Low framerate on main EmulationStation menu - Pi 4

rilight

@dankcushions Sure, here you go: https://termbin.com/fk91
(I know they can decrease performance, but while shaders are enabled on startup the video I recorded above is with them completely disabled.)

rilight

I just discovered that the 30fps problem on the ES main menu only happens when the UI transition style is set to "Fade". Using "Slide" or "Instant" it stays around 57 - 60fps according to the framerate display, although opening the start menu still causes it to drop to 30fps instantly. This also still doesn't fix my issues with screen tearing in-game.

rilight

@GreenHawk84 has confirmed this is a problem out of the box on a fresh install: https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/27377/inconsistent-es-menu-speed-with-pi4/

GreenHawk84

@Krakatoa bumping up VRAM as in ES menu>Other Settings>VRAM Limit? I bumped it to 500Mb and the carousel is still slowing down to ~30fps on fade randomly.

rilight

@GreenHawk84 I tried the same thing a few days back in this thread and didn't have any luck either :/

GreenHawk84

I can confirm the menu speed improves after a game is loaded.

rilight

Interesting, it doesn't really seem to help me but that might be because my theme displays more than the default carbon theme.

stoo

I'm having exactly the same issue. ES just decides to drop to 30fps at random times, and I'm seeing screen tearing in games.

Brand new Pi4B 8GB
Not overclocked.
Absolutely stock settings.
Official Pi4 image downloaded from this site.

It's really frustrating that in some ways the Pi4 performance seems worse than my Pi3B+. There is something amiss here.

stoo

Wait, what's the recommended gfx driver to run on the Pi4 at the moment?

I haven't modified by my config.txt since I installed RetroPie on this SD card from a freshly downloaded image about a week ago, and it's showing:

dtoverlay=vc4-fkms-v3d

Is the fake KMS driver the one I should be using? Because performance seems dire in most emulators and in ES.

N.B.: That's where the tearing is coming from: the driver is just that freaking slow that it's not able to maintain 60fps.

dankcushions

@stoo are you using a 4k display? that will be the issue - set to 1080p via raspi-config

stoo

@dankcushions No, I'm not. Both 4k and analog are already disabled.

dankcushions

@stoo well, fkms is the default configuration on retropie and whilst there does appear to be reports of frame rate issues in ES, general emulation generally does not have issues (obviously n64 and other more advanced emulation notwithstanding).

if you have issues with general emulation please create a new support thread, providing the information requested in in https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3/read-this-first

rilight

@dankcushions: We're both having the same issue with the emulation tearing, so I think there must be some common factor. (Also, since my initial post in this thread I replaced my power cable and HDMI connector with official Raspberry Pi ones so I know that's not the problem.)

bluestang

I get the 30 FPS slowdowns in ES with the FKMS and KMS driver. I can not pinpoint what is causing the issue. Whether it’s the stock Mesa driver (v19.3.2.) or even the developmental Vulkan driver (has minor chgs to ogl) the issue is persistent.

stoo

@bluestang I'm sure it's the driver. I've found shaders are also slower on Pi4 than Pi3, and turning off Threaded Video in RA on Pi4 is a recipe for disaster.

I'm convinced the Pi4 graphics drivers aren't ready for prime-time.

Darksavior

Does ES use the mesa drivers? Maybe compile your own using the latest version like the redream devs have done. (I really have no idea how to do this but if anyone can, I'd love to know the test results)

stoo

@Darksavior I mean, it might not be the driver - I'm no expert at all.

I'm just kinda frustrated because my experience so far has been that the Pi4 doesn't exceed - or sometimes even match - the Pi3's graphics performance in some cases. I'm just venting.

It's times like this I wish I could code.

bluestang

@Darksavior said in Low framerate on main EmulationStation menu - Pi 4:

Does ES use the mesa drivers? Maybe compile your own using the latest version like the redream devs have done. (I really have no idea how to do this but if anyone can, I'd love to know the test results)

The developmental Vulkan driver has to be compiled and that has the latest mesa v3d and vc4 drivers and the issue still persists.

bluestang

@stoo said in Low framerate on main EmulationStation menu - Pi 4:

@bluestang I'm sure it's the driver. I've found shaders are also slower on Pi4 than Pi3, and turning off Threaded Video in RA on Pi4 is a recipe for disaster.

I'm convinced the Pi4 graphics drivers aren't ready for prime-time.

Yea there is an issue with this documented in the RetroPie GitHub - https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/issues/3134 and upstream in RA - https://github.com/libretro/RetroArch/issues/10688

bluestang

I'm starting to wonder if the SDL2 build script with the isPlatform "rpi" && conf_flags+=("--enable-video-rpi") is the cause of the framerate drop in ES for the Pi 4.

The Pi 4 should not be using any of the "legacy" VC libraries in /opt/vc/ because the Mesa libraries are the default now. The Pi 4 is adopting the standard Linux APIs so it should be mirroring what the other SBCs are doing. This is why omxplayer has been deprecated altogether.

The VC libraries are there for "backward compatibility" but should not be relied upon moving forward. There have been several threads on the official Raspberry Pi forums about this.

@mitu @dankcushions @BuZz