New RetroArch 1.15.0 includes preemptive frames

kcoconnor76

Is it difficult to update the install script to include the latest RetroArch 1.15.0? The new RetroArch includes a new feature called preemptive frames in addition to run-ahead which is supposed to improve performance even more.

barbudreadmon

@kcoconnor76 some clarifications about preemptive frames vs runahead :

Preemptive frames will only work with cores compatible with single-instance runahead (if a core glitches without second-instance enabled, it'll likely be glitched too with preemptive frames).

Also, while preemptive frames consumes less ressources on average, it's not guaranteed to always be true. As a matter of fact, single-instance runahead supposedly does better when inputs are under heavy stress.

kcoconnor76

@barbudreadmon Would preemptive frames work for Nintendo 64 emulators? Those are the ones that seem to have slow-down for me.

barbudreadmon

@kcoconnor76 no idea, i don't play 3d'ish stuff, in the first place i thought none of the 3d emulators were compatible at all with runahead.

Edit: Since, as i expected, mupen64 doesn't appear to be compatible with runahead at all, it seems you might be talking about slowdowns without runahead enabled. You might have quite a bit of misunderstanding here, preemptive frames and runahead don't increase performance, they are methods to reduce latency at the cost of decreasing performance, with preemptive frames having the potential to be the less taxing method.

kcoconnor76

@barbudreadmon I was referring to slowdowns or latency, rather than performance.

barbudreadmon

@kcoconnor76

Slowdowns = lack of performance, your device is too weak to run this at full speed
Latency = delay between pressing a button and its result being displayed on screen
Runahead or preemptive frames = lesser latency at the cost of higher requirements, meaning more slowdowns if your device was already too weak without those features

Runahead and preemptive frames aren't features to remove slowdowns.

Note that some slowdowns can be native to the games (because the real hardware was too weak to run them) and some emulators have the ability to get around this by overclocking the emulated hardware, yet again at the cost of higher requirements.

Your pi4 is simply too weak to run n64, and the only way around this is most likely to use a better device.