Libretro and bluetooth problems

Meneer Jansen

I recently, finally, got me a Bluetooth 4 dongle that works in Linux (link, only € 3.07!). So now I can use my Xbox One S controller in Linux/Raspbian/Retropie, which is a very good controller and I'm used to it. By the way, trick to get it working: add the line "options bluetooth disable_ertm=Y" to /etc/modprobe.d/bluetooth.conf

But all libretro emulators are unplayable now because they are too slow. Had to replace them by non-libretro ones. I have a Pi 1B+. Anybody else experience this too? I know the Pi 1 is slow, but before using bluetooth most libretro emulators worked fine.

mitu

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

barbudreadmon

@Meneer-Jansen said in Libretro and bluetooth problems:

I know the Pi 1 is slow, but before using bluetooth most libretro emulators worked fine.

It's a fact that bluetooth will use more ressources than wired, on a slow setup still based on a rpi1 i'm not surprised it can be the difference between full speed and not, especially when using libretro cores which generally require slightly more ressources than their standalone counterpart.

Meneer Jansen

@mitu said in Libretro and bluetooth problems:

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

Pi Model: B1+
Power Supply: don't know.
RetroPie version: install script says 4.3.11
Built From: Raspbian and then downloaded install script from https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/wiki/Manual-Installation
USB Devices connected: bluetooth dongle
Controller used: Xbox One S
Error messages received: none, only insane slowdown on libretro stuff
Log found in /dev/shm/runcommand.log (if relevant): not relevant
Guide used: https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/wiki/Manual-Installation
Emulator: anything LibRetro.

Meneer Jansen

@barbudreadmon said in Libretro and bluetooth problems:

@Meneer-Jansen said in Libretro and bluetooth problems:

I know the Pi 1 is slow, but before using bluetooth most libretro emulators worked fine.

It's a fact that bluetooth will use more ressources than wired, on a slow setup still based on a rpi1 i'm not surprised it can be the difference between full speed and not, especially when using libretro cores which generally require slightly more ressources than their standalone counterpart.

I can understand bluetooth eating up some more resources. But the difference between libretro and non-libretro emu's is very, very great. With BT on and non-libretro emu's I notice no slowdown whatsoever. Even when playing PSX games. Strange, don't you think...?

mitu

Version 4.3.11 is a 2 years old release and I assume it's running a Raspbian Jessie release - a lot of Bluetooth improvements have been added since. To try and trace the slowdown, you could run - over SSH - top during the emulators' run and order by CPU usage (pressing P) to see which processes are the most CPU intensive.
Do you have any non-default configuration for RetroArch - like a different input_joypad_driver (default being udev) ?

If you have a spare SD card - 16 Gb should be enough - I'd recommend trying out the latest RetroPie release by installing it from scratch and testing if you get the same behavior.

Meneer Jansen

@mitu said in Libretro and bluetooth problems:

Version 4.3.11 is a 2 years old release and I assume it's running a Raspbian Jessie release - a lot of Bluetooth improvements have been added since. To try and trace the slowdown, you could run - over SSH - top during the emulators' run and order by CPU usage (pressing P) to see which processes are the most CPU intensive.
Do you have any non-default configuration for RetroArch - like a different input_joypad_driver (default being udev) ?

If you have a spare SD card - 16 Gb should be enough - I'd recommend trying out the latest RetroPie release by installing it from scratch and testing if you get the same behavior.

Thanks for the tips. As for a different joypad driver: I tried SDL once instead of udev. But I switched back to udev immediately.

You're not gonna believe this: but after a remove & reconnect of my Xbox controller today (have to do this every time after using it w/ the Xbox) the slowdown is gone...

However... I might try your tip on trying a new fresh install of Retropie. Because when I start a libretro game all sorts of quirks happen. It takes over 30 seconds for my controller or keyboard to be recognized (i.e. to work). I think that the buttons on my controller and keyboard aren't mapped right, because I cant play a game w/ the keyboard (I can start them however). I can, on the other hand, play games w/ the controller but I can't start them. Retropie GUI (RGUI) does not react to the keyboard when bluetooth is active. And RGUI does not react to the up/down buttons of my controller. RGUI does however react to the shoulder buttons but then the cursor goes down more than one item. Switching back and forth between keyboard and controller takes to much time because it takes over a minute each time I switch for one to get recognized. Unworkable.

These problems mainly occur w/ LibRetro games. When plying Mame (advmame) I sometimes have to manually kill joy2key.py so that a keypress on my controller does not result in Mame trying to load a game when pressing "up".

Top does not show any CPU hogs.

mitu

Hm, I recall some reports about Xbox controllers taking long to initialize. Try using the xpadneo driver from - https://github.com/atar-axis/xpadneo, it might work better, but, given the age of your distro, I'm not sure how well it will behave with your kernel version.

These problems mainly occur w/ LibRetro games. When plying Mame (advmame) I sometimes have to manually kill joy2key.py so that a keypress on my controller does not result in Mame trying to load a game when pressing "up".

joy2key - should stop itself, it's only used by runcommand. Are you using it for other purposes ?

Meneer Jansen

@mitu said in Libretro and bluetooth problems:

Hm, I recall some reports about Xbox controllers taking long to initialize. Try using the xpadneo driver from - https://github.com/atar-axis/xpadneo, it might work better, but, given the age of your distro, I'm not sure how well it will behave with your kernel version.

These problems mainly occur w/ LibRetro games. When plying Mame (advmame) I sometimes have to manually kill joy2key.py so that a keypress on my controller does not result in Mame trying to load a game when pressing "up".

joy2key - should stop itself, it's only used by runcommand. Are you using it for other purposes ?

Again, thanks for the tips. Nope: I am not using joy2key.py for other purposes as far as I know. Wouldn't know even how.

Meneer Jansen

@mitu said in Libretro and bluetooth problems:

Hm, I recall some reports about Xbox controllers taking long to initialize. Try using the xpadneo driver from - https://github.com/atar-axis/xpadneo, it might work better, but, given the age of your distro, I'm not sure how well it will behave with your kernel version.

These problems mainly occur w/ LibRetro games. When plying Mame (advmame) I sometimes have to manually kill joy2key.py so that a keypress on my controller does not result in Mame trying to load a game when pressing "up".

joy2key - should stop itself, it's only used by runcommand. Are you using it for other purposes ?

Thank you for pointing me to the xpadneo (bluetooth) driver for my Xbox One S controller. It solves some probs not related to RetroArch. In the Libretro SNES emu I still experience a lot of slowdown, but the LR-Atari 2600 emu runs fine.

Lr-picodrive (Megadrive & Sega Master Sytem) appears to work fine. But I have to re-start my controller (on/off). Same thing for Lr-SNES: I can wait for 5 minutes to let the Pi / Libretro "find" my bluetooth controller or I can use the on/off button. "Yoshi's Island" won't run fine no matter what controller I use, ha ha (YI is a very hard game to run because of the extra chip it had in the cartridge).

[off topic] Still have that nasty problem that joy2key.py won't get killed after starting a game. This results in, for instance, the F10 keyboard key getting pressed by my controller in Mame4all. The F10 key makes Mame throttle to "ridiculous speed", just like the spaceships in "Spaceballs The Movie".