Getting the best N64 experience on a Pi 4

shavecat

Hey,
So whats the news about the n64 ?
any moves to make it better ? (pi4 )

akamming

Hi,

mupen64plus (not the libretro core, but the normal one) runs quite OK on my PI4. Most game work quite OK on 640x480 with no sound issues.

Just a few settings i found to tweak performance on pi 4

Resample set to "trivial"
resolution (in runcommand menu) set to 640x480 or 720x480. Some games can go higher, but on this resolution till now i got every game to work.
Skipframe=true
Screenupdate setting = 7 (otherwise rice plugin will not work)
Video plugin: I decide per game which works best...
switch off hybrid filter

on lr-mupen64plusnext i am still struggling and i hope to get bettter performance, cause i want to use gamebezels for the better look, whic . i found almost all games to be working on 320x240. But i don't like the lower resolution. I want to run at least on 640x480. So here are my settings which increased performance the most. Hopefully people can give me hints on how to better performance in lr-mupen64plus next:

sound: changed latency to 512 reduced a lot of sound issues, but not all.
Could not find the trivial resampler. it is default on sinc. If i change to CC or null i have no audio. if i change to nearest i experience the same issues (stuttering sound in a lot of games).
Video: In lr set to 4:3. In runcommand: Set resolution to 640x480 or 720x480
i think the biggest performance draw is on the hybrid filter. I could not find this option in libretro

Who can help me to tune the libretro core further?

dankcushions

@akamming the resolution and hybrid filter issues with -next will need to wait for code changes. we will have to wait for the developer, but they are aware.

akamming

@dankcushions tx! do you know other options to get better performance? I noticed that PSP and dreamcast performance is much better dan N64 in retropie.

N64 is an older machine with lower specs, so i would expect a better performance… it feels like i'm missing a setting which causes bad performance...

dankcushions

@akamming said in Getting the best N64 experience on a Pi 4:

@dankcushions tx! do you know other options to get better performance? I noticed that PSP and dreamcast performance is much better dan N64 in retropie.

no, any good options will generally already be the defaults :) for -next, i would just wait a few months for the next release of it. mupen64plus-GLideN64 should be the better choice for now.

N64 is an older machine with lower specs, so i would expect a better performance… it feels like i'm missing a setting which causes bad performance...

it doesn't quite work like that. modern systems like the dreamcast and PSP have GPUs and architectures that are more similar to modern architectures, so it can be "easier" to emulate them in terms of computer power and programming. n64 is a very unique beast, very little in common with current GPUs (except the 3dfx voodoo series, with some fun consequences for emulation)

quicksilver

@akamming said in Getting the best N64 experience on a Pi 4:

Could not find the trivial resampler. it is default on sinc. If i change to CC or null i have no audio. if i change to nearest i experience the same issues (stuttering sound in a lot of games).

This is likely because the game is not running fullspeed. It's not the same as the crackling/popping issue on standalone mupen64plus.

akamming

Tx for the anwsers. Just have to wait for new releases of lr-mupen64plus....

Brunnis

@akamming Yep, the upcoming release of lr-mupen64plus-next will definitely improve things. In the meantime, you could test changing RetroArch’s audio driver to ’tinyalsa’. Notice any less stuttering? I’ve made some tests with this and have noticed improvements. It’s something I’d like to look into some more, but unfortunately rarely have much spare time these day.

akamming

@Brunnis said in Getting the best N64 experience on a Pi 4:

In the meantime, you could test changing RetroArch’s audio driver to ’tinyalsa’. Notice any less stuttering? I’ve made some tests with this and have noticed improvements. It’s something I’d like to look into some more, but unfortunately rarely have much spare time these day.

A nice… i'll give it a try…

Something else: I noticed on my rpi4b in SW episode I racer i noticed the racer, pod and character grahpics are not always OK. Same behaviour in mupen64plus (also if a change the the video plugin: same behaviour on all plugins) and lr-mupen64plus and lr-mupen64plus next.

Since i als have a dell laptop with debian on it i did a little test by installation retropie. On that laptop all is fine. both mupen64plus and lr-mupen64plus next show correctly.

I searched on the internet and it looks exactly like this issue. this issue refers to a 'depth hack' option.. but i can't find it … does any now how i can enable or disable this option?

dankcushions

@akamming said in Getting the best N64 experience on a Pi 4:

@Brunnis said in Getting the best N64 experience on a Pi 4:

In the meantime, you could test changing RetroArch’s audio driver to ’tinyalsa’. Notice any less stuttering? I’ve made some tests with this and have noticed improvements. It’s something I’d like to look into some more, but unfortunately rarely have much spare time these day.

