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Weird Lag in Retroarch


Bloodlvst

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Hey everyone,

Just got LaunchBox and BigBox setup and LOVING the interface (goes perfect with Kodi) :D

However, before today I'd never bothered with RetroArch for emulation. However, since I can't force Higan to load on my 3rd display (which is my TV), I figured I'd take the plunge. I've downloaded my cores, setup all my settings, and it all works. However, I'm noticing odd discrepancies in NES/SNES games (I haven't yet tried N64). When I play an (S)NES game in Higan, it's perfectly smooth, no stutters or sluggishness at all. However, using any of the bsnes cores (even performance), I get odd sluggishness/lag, almost like it can't render fast enough. For example, when playing Super Mario Allstars, it's especially noticable when I start running through a level and there's enemies coming up. However, the FPS counter stays a solid 60. And my PC is more than powerful enough so I don't think that's it. And like I said, in Higan no problem whatsoever.

In case it helps, here's my specs:

Windows 10 64-bit
Intel Core i7 950
12 GB RAM
GTX 750 Ti

I've tried tinkering with everything, but I'm at a loss here trying to figure this one out.

Thanks in advance :)

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Yeah, I wish I had a better answer for you but I know it is a setting, I just don't know specifically what setting would cause it.

I know sometimes certain displays or refresh rate of the display can cause issues. And there are so many settings that I could sit here all day going back and forth with "check this" "check that" and "what's this set to ?"

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1 hour ago, DOS76 said:

 you can try turning off Hard GPU Sync in RA  had to do that on one of my laptops

I've had it off by default. I'll have to poke around some more. At this point it may just be easier to use LaunchBox to make Higan fullscreen and then move it to the 3rd monitor on startup haha!

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Just wanted to give an update on this thread. All is well now! :D

 

GPUTweak wasn't the issue at all. But it was video card related:

I noticed there was actually a new driver version, so I grabbed that and installed. No change. Rebooted. No change.
In a fit of frustration I decided to go for broke and then deleted my Retroarch folder and extracted a fresh copy from the zip file.

This fixed the "stutter" issue, but instead of stutter issues, I had this annoying screen tearing going from the bottom to top of the screen if I ran (especially in fade-in animations/sidescrollers).
But then I remember Nvidia control panel. I have pretty customized settings. So I screw it and chose the "performance" preset. Still tearing.

So then I just the highest "quality" preset in the control panel. And now the problem is fixed. I guess control panel settings were overriding Retroarch (which makes sense now that I think about it).

Hopefully this has some value to anyone who comes across a similar issue. :)

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  • 3 years later...

Just for future reference, quite often the cause for stuttering is the power management setting of your graphics card. For Nvidia the default setting is "Optimal Power". That puts your graphics card in its lowest power state faster and is sluggish to clock up. This can result in stuttering, lag or screen tearing. For gaming the "Adaptive Mode" is better. Adaptive Mode switches to a higher power state and thus higher clocks faster. Sometimes its even necessary to select "Prefer Maximum Performance" which forces the card in its highest power state. It is best to set the power management on a per game \ emulator basis, because for most of the time "Optimal Power" is fine. You don't want your graphics card on full throttle while browsing the web.

nvidia-power-management-mode.jpg

Edited by Koroth
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7 hours ago, Koroth said:

Just for future reference, quite often the cause for stuttering is the power management setting of your graphics card. For Nvidia the default setting is "Optimal Power". That puts your graphics card in its lowest power state faster and is sluggish to clock up. This can result in stuttering, lag or screen tearing. For gaming the "Adaptive Mode" is better. Adaptive Mode switches to a higher power state and thus higher clocks faster. Sometimes its even necessary to select "Prefer Maximum Performance" which forces the card in its highest power state. It is best to set the power management on a per game \ emulator basis, because for most of the time "Optimal Power" is fine. You don't want your graphics card on full throttle while browsing the web.

nvidia-power-management-mode.jpg

Thank you so much for this.

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  • 1 year later...

I did the ugliest thing I could do because I was already tired of trying everythin with no results. I am in windows so I hide the taskbar and made a "false" fullscreen configuration, I have 1920 X 1080 resolution so I changed the values for -1 pixel for each property in the retroarch.cfg XD

video_fullscreen_x = "1919"
video_fullscreen_y = "1079"

so now I have a fullscreen that is not fullscreen but has no lag xD

Edited by NEss
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