Choppy performance and stuttering issues in Retroarch and other emulators (SOLVED)

[zorkiii]

Just wanted to share a scenario I ran into and what fixed it, in case it helps anyone else. I bought a new Samsung TV over the weekend and hooked up my PC running Launchbox via HDMI, and everything was working fine. I launched into my Windows games folder and played some, everything was working great.

Then I launched a few games from other emulators that use Retroarch and everything was performing super slow and choppy, audio was stuttering at 1/2 speed. Since I had been playing other games without any issues, I initially thought there was something wrong with Retroarch so I installed a clean version, but this didn't fix anything. I then thought maybe I have some system issues and began uninstalling any recent software to check it again but no change. I also noticed this was happening with a few other emulators, but strangely not with Mame or Windows games and a few other emulators.

Anyways to make a long story short, I wasted a few hours pulling out my hair and going backwards in config on several portions of the system only to find that the refresh rate on my PC had changed when connecting to the new TV...... I'm on Windows 10, I just right clicked on the desktop and went to Display Settings > Display Adapter Properties > Monitor tab, and noticed the refresh rate was set to 29 Hertz (?). Setting this to 60 Hertz resolved the problem. It must have been that my previous TV had this refresh rate? I'm really not sure honestly.

Glad it's resolved, but feeling silly I didn't think of it *before* going down a rabbit hole that led me to screw up all my Retroarch settings. 

[Charco]

I had the exact same issue some time ago when I connected my old laptop running RetroArch to my new Samsung tv also, glad you got it sorted

[Justin Whyte]

@zorkiii Thank you so much for sharing this! I had my entire gaming PC setup exactly how I wanted. I hooked it up to my Samsung TV, and experienced the same issue. After completely installing Windows, the issue still persists. I was about to lose it when I saw your post. 29hz. Same issue. Thank you for saving me from scrapping my system altogether!

[BigSpoonyBard]

Just hooked up my computer to the TV for the first time after everything worked perfectly on its own and had the same problem. I was hoping someone else had already solved the problem, and there you were. Thank you!

[smackm]

Thank You so much, had the exact same problem.

[stevebor1]

Thanks to this thread, I realized that my Lenovo m93p's integrated Intel 4600 can only output 30hz when running at 4K, which for me was causing the choppy audio as you mentioned above.

Switching the resolution down to 2K~ and a min of 60hz refresh rate solved the issue. Thank you!!

[neil9000]

23 minutes ago, stevebor1 said:

Thanks to this thread, I realized that my Lenovo m93p's integrated Intel 4600 can only output 30hz when running at 4K, which for me was causing the choppy audio as you mentioned above.

Switching the resolution down to 2K~ and a min of 60hz refresh rate solved the issue. Thank you!!

Actually its possible its your motherboard or your connection/cable, that IGPU does do 4K60 but you need either a HDMI 2.0 port and cable, or display port. Standard HDMI ports and standard HDMI cables that are not 2.0 certified can often do 4K30, but they dont have the bandwidth for 4K60. If i was you i would look into it, it could be that your motherboard supports 4K60, but you simply have a non spec HDMI cable without the needed bandwidth to transmit 4K60.

https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/80806/intel-core-i7-4790-processor-8m-cache-up-to-4-00-ghz.html

[stevebor1]

30 minutes ago, neil9000 said:

Actually its possible its your motherboard or your connection/cable, that IGPU does do 4K60 but you need either a HDMI 2.0 port and cable, or display port. Standard HDMI ports and standard HDMI cables that are not 2.0 certified can often do 4K30, but they dont have the bandwidth for 4K60. If i was you i would look into it, it could be that your motherboard supports 4K60, but you simply have a non spec HDMI cable without the needed bandwidth to transmit 4K60.

https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/80806/intel-core-i7-4790-processor-8m-cache-up-to-4-00-ghz.html

You are right, I am doing 4K (3840 x 2160) at 60Hz!, before I had my resolution set  to the highest (4096x2304), which was causing the stuttering. I forget that 3840 x 2160 is actually 4K
btw, I have a Intel i5, 4570T with DisplayPort 1.2 to HDMI which can push the 3840 x 2160 @ 60hz to the TV just fine.
 

[bc320]

On 9/19/2019 at 11:18 AM, neil9000 said:

Actually its possible its your motherboard or your connection/cable, that IGPU does do 4K60 but you need either a HDMI 2.0 port and cable, or display port. Standard HDMI ports and standard HDMI cables that are not 2.0 certified can often do 4K30, but they dont have the bandwidth for 4K60. If i was you i would look into it, it could be that your motherboard supports 4K60, but you simply have a non spec HDMI cable without the needed bandwidth to transmit 4K60.

https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/80806/intel-core-i7-4790-processor-8m-cache-up-to-4-00-ghz.html

OK

Dumb question.  How do I know if the HDMI cable can handle it?   know the GPU and MB can

 

[UncleBubba]

Greetings from the dystopian future year of 2020. I've been troubleshooting this problem for hours, and I can't believe the answer was this simple. Thank you. Now that this is solved, I'm going to go weld a cowcatcher to the front of my Honda so I can battle others for a roll of Charmin.

