Did the past couple beta releases fix the vrr stuttering issue in big box menus?

[Hamburglin]

The big box menu is choppy and stutters when you have and variable refresh on (gsync or free sync). It's very obvious when scrolling through games.

However, I updated today and see that it's smoother again, like no vrr is on. I checked my video card settings and vrr is definitely still on.

Has anyone else noticed this or is it just me?

I was told in the past that it's an issue with the older library or package used to create bix box's ui. Maybe that got updated on the side?

[C-Beats]

19 hours ago, Hamburglin said:

The big box menu is choppy and stutters when you have and variable refresh on (gsync or free sync). It's very obvious when scrolling through games.

However, I updated today and see that it's smoother again, like no vrr is on. I checked my video card settings and vrr is definitely still on.

Has anyone else noticed this or is it just me?

I was told in the past that it's an issue with the older library or package used to create bix box's ui. Maybe that got updated on the side?

Not entirely sure when you saw the issue and how long you've been holding out updating. We have moved in not so recent past to a newer version of .NET and it's possible it was corrected in that move. We haven't intentionally touched any code to make that difference, but I'll take the accidental win ;D

[Hamburglin]

Very cool. Any idea when the cutover was? I noticed sometime during this 13 version.

I'll double check that it's working as well.

[C-Beats]

Just now, Hamburglin said:

Very cool. Any idea when the cutover was? I noticed sometime during this 13 version.

I'll double check that it's working as well.

Had to check changelog. We moved to .NET 6.0 (from .NET Core 3.1) in version 13.3 about a year ago.

[Hamburglin]

1 minute ago, C-Beats said:

Had to check changelog. We moved to .NET 6.0 (from .NET Core 3.1) in version 13.3 about a year ago.

Got it.

I just checked again after doing a reboot and ensuring that VRR was enabled.

Sadly, I was wrong. I'm not sure why it was smooth after a reboot yesterday. Maybe vrr was temporarily disabled.

The framerste is still fought over as you can see with the fps changing (its not a performance issue), which causes the uneven scrolling.

The video was taken after a fresh reboot.

 

 

[skizzosjt]

@Hamburglin this was an issue plaguing me for a couple years, the moment I started using a Samsung QN90A TV and I enable VRR which looks like you also have a recent Samsung TV based on that "Game Bar" I see in the video. I don't think the issue is related to TV settings though.

I am not sure when the issue stopped happening to me, but I no longer have issues in Big Box with horrible stuttering (mostly). All animations looked atrocious when VRR was on....Like ~15 FPS territory. My work around was to make Big Box a "game" (profile) in Radeon Settings and toggle the VRR/Freesync to be OFF for this program. This still allowed VRR to engage when other games/apps could make use of it. However, after one time I updated GPU drivers (I always fully remove the current one before going to the new one I am installing) I completely forgot to redo my Big Box setup workaround. Because I did the uninstall it removed all my saved profiles. So I've been going for at least several months now without the issue. So, something changed between point A and B,  I have no clue what though. I also was never able to turn on Radeon Image Sharpening as it would cause a boatload of artifacts within Big Box. But this was another option I could toggle off for just Big Box by using a profile in Radeon Settings. This issue no longer exists for me either!

Though the problem is mostly gone for me now, I still notice the FPS counter in the Game Bar looks like it is going nuts all the time when Big Box is the active window, just like your video shows, but unlike what you share, animations look smooth like they should for me.

Now the only time I have issues with this problem returning is sometimes exiting certain games and returning to Big Box. When I return to the frontend it starts the issue again, mostly happens with native Windows games, but I want to say every once in a while maybe when exiting some other emulators. I am using scripts with the Windows games so my workaround for this is adding a couple keystrokes, ALT+TAB when I return to the frontend. Even when Big Box is literally the only window existing on the system the problem can occur yet a super basic ALT+TAB fully resolves it.....so seems to have something to do focus in my experience. AHK sends the ALT+TAB so quick you don't usually even see the tab switching window appear.

Can you make the issue go away with an ALT+TAB ?

Alternatively if you have Steam running (just needs to be running, doesn't need to be the active window or anything like that), the default way to ALT+TAB with a controller is holding the Guide button and then press Start. That is assuming you also have the "Guide Button Chords" option enabled, it's Steam Input would need to be enabled for Guide Button Chords to work (check Steam Settings > Controller. option is last one at bottom of this screen)

[Hamburglin]

Thanks. I'm using a nuc hades canyon that has an integrated Radeon card that has special radeon (and now intel) drivers that seems to never get updated.

I'll try setting up a profile for big box and see if I can turn vrr off for it.

That said, I don't think alt + tab fixes anything. 

[skizzosjt]

ahh bummer that simply doesn't resolve it. this is the setting I had to change in Radeon Settings.  this is specifically only found in profiles.

[skizzosjt]

in a twisted bit of irony I just updated GPU drivers over the weekend going from ones from August 2023 23.8.2 to latest of April 2024 24.4.1 and problem for me has returned. no clue if I had some magic setting enabled/disabled to prevent it or what, but I'd like to lean on "no". even went back to previous 23.8.2 drivers to see if it would go away again. no luck there. so, now I'm back to requiring a profile for Big Box to disable both VRR and image sharpening. on the plus side, at least the workaround I detailed still works

[Hamburglin]

I literally just did that trick after adding big box as a "game" in the Radeon drivers.

It works. Thank you!

[cybermat]

Just now, cybermat said:

On 5/6/2024 at 3:30 AM, skizzosjt said:

in a twisted bit of irony I just updated GPU drivers over the weekend going from ones from August 2023 23.8.2 to latest of April 2024 24.4.1 and problem for me has returned. no clue if I had some magic setting enabled/disabled to prevent it or what, but I'd like to lean on "no". even went back to previous 23.8.2 drivers to see if it would go away again. no luck there. so, now I'm back to requiring a profile for Big Box to disable both VRR and image sharpening. on the plus side, at least the workaround I detailed still works

 

On 5/6/2024 at 3:32 AM, Hamburglin said:

I literally just did that trick after adding big box as a "game" in the Radeon drivers.

It works. Thank you!

Could you please check this use case ?

Game profile for Big Box with VRR OFF --> No stