Low framerate on main EmulationStation menu - Pi 4

rilight

I just switched from the Pi 3B+ to a Pi 4, and I'm noticing that strangely enough the main menu of ES seems to perform worse than on the 3B+. I occasionally get moments where the animations switching between systems is nice and smooth, but most of the time it looks like the framerate is cut in half. It seems to perform better on the default Carbon theme, and I expect that's because it doesn't have image backgrounds like the pixel-metadata theme does. I've updated everything on my system and rebooted, and I'm running the official Pi 4 release image.

rilight

If it's relevant - I also see some horizontal stuttering (tearing?) while running a game in Gambette that I don't think was there on the 3B+.

roslof

@rilight you are probably running in 4K mode?
There is a thread here to change this to HD. Recommended for performance.

rilight

@roslof It doesn't appear so, I launched a game with verbose logging enabled and /dev/shm/runcommand reports a resolution of 1920x1080.

roslof

@rilight runcommand.log refers to what you launched. Not ES itself.

rilight

Hmm, I see... I'll try the option and see if it does anything.

rilight

@roslof I just added the hdmi_max_pixel_freq options to my /boot/config.txt and rebooted, still no luck.

rilight

I'm definitely getting more stuttering/tearing in Gambette at the moment than I would expect from the 4. I checked my temps, and I'm sitting at around 59°, so I think it should be working fine.

mitu

Can you turn on the FPS counter and see what's the current FPS in-game ?
To check your current resolution, you can run tvservice -s from a terminal.

rilight

@mitu tvservice -s reports 1920x1080 @ 60Hz, and the framerate counter in-game shows about 57-60 fps. So maybe the problem isn't the framerate itself, but something else...

rilight

(Also, again, I'm definitely new to this so please correct me if I have any misconceptions or if you need more information!)

mitu

Is your TV set to 'Game Mode' ?

rilight

I'm not sure - this is actually a monitor, not a TV. I can try to enable those settings, but what confuses me is that using this monitor worked fine before on the 3B+. Come to think of it, could it maybe be something to do with my micro-HDMI to HDMI adapter?

rilight

I just tested changing my /boot/config.txt back to how it was on my 3B+ (not disabling overscan, not changing any HDMI settings, etc) and the problem is still there. I can include a copy of the config if that would help?

mitu

@rilight Sure, why not. Use code tags (```) to surround the config.txt contents.

rilight

The version I've been using up until this point (by which I mean, without the changes to make it more like the 3B+ config):

[pi4]
max_framebuffers=2

## Overclock settings
# Uncomment to overclock the arm. 700 MHz is the default.
#arm_freq=2147
#arm_freq=2000
#arm_freq_min=500
#v3d_freq=750
#over_voltage=6
# Enable turbo temporarily at boot to speed up times
#initial_turbo=60
# Increase the SD reader clock speed (default 50)
dtparam=sd_overclock=100

[all]
# Enable DRM VC4 V3D driver on top of the dispmanx display stack
dtoverlay=vc4-fkms-v3d

## Base settings
disable_splash=1
boot_delay=0
gpu_mem=256

## Audio settings
# Enable audio (loads snd_bcm2835)
dtparam=audio=on

## HDMI Settings
# Remove black borders on display when scaling
disable_overscan=1

# Request "Game Mode"
edid_content_type=4

## Disable the optional hardware interfaces
dtparam=i2c_arm=off
dtparam=i2s=off
dtparam=spi=off

## Disable 4K?
[hdmi:0]
hdmi_max_pixel_freq=200000000

[hdmi:1]
hdmi_max_pixel_freq=200000000

mitu

Configuration seems fine. Do you have WiFi enabled ?

rilight

@mitu I have wpa_supplicant enabled, yes. Does that cause performance issues? To be clear, this isn't a problem with laggy inputs. It's what's being displayed on the screen that's the problem.

mitu

I have wpa_supplicant enabled, yes. Does that cause performance issues?

No, just checking what might cause any interference with the HDMI signal. At this point I'd probably try another mini-HDMI to HDMI cable or switching to a lower resolution (720p ?) and see if the problem still occurs.

rilight

Unfortunately I don't have another mini-HDMI adapter... I haven't seen anything from other users of the adapter indicating it could be causing problems like this (the part number for reference is B07K21HSQX). I'll try changing the resolution.