Megadrive 50hz games with Genesis

MiroKostovBG

Hello guys,

Pi Model or other hardware: (RaspberryPi 4B 2GB)
Power Supply used: (official Raspberry Pi power supply)
RetroPie Version Used (4.8 RPI 4/400):
Built From: (Raspberry PI imager v1.7.5)
USB Devices connected: Two 8bitDo SN30 controllers connected with USB.
MicroHD devices: Two Arzopa portable monutors Gamut G1.

The problem:
I have a mixture of PAL (european) and NTSC/U/JAP megadrive games. All 60hz games run smooth as butter. The PAL games after some settings optimizations are OKish but not great. They are running slower and have microstuttering or whatever it is called.
The option for AUTO region does not seems to affect it at all, No matter what I set up there the PAL games run the same - sluggishly. (Audio is fine) . I use the default core, which I think is Genesis Plus GX.

After tampering with all the existing settings the entire day I came to the conclusion that it is Hz related issue.

The resolutions that I'm using using that works best for the Arzopa monitor is 1920x1080@60hz, this resolution is set up through runcommand.

I tried to do my due diligence searching through the forum and found this article : https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/25126/retropie-how-to-add-two-custom-hdmi-video-modes/15 where the guy is deciding the video mode on emulator start.

Goal:
My goal is somehow to run the 50hz for the PAL games and then the normal 60hz mode for the NTSC/JAP games and my hopes are that if I set the resolution to 50hz the PAL games would run smoothly like the NTSC ones with the 60hz mode.

Questions:

Is there any way since that thread above is very old, that I can do that nicely through the retroarch menus, without needing to do additional scripting?
Maybe there is some best setup for this use case that I can do in general?
Can I create a script that instead of checking the emulator, checks what rom is attempted to be loaded and based on that switch the video mode on game start?
I see in this document https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Runcommand/#runcommand-onstart-and-runcommand-onend-scripts that $3 is the rompath so theoretically i can get it do a comparison of whether the rom is either of the titels I want to run with this PAL 50hz video mode and hope to switch the tv mode. Does this plan make sense to you before I attempt to write the script.
I admit I did not try picodrive yet as core, so i will check whether that solves the PAL issues tomorrow and will update the thread?

Regards,
Miro.

barbudreadmon

@MiroKostovBG said in Megadrive 50hz games with Genesis:

No matter what I set up there the PAL games run the same - sluggishly.

PAL games are usually 16.7% slower than NTSC games, it's normal. Is that what you are refering to ?

dankcushions

@MiroKostovBG said in Megadrive 50hz games with Genesis:

I have a mixture of PAL (european) and NTSC/U/JAP megadrive games. All 60hz games run smooth as butter. The PAL games after some settings optimizations are OKish but not great. They are running slower and have microstuttering or whatever it is called.

PAL games run slower - they run at 50hz vs 60hz, so ~17% slower. the stuttering is because it's presumably got v-sync on - 50hz does not divide into 60hz, so it has to stutter. the latter should be fixable, but the former is just how things are in PAL land.

do you have a 1080p 50hz mode via the runcommand? i would just manually set the PAL games to a 50hz mode. it's a persistent setting so you would only have to do it once each game. you could write a simple python/bash script to do it based on file name, i suppose.

alternatively, turn v-sync off. it's vertical_sync = false in the retroarch.cfg, although i am not sure if i've tried that.

MiroKostovBG

@dankcushions
Yes sure is not the slowness that is annoying but the fact that it stutters but I got your point. I will try to run the game in 50Hz without Vsync to try it out. Honestly I did not think of that.

I tried pushing the raspberry to 50hz but I had the vsync on and that was even worse but reading what you said it will have the opposite effect . Then the other issue I have is that for whatever reason 60hz 1980x1020 on the Arzopa monitor is right at the bezels of the monitor while when I do it in 50hz it squeezes the image inside a bit and has black stripes on all sides, that probably is a monitor problem I would presume.

Thanks for the advice, I will try it and write it down. It would be awesome if there would be auto setting for the vsync so it does that by itself.

YFZdude

@MiroKostovBG
PAL and NTSC have different resolutions.
Perhaps when you are running PAL games, the screen output is resized to fit the extra vertical lines (576) onto the screen and that 'squishes' in the sides a bit. NTSC only has 480 lines.

You can probably eliminate the top/bottom black bars with overscan settings, but it seems like the left/right bars will likely always be there when playing a PAL game.