you using ?

retropi19

i used the default resolution that came after installed the game i think it was 1024x768
then i tried many resolution with matchbox but it did not make a difference
if you run the game normal(xinit/xorg) the mouse pointer is visible but it performs slow
if you run it with matchbox the mouse pointer is not visible but it performs faster

mitu

I meant your screen resolution, I see the game starts at 1024x768 by default.
Try the following modification and see if it makes things better:

open /opt/retropie/configs/ports/lincity-ng/emulators.cfg and modify the launch command for Lincity to

lincity-ng = "xinit /usr/games/lincity-ng -f"
default = "lincity-ng"

This forces the game to start in fullscreen. I've run it and it doesn't seem to perform slow (on a 1080p screen, a normal RPI 3B).

retropi19

i did that and i dont see any change the game performs slow and its not in full screen any other suggestion?

mitu

@retropi19 For me it doesn't seem so slow and it's fullscreen (though the game screen is just 1024x768, the rest is just a border). I'll test with matchbox started and see if it performs faster.
My intention is to find a better default configuration that we can add it by default, so it's useful to have someone else also test this configurations.

retropi19

No problem
i also tried from command line with the -f parameter eg: xinit /usr/games/lincity-ng -f it runs in full-screen but the mouse pointer is not visible.
it will be great to add a script in the Retropie-setup to add manual your own port

mitu

@retropi19 said in Lincity-ng slow performance:

I still can't reproduce the issue you're having, but that doesn't mean we can't modify the scriptmodule to add something extra. The 'start a WM before the main application' is also used for the SteamLink port. I'll try to add a patch to the scriptmodule.

it will be great to add a script in the Retropie-setup to add manual your own port

That's very easy to do - just create a .sh script in the ports folder that starts your game and that's it.

retropi19

@mitu thank you,but its not necessary all this maybe the problem is on my side only
anyway i installed battle of wesnoth and added manual an emulators.cfg and an sh file to ports and it works like a charm.i also did the same with hedgewars two good games the script should include.if you need tester for new ports/games let me know i have a small list of ports that added manual and are working.

what i mean with the script is like to create your own port just adding for example the name of the game/port in the script and its depends and it does the rest,creates an install entry for example in the experimental section,

mitu

@retropi19 said in Lincity-ng slow performance:

what i mean with the script is like to create your own port just adding for example the name of the game/port in the script and its depends and it does the rest,creates an install entry for example in the experimental section,

It's not that simple, because a Port might require X installed or not, some ports require special configuration (arguments to start, GL backend settings, game data to be downloaded). That's why each port gets its own intallation script.

retropi19

i managed to run it in full speed with this command: startx lincity-ng the only downside is that its not full screen and the -f is not working with startx but its something
i know that some ports require different configuration,most of the ones i did i have found the configuration with many tests

thanks for helping

can you add to the lincity-ng install script the -f parameter its a good option for the game.