A nice… i'll give it a try…

Something else: I noticed on my rpi4b in SW episode I racer i noticed the racer, pod and character grahpics are not always OK. Same behaviour in mupen64plus (also if a change the the video plugin: same behaviour on all plugins) and lr-mupen64plus and lr-mupen64plus next.

Since i als have a dell laptop with debian on it i did a little test by installation retropie. On that laptop all is fine. both mupen64plus and lr-mupen64plus next show correctly.

I searched on the internet and it looks exactly like this issue. this issue refers to a 'depth hack' option.. but i can't find it … does any now how i can enable or disable this option?

idk what that option is but AFAIK this can't be done on a raspberry pi because the GPU doesn't have the necessary GL extension: https://github.com/gonetz/GLideN64/issues/2176

quicksilver

@dankcushions Haha I thought that sounded familiar :)

akamming

@dankcushions said in Getting the best N64 experience on a Pi 4:

idk what that option is but AFAIK this can't be done on a raspberry pi because the GPU doesn't have the necessary GL extension: https://github.com/gonetz/GLideN64/issues/2176

aha tx .. that's a clear anwser, unfortunately not what i'd hoped… fortunately i just found out the same game is also available for dreamcast and that one works fine within retropie (btw only if i use redream. in lr-flycast the game freezes the start screen.), so i can still play it on my self built arcade ;-)

akamming

Still tryin to figure out how to get the best N64 experience on my Pi 4, so i decided to give lr-parallel a try

it crashed rightaway, here's the crashlog (the part where it crashed)

[INFO] [GL]: VSync => on
[libretro INFO] mupen64plus: Starting R4300 emulator: Dynamic Recompiler
[libretro INFO] mupen64plus: Init new dynarec
[libretro INFO] mupen64plus: ARM CPU Features:, Half, Thumb, FastMult, VFP, ESDP, NEON, VFPv3, TLS, VFPv4, IDIVa, IDIVt
Ongeldige instructie

(i have dutch locale settings. "ongeldige instructie" means something like "invalid instruction")

i tried bothe the self compiled version and the pre-built version for the pi4. also tried several games. But all lead to the same crash. can someone help to troubleshoot??

quicksilver

@akamming the only game I got to work with parallel on my pi 4 was GoldenEye. On my pi 3 using an older version of parallel N64 I was able to run quite a few games with it but overall it's not the best choice for N64 on the pi.

George Spiggott

I'm hearing a lot about Parallel updates at the moment but I haven't been able to get better speed than Mupen64-plus next provides on my PC. I haven't tried it on my Pi. It uses Vulcan which may make it more useful in future.

akamming

@quicksilver said in Getting the best N64 experience on a Pi 4:

@akamming the only game I got to work with parallel on my pi 4 was GoldenEye. On my pi 3 using an older version of parallel N64 I was able to run quite a few games with it but overall it's not the best choice for N64 on the pi.

ah.. you're right.. with GoldenEye indeed it does not crash. It actually seems to have the same performance as Mupen64plus but with all the added functionality of retroarch (shaders, overlay, etc...).. nice… ! so overall much better than Mupen64plus on the pi..

unfortunately it crashes on all the other games i try… would be nice if that could be fixed...

quicksilver

@akamming I believe goldeneye multiplayer is glitched though so you can only use it for single player (assuming there are no issues in other levels)

akamming

@George-Spiggott said in Getting the best N64 experience on a Pi 4:

I'm hearing a lot about Parallel updates at the moment but I haven't been able to get better speed than Mupen64-plus next provides on my PC. I haven't tried it on my Pi. It uses Vulcan which may make it more useful in future.

mupen64plus next works on my pi4, however performance is much worse than mupen64plus so i can only run on a very low resolution...

dankcushions

parallel is essentially useless to use on the pi - the meat of it is the vulkan angrylion renderer, which the pi can't run (and even if it had vulkan, it would be a slideshow), so if you run it on a pi it defers to the ancient versions of HLE renderers it also (for some reason) includes - GLideN64 i believe.

there's no reason to use it ahead of any of the other n64 emulators on the pi. you may get ok performance on some games, but i can almost guarantee there will be accuracy or stability issues if you persist.

they should just get rid of those plugins on it IMO. so many people must get a bad impression of those advancements when they run it on insufficient hardware. i not they have just ported parallel RDP to mupenp64plus-next, as an optional renderer. i hope that paves the way for the old cores retirement, maybe...

AdamBeGood

@quicksilver I find lots of the Textures are black on Star Road on lr-mupen64plus, I am struggling to get it to work on my Pi. Any thoughts? It is vexing. Parallel-N64 works better but I can't pause and it sometimes just chucks me out.