N64 performance

Arcuza

I decided to do an incremental update from 4.3 to latest 4.5.1 on my Raspberry PI 3B+ The other day.

On 4.3 I had smooth N64 Ocarina of Time experience with lowest resolution.

After update I experienced sound stuttering and graphical slowdowns.

I noticed default emulator had changed to lr-mupen64plus, so I downloaded lr-parallell and lr-mupen64plus-next and tried different configurations with very low resolution (640x480 natively).

I can’t say I achieve the same smooth gameplay as I had on 4.3.

Is there a recent optimization guide for Ocarina of Time that includes the latest versions of emulators?

Is there a reason why I should have to overclock if I didn’t do it for 4.3 with good results?

Do updated emulators have improvements in quality sacrificing speed?

Thank you for your support!

dankcushions

@Arcuza ocarina of time i believe defaults to the rice video plugin, if you're using mupen64plus-auto. this plugin hasn't been updated in years, so i doubt it's any slower. mupen64plus (which handles cpu emulation, etc) has received updates, but nothing that should make things slower IMO. in any case, it's almost always the video plugin that makes performance difficult.

perhaps if you revert to your 4.3 backup and get a verbose log from that, and then get a verbose log from your current, we can see any obvious differences?

Arcuza

@dankcushions So, recommended is to have a fresh install of latest version and run mupen64plus with low resolution? (Not next version?)

Should one do further config optimizations by fine tuning video settings or such to prevent stuttering or is it optimized enough from image?

Thank you very much for borrowing your time and expertise.

dankcushions

@Arcuza said in N64 performance:

@dankcushions So, recommended is to have a fresh install of latest version and run mupen64plus with low resolution? (Not next version?)

with retropie it should default to mupen64plus-auto (which autoselects the appropriate plugins and resolution). you don’t need to do any further config.

Should one do further config optimizations by fine tuning video settings or such to prevent stuttering or is it optimized enough from image?

the defaults should be the most optimal.

Evert

@dankcushions hi mate, how does the auto plugin work. Does it select the correct plugin based on the ROM name, the scraped name or some other bit of information? There is nothing in the DOCS for the auto function. I think the DOC for the N64 is a bit old and maybe outdated.

dankcushions

@Evert it’s rom name. you can see the logic in the launch script: https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/blob/master/scriptmodules/emulators/mupen64plus/mupen64plus.sh#L324

note for pi4 it just uses gliden64 plugin always, as it has the power to run it well for most scenarios.

Evert

@dankcushions cool, that makes sense to me. It's a pretty limited list though that is in the script. If I go through the compatibility lists on the DOCs section there are a lot more exceptions than what is in the script. Is this auto feature something new that is still being developed, or is this the way it will stay? Mario tennis for instance works heaps better on rice, but there is no mention of it in the script.
That being said, this is a pretty cool feature and saves a lot of hassle.
I haven't update my Pi for a while, its clear that I've missed this.

dankcushions

@Evert said in N64 performance:

@dankcushions cool, that makes sense to me. It's a pretty limited list though that is in the script. If I go through the compatibility lists on the DOCs section there are a lot more exceptions than what is in the script.

i would pay zero attention to the compatibility lists :) i think we should retire them as they're all a mess and difficult to curate.

Is this auto feature something new that is still being developed, or is this the way it will stay? Mario tennis for instance works heaps better on rice, but there is no mention of it in the script.

it's been around since jun 2017: https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/commit/9abded959284ed6f1c5b851dc10207dd39d03815#diff-5a882fd4e2fde8c987436a66efab48da

i can't speak for mario tennis. i've never tested it. i'm sure there are exceptions to the list but given the progress made on the MESA open gl driver (can be used on pi3 and pi4), i think eventually everything will be using gliden64 anyway.

Evert

@dankcushions thanks mate

stephenrossi20

@arcuza care tp help a mate run n64 games better? I am so lost..thank you