Vulkan + GameCube + Pi 5 Questions....

TPR

So I have some questions about using the Vulkan drivers with the Pi 5 on lr-dolphin for Gamecube.

Take a game like Samurai Jack for example...

If I load up the game using the openGL drivers, there is some skipping and stuttering in the opening cut scenes and gameplay.

If I switch over to the Vulkan driver, the stuttering and skipping is gone and there are obvious improvements to be seen so the Vuklan driver is absolutely doing something to help performance...

but...

I find the lr-dophin games crash quite more often using the Vulkan driver.

So here's my question....

Are there other settings on lr-dolphin I should be tweaking so that it doesn't crash?

Or is the Vulkan driver simply just not ready for use yet on the Pi 5?

And are there other libretro emulator cores that benefit from using Vulkan?

I've noticed some improvement on lr-flycast and I don't seem to have any issues with any Dreamcast / Naomi / Naomi 2 games crashing.

And yes, I am aware of the stand-alone version of Dolphin but I do prefer to use the libretro versions as I am more familiar with the core options menus with those emulator cores.

Any help or feedback would be appreciated.

Thank you.

retropieuser555

Do you know what point the crashes occur? I did find Def Jam Vendetta is prone is crashing with Vulkan vs openGL. Trouble with dolphin/GameCube, Wii emulation is general is it's very reliant on individual hacks for each game, similar to n64.

I'll give it a go on that game and see if I can get it to crash on the standalone. Then it's probably just the game in general

sugarfree

@TPR
I have a lot of issues with lr-dolphin, sometimes the Pi freezes. I believe it is because the core has been unmaintained for a long time. So far, I haven't noticed a crash with the standalone Dolphin.

Lr-ppsspp takes advantage of the Vulkan driver not only in terms of performance but also by fixing some weird graphical glitches that some games have (Driver 76, Dirt 2)

TPR

@sugarfree That's good to know. I haven't tried it with PSP but I will most certainly do that now.

Good to know about the standalone Dolphin. I have it installed and configured, but I just prefer the RA cores mainly just for consistency sake, but if it turns out that the best solution on the Pi 5 for GC or Wii will be the stand-alone then I guess that will have to do.

Thanks for the info.

TPR

@retropieuser555 said in Vulkan + GameCube + Pi 5 Questions....:

Do you know what point the crashes occur?

I'd say right at the start of the game, If I load it up 10 times it will probably crash 3 of those times before it even starts the first level.

retropieuser555

@TPR When he's climbing the mountain? Yeah just tried a few times on standalone with vulkan and this setting in my game .ini:-

# Samurai Jack

[Video_Hacks]
VISkip = True
EFBAccessEnable = False

It plays fine and I can't get it to crash, played through the first mission no problems. Maybe switch EFB Access in lr-dolphin? If it has that setting

TPR

@retropieuser555 Thanks! Will try that now!

TPR

@retropieuser555 said in Vulkan + GameCube + Pi 5 Questions....:

It plays fine and I can't get it to crash, played through the first mission no problems. Maybe switch EFB Access in lr-dolphin? If it has that setting

lr-dolphin has:

"Disable EFB to VRAM on/off"

Is that the same option?

retropieuser555

@TPR I think that's this option:-

[Video_Hacks]
DisableCopyToVRAM = False

you'll need to check the options they have documented on retroarch's wiki:-

https://docs.libretro.com/library/dolphin/

Although they're not named the same as regular dolphin so you might need to trial and error a bit