Stuttering issue (across all the distrib)

Aryetis

Hello,

I've got stuttering issues across the whole distrib (emulsatation, emulators, kodi, etc) for some reasons.
It is not the usual stuttering which happens during intensive CPU/GPU usage, it's a constant very regular stuttering.
I can tap the rhythm with my foot and predict the frame stuttering. It usually freezes for 0,2 second every 2 seconds.

I noticed this issue for the first time yesterday, and by some shenanigans it fixed itself during a reboot, or just letting my pi cool down, I don't know... But it's happening again today. I already tried to change the screen, change the hdmi wire, reboot, let the pi cool for a couple of hours, update, checked that no OC settings was on.. Nothing got rid of it.

Specs : Raspberry Pi3 , not overclocked
RetroPie Version : 4.1.12 (originally installed and updated from retropie-4.1-rpi2_rpi3.img.gz)
No logs, no errors
Emulstation theme : Carbon (default)

How to replicate the problem :
1/ Turn on the pi, in the emulstation hub, keep pressed left or right arrow
2/ count 2s, and observer the regular stuttering

Do you think it could be related to some faulty hardware ?

mediamogul

@Aryetis said in Stuttering issue (across all the distrib):

I noticed this issue for the first time yesterday, and by some shenanigans it fixed itself during a reboot, or just letting my pi cool down

How to replicate the problem :
1/ Turn on the pi, in the emulstation hub, keep pressed left or right arrow

If it's just happening in Emulation Station, the stuttering is thought to be a result of how the svg images are rendered and is currently unavoidable outside of disabling the 'Onscreen Help' option. If it's also happening in games, your Pi may be overheating and under-clocking itself in response. Do you ever notice an icon of any kind appearing in the upper right corner of the screen? If any, what are some examples of games, systems or ports you're using when you notice this behavior? Also, for good measure, what are the specs of your power supply?

Aryetis

@mediamogul
As said it's hapenning everywhere, emulstation, snes, nes, psp, kodi, et. The temp is sitting at 59°C (+I got heatsinks). There is no undervoltage / temperature warning icon. And I'm using Aukru 5v 3000mA power supply.
Thanks for answering

ps : gonna be hard to get back to emulstation right now, just broke it by fiddling around trying to install the gl driver. Just give me 10 minutes to fix that, and I'll be back complaining about the stutter issue
EDIT : done fixing the emulstation white screen of death. Thought it's still stutte ring.

EDIT2 : I don't think it's due to the svg images rendering (1/ because the issue happen in other applications, 2/ because sometimes there is no stutter at all)

EDIT3 : The stuttering is NOT happening using "simple emulators" (nes, snes), but do happen on heavy application like kodi, ppsspp, and emulstation for whatever reason. Even thought I emphasize that it should not happen. To get away from emulstation. I've got the same stuttering playing a movie from kodi, or the intro fmv of wild arms XF in ppsspp. Both of them ran perfectly fine this morning.

edmaul69

@Aryetis i would try a different theme. I had stuttering and sometimes freezing in emulationstation and it caused stuttering in games.

Aryetis

@edmaul69 Thanks, but I just edited my post to better reflect how the issue is not emulstation related

just in case, here's my /boot/config.txt : http://pastebin.com/9bbaLWir pretty plain and simple, no fancy stuff, but who knows

mediamogul

@Aryetis said in Stuttering issue (across all the distrib):

I don't think it's due to the svg images rendering (1/ because the issue happen in other applications,

~~It may help to have an example of specifically what are you doing in these other applications when you notice the stuttering.~~

Edit: Your third edit gives some examples though doesn't it? hhmm... was this happening before you were working with the GL driver? Also, are there any other experimental additions like it that you've installed recently?

2/ because sometimes there is no stutter at all)

The svg stutter comes and goes intermittently.

Aryetis

@mediamogul
I just uninstalled GL driver and reinstalled emulstation to get rid of the white screen of death it caused. Nothing really fishy installed beside that, only installed stuff provided by the retropie-setup script (+memtester to test the RAM, everything went well)

About Emulstation I tried to disable onscreen help, it didn't change a thing.

And now some video to illustrate the situation in EmulStation and ppsspp.

ES :

I've enabled the fps counter to show you how the stuttering occurs even when I'm litteraly doing nothing.

PPSSPP :

About the PPSSPP footage, it's literally the first zone of the game all I did was turn the camera, with those settings it usually flows smoothly at 30 fps. But there you can clearly see the video (and audio) stuttering, even in the menu of PPSSPP the stutter is there.

mediamogul

@Aryetis

Well, I definitely see what you're talking about now. That is indeed a different stutter than the norm in ES. What kind of controller are you using and did it require that any drivers be installed?

Beretta9

Could be a bad sd card too.
Is your card class 10?
Where did you get your sd card from?
There are a ton of fake sd cards out there that can cause these issues.

Aryetis

@mediamogul I think I found out the source of the bug, it seems to be the steamcontroller driver. For whatever reason there was no log of it yesterday, but the syslog is filled to the brim with error message from its py script. Plus the timing fit perfectly, one message every 2 secs.
Gotta afk for a couple of minutes, but will report back on it soon enough.
I'm just gonna leave snipet of the log there: http://pastebin.com/qk9uW2dh

Gonna uninstall the steamcontroller driver for now and report the bug to github

EDIT : confirmed steam controller driver is faulty. Back to smooth footage and xbox controller for now I guess. Thanks for not leaving me alone on this one guys ^^.