RetroPie (4.0.2) randomly freezing when there is a lot of roms
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I have RPI 1B with RetroPie 4.0.2. Everything is fine when there is small amount of roms, but when there is lots of roms, it starts freezing. In most cases this happens when runcommand prompt is shown. The indicator of the SD Card access is working constantly while RPI is freezing. The most noticeable freezing is when you try to launch ports. After system starts, if you start some port (Doom and so on) RPI will freeze for sure on runcommand prompt or when the game starts. In other cases it is freezing randomly. It freezes often, when you launch arcade games on PiFBA. Sometimes it is freezing even when it just stays untouched in EmulationStation menu (I can notice that by SD Card access indicator), in most cases this happens once a day, when it stays powered on. It is not totally frozen, but works extremely slow (like 1 frame per 30 seconds). It can unfreeze after some minutes or hours. I can use processes emergency restart (Alt + Print Screen + E), then EmulationStation restarts and everything woks fine for some time (even ports can work fine sometimes).
The only things that I can say for sure, that ports start freezing, when there is lots of roms for consoles and that freezing is somehow connected with accessing to SD Card (the SD Card access indicator always works, when system is freezing).
I can't use newer version of RetroPie, because new OS and emulators have very low performance on RPI 1 (16-bit systems are unplayable and even Midnight Commander starts much slower).
Maybe someone has freezing problems, somehow connected with accessing to SD Card, when there is a lot of roms, and there is some solution?
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I have seen similar freezing issues when I was using the Pi3 B as a desktop. The freeze was caused by high RAM usage. So I believe that you are running out of memory.
I suggest to backup your system and test with a new sd card just in case the issue is with card.
https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Updating-RetroPie/#making-a-backup -
Could running on a lower resolution help?
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