snoopaloop83 Posted September 7, 2016 Share Posted September 7, 2016 Hello, I seem to be having trouble with getting my retroarch emulator to run smoothly as far as vsync goes. I always have some screen tearing no matter what I do in retro arch. When i run other games or emulators they run quite smoothly. not sure if Retro Arch is just not good at implementing vsync. I have tried enabling vsync in retroarch, disabling it, turning on HARD Vsync and many combinations of these setting on or off but to no avail. I have also enabled and disabled vsync in my nvidia control panel. There is also a display of your monitors estimated refresh rate, i have tried manually adjusting it but since it fluctuates so much it seem impossible to get it to work. Is there anything else I can try or anything you would reccomend to work? I have also tried rolling back my nvidia driver. My specs are as follows 7/16/16 latest version of retro arch Core i7 Geforce 960m with latest drivers Windows 10 anniversary update. Also note I am on a laptop, and I do switch between the laptop display and my TV which may be causing the issue. Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Carr Posted September 7, 2016 Share Posted September 7, 2016 You're not alone there @snoopaloop83. Sadly I don't have a fix for you but I have been having all kinds of problems in that area with Retroarch lately. Often times I can't get clean audio out of it either as of late. This is while testing on several different systems. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snoopaloop83 Posted September 7, 2016 Author Share Posted September 7, 2016 I seem to have strangely fixed it by just resetting my factory settings in in nvida control panel...still not perfect but better. Honestly I dont think i changed much of anything in my nvidia settings, but i could be wrong. It seems that the games will start with screen tearing sometimes, and then fix themselves. Very strange, but glad to hear I am not alone. Thanks Jason and keep up the great work. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lordmonkus Posted September 7, 2016 Share Posted September 7, 2016 If you have v-sync enabled you shouldn't be having screen tearing issues, v-sync off will give you screen tearing issues if you don't have g-sync / freesync setup. For audio issues try enabling Audio Sync in the audio settings. Make sure your Audio Latency is not set too low. Your audio driver should be set to xaudio but try others to see if you have better luck with other drivers. Also are you running any shaders or none ? Certain shaders can put a lot of stress on the system and cause just enough slow down to cause audio problems but it sounds like your system shouldn't have that problem. Are you running the 1.3.6 stable build or nightly ? Nightly builds can bring in problems. Since you are on a laptop check your performance settings in the control panel, check that you are running in performance mode and not one of the power saving modes. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snoopaloop83 Posted September 10, 2016 Author Share Posted September 10, 2016 I still havent been able to get good vsync. Ive noticed this is an issue across all applications that utilize GL as opposed to D3D...unfortunatley my retroarch just crashes when i use D3D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lordmonkus Posted September 10, 2016 Share Posted September 10, 2016 Personally I just turned off V-Sync and dealt with the screen tearing which wasn't all that bad. It is a trade off though. With it off you get less input lag and Mame just runs better because you aren't forcing games to run at 60 frames per second instead of their natural refresh which varies from game to game. One other option and it isn't cheap is to buy a G-Sync monitor. I bought one and absolutely love it. Best 1000$ I even spent on any single item for my computer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snoopaloop83 Posted September 10, 2016 Author Share Posted September 10, 2016 Yea i just turned it off...honestley it looks better than with vsync on just not perfect. Oh well maybe an update to retroarch or a driver will fix it soon. Id love a gsync monitor but i do alot of gaming on my tv for the most part Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lordmonkus Posted September 10, 2016 Share Posted September 10, 2016 Are you getting tearing with v-sync on ? What I always used to do and still do to a certain point is in my Nvidia Control Panel I set most everything to app controlled rather than blanket control it with the control panel. Then in Retroarch turn on V-Sync and Hard GPU Sync and set the frame delay a few frames, 4-6. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snoopaloop83 Posted September 10, 2016 Author Share Posted September 10, 2016 https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/903422/geforce-mobile-gpus/diagonal-screen-tearing-issues-on-gtx-860m-870m-960m-965m-970m-980m-/ It seems that this is a known issue with my videocard 960m I posted a video of my issue on youtube as well....so this isnt a retroarch issue afterall apparently will do a bit more research and report back my findings Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lordmonkus Posted September 10, 2016 Share Posted September 10, 2016 Ouch, that really is awful. That's with v-sync on ? If so then from what I remember about v-sync off you are much better with it off. That really is unfortunate that it is a video card issue. Hopefully it is something that can be fixed with a driver update. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snoopaloop83 Posted September 10, 2016 Author Share Posted September 10, 2016 yes that is with vsync on...its awful. hopefully a fix is in the future.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lordmonkus Posted September 10, 2016 Share Posted September 10, 2016 Yeah just go with it off and live with the relatively less obnoxious tearing and enjoy the benefits of less input lag and proper speed Mame emulation. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snoopaloop83 Posted September 11, 2016 Author Share Posted September 11, 2016 (edited) It doesent look awful without vsync just isnt as butter smooth looking as i would like. Hopefully i can find a fix. Most games work well like if i play most AAA Games its butter smooth Edited September 11, 2016 by snoopaloop83 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lordmonkus Posted September 11, 2016 Share Posted September 11, 2016 Right, v-sync off isn't terrible, there is some tearing but nothing even close to what is displayed in your video. If you want to see a perfect example of what I am talking about in Mame load up Samurai Shodown 2 and at the character selection screen look at the shadows beneath the characters. With v-sync off they should flicker at a constant rate giving a good illusion of transparency. The turn on v-sync and load up the game again and look at the shadows. They will flicker inconsistently giving an awful look. NeoGeo games run several Hz under 60 and with v-sync on you are forcing the game to run @ 60 Hz which is too fast. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snoopaloop83 Posted September 11, 2016 Author Share Posted September 11, 2016 Interesting....maybe ill try it and upload a comparison video Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snoopaloop83 Posted September 11, 2016 Author Share Posted September 11, 2016 Well, i never found a definite solution. It seems this is a common problem in limbo for 960m users. I did find a good workaround. by going the Nvidia Control panel and selecting retroarch under program settings and selecting the onboard GPU rather than the 960m and now it runs like butter again. The Intel GPU is sufficient enough to run retroarch games. So this will do for now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lordmonkus Posted September 11, 2016 Share Posted September 11, 2016 Yeah if you don't use any shaders that would work. I think for me personally I would rather have shaders and play with v-sync off but that's just me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DOS76 Posted September 11, 2016 Share Posted September 11, 2016 I use crt-pi on my tablets and they push it and my i5 3330 was usable with quite a few of the presets before I added my card. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lordmonkus Posted September 11, 2016 Share Posted September 11, 2016 Yeah the CRT-Pi shader is good for lower end video hardware. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ea4492 Posted June 4, 2018 Share Posted June 4, 2018 I know this thread is about 2 years old so this issue it probably fixed for you but i also have a 960m, and im pretty sure it was a driver update or retroarch update that fixed it sinve i was getting this issue before, but now im not getting tearing with v-sync on. Sometimes i will notice it but to fix it, go to video output settings, then scroll down to Vertical Refresh Rate and it might be on 1.000Hz, and if it is go to Estimated Screen Framrate and that should be displaying your actual monitor refresh rate and it should be around 60 if you have a 60Hz monitor or if you have a higher Hz it will be close to that and hit enter, then you should see the Vertical Refresh Rate change from 1.000Hz to your refresh rate, then back out with F1, and the game should be smooth with no tearing, but one problem i have it that the setting wont stick for some reason, so i have to keep doing this, so i might have to sett it in the config file to fix this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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