[Darren Wilson]

I've changed my settings and I'm still getting issues on my Samsung Q90t. Any other suggestions, you fine people? 

Many thanks, 

Daz

[Emulation_Guru]

On 2/7/2018 at 8:44 AM, zorkiii said:

Just wanted to share a scenario I ran into and what fixed it, in case it helps anyone else. I bought a new Samsung TV over the weekend and hooked up my PC running Launchbox via HDMI, and everything was working fine. I launched into my Windows games folder and played some, everything was working great.

Then I launched a few games from other emulators that use Retroarch and everything was performing super slow and choppy, audio was stuttering at 1/2 speed. Since I had been playing other games without any issues, I initially thought there was something wrong with Retroarch so I installed a clean version, but this didn't fix anything. I then thought maybe I have some system issues and began uninstalling any recent software to check it again but no change. I also noticed this was happening with a few other emulators, but strangely not with Mame or Windows games and a few other emulators.

Anyways to make a long story short, I wasted a few hours pulling out my hair and going backwards in config on several portions of the system only to find that the refresh rate on my PC had changed when connecting to the new TV...... I'm on Windows 10, I just right clicked on the desktop and went to Display Settings > Display Adapter Properties > Monitor tab, and noticed the refresh rate was set to 29 Hertz (?). Setting this to 60 Hertz resolved the problem. It must have been that my previous TV had this refresh rate? I'm really not sure honestly.

Glad it's resolved, but feeling silly I didn't think of it *before* going down a rabbit hole that led me to screw up all my Retroarch settings. 

i was so happy until i discovered im already at 60hz I am very sad i spent so long setting retroarch up so depressed.

[Fire_Blast07]

Actually i'm having the same issue, except the refresh rate for me is set to 144,000 hz. Changing it to 60,000 hz didn't work either. I heard people saying older version don't have these issues so i'm gonna try that later but this is still pretty frustrating.

[Hansnld]

Thank you so much!

I had this problem for a few minutes, did read some solutions that did not work or did not make sense. 
I tried your solution and it worked perfectly! Likewise, I am sure I would spend countless hours with reinstalling etc etc!
This did save me a lot of time!

Thanx a million!

[Typhoon68]

Great post!

I had the exact same problem with my LG TV connected to PC it was only working on 29Hz, changed to 60Hz and now Tekken3 on MAME runs great!

Thanks for sharing!

[Anton680x]

On 2/7/2018 at 6:44 AM, zorkiii said:

Just wanted to share a scenario I ran into and what fixed it, in case it helps anyone else. I bought a new Samsung TV over the weekend and hooked up my PC running Launchbox via HDMI, and everything was working fine. I launched into my Windows games folder and played some, everything was working great.

Then I launched a few games from other emulators that use Retroarch and everything was performing super slow and choppy, audio was stuttering at 1/2 speed. Since I had been playing other games without any issues, I initially thought there was something wrong with Retroarch so I installed a clean version, but this didn't fix anything. I then thought maybe I have some system issues and began uninstalling any recent software to check it again but no change. I also noticed this was happening with a few other emulators, but strangely not with Mame or Windows games and a few other emulators.

Anyways to make a long story short, I wasted a few hours pulling out my hair and going backwards in config on several portions of the system only to find that the refresh rate on my PC had changed when connecting to the new TV...... I'm on Windows 10, I just right clicked on the desktop and went to Display Settings > Display Adapter Properties > Monitor tab, and noticed the refresh rate was set to 29 Hertz (?). Setting this to 60 Hertz resolved the problem. It must have been that my previous TV had this refresh rate? I'm really not sure honestly.

Glad it's resolved, but feeling silly I didn't think of it *before* going down a rabbit hole that led me to screw up all my Retroarch settings. 

You are AWESOME !!  I cant believe refresh rate was the culprit this whole time...  LOL...  Thank you very Much

[R6EA6PE6R]

Thanks from 2024. I finally bought a new tv ( smart of course ) and I would have never ever guessed that was the issue .

I also did a clean install of retroarch , oh well half the fun is setting things up after all LOL .

I know this thread is old , but it is still its relevant .

[onipar]

Okay, so what if I have this exact same issue, only the PC, television, and retroarch are all already set to 60hz? 

[JoeViking245]

1 hour ago, onipar said:

Okay, so what if I have this exact same issue, only the PC, television, and retroarch are all already set to 60hz? 

tldr the whole thread, but someone on Discord had the stuttering issue recently and they turned vsync off and it appeared to fix their issue.