lag lag lag, I hate it, just ran a lag test and am disappointed with RPi/retropie

rig

@pjft Yeah thanks I was able to find all the retroarch settings, make the changes and run the test again. I ran the test with the RPi without the retroarch alterations (lag was an average of 1.7 frames), I then ran it with the the retrtoarch alterations (lag was an average of 1.3 frames). and I ran the test again with original hardware (lag was an average of 0.5 frames)

My numbers were really low this time. I did a few things different: I did the test in the morning, as apposed to late at night when i was tired; I sat right in front of the monitor really close; I did 10 practice/throw away lag tests before I recorded the 5 tests that I averaged to get my data; I used the same monitor (my sharpest monitor) for all the tests, I noticed that It was getting better times on my sharp monitor (it is easier to align the two shapes during the lag test with a really sharp monitor)

I am a little shocked how good the numbers were, especially after multiple people have been telling me that 3.5 frames is a good number.

so there was a slight advantage to using the retroarch settings. Will these settings cause any problems with emulation? compatibility?etc? Thanks guys, this was fun to tinker around with

mediamogul

@rig said in lag lag lag, I hate it, just ran a lag test and am disappointed with RPi/retropie:

Will these settings cause any problems with emulation?

The biggest consideration I can think of is that using dispmanx in RetroArch prevents the use of shaders and overlays, but aside from looking really nice, they would add a frame or two of lag, so it would go against your main goal here to begin with. Also, any of the yellow onscreen text will not be visible, making notifications from features like RetroAchievements impossible. That aside, I have to say 1.3 and even 1.7 frames of lag is quite impressive. Many thanks go out to everyone who made that possible.

Edit: I'd be interested to hear if you're able to beat the 'Clinger Winger' stage on 'Battletoads' with this setup if you ever get around to it.

rig

@mediamogul Thanks man; I can live without shaders. I will definitely attempt Battletoads with the pi. I typically pass clingerwinger first try with original hardware but I have never been able to pass it with an emulator. I am pretty excited about it actually. probably happen next week. I let you know.

maxriptide

I have a RPi3 with Gert-VGA + UMSA scart adapter hooked up to a Sony PVM CRT Monitor and I use the following settings on retroarch.cfg for Megadrive and PC Engine emulator:
video_threaded = "false"
vsync = "true"
video_hard_sync = "true"
video_frame_delay = "10"

My results with the 240p Suite Manual Lag Test are approximately 0.5 frames for both emulator which is the same value I get with the real consoles hooked up to the same monitor. With the same test on the SNES emulator (I don't own a SNES) I get approximately 1.5 frames lag.

BuZz

@maxriptide video_hard_sync = "true" has no effect on the RPI btw. Vsync should be enabled by default.

maxriptide

@BuZz didn't know that, thanks

rig

@maxriptide you know what. Your the third person to point out that the snes emulator is prone to lag. I will try again with my sega setup. For some reason i couldn't get the genesis 240p test suite to work with the pi so i gave up.

Thanks for responding. I was hopeing someone could duplicate my results. Our data is really close. Cool.
How does the "frame delay" work. It can't actually be delaying video ten frames. I wonder how this would effect fighting games. Does it delay frames from the player? Does it delay frames from the npc? Both?

maxriptide

@rig to be honest I really don't know how it works, maybe someone in the forum could explain that, all I know is that after using these setting I found on the web I got rid of the lag. I should also try to remove the video_hard_sync = "true" line since, as BuZz wrote, it should not have any effect on the RPi.

AndersHP

@pjft said in lag lag lag, I hate it, just ran a lag test and am disappointed with RPi/retropie:

@rig I believe all of them can be changed in the RetroArch menu. You do need to save them for turn to be applied when you restart RetroPie, so depending on your setup you may want to go straight to the config files for that after you're happy with the results.

Does this mean that they wont be applied unless you save and restart? Or do they apply instantly but get reset if not saved? Sorry if it's a stupid question.

rig

@AndersHP said in lag lag lag, I hate it, just ran a lag test and am disappointed with RPi/retropie:

@pjft said in lag lag lag, I hate it, just ran a lag test and am disappointed with RPi/retropie:

@rig I believe all of them can be changed in the RetroArch menu. You do need to save them for turn to be applied when you restart RetroPie, so depending on your setup you may want to go straight to the config files for that after you're happy with the results.

Does this mean that they wont be applied unless you save and restart? Or do they apply instantly but get reset if not saved? Sorry if it's a stupid question.

I believe that the changes are applied immediately but as soon as you exit the game/retroarch you lose the changes unless you save them. You can verify this by making changes, exiting the menu and the reentering the menu and checking to see if your changes are still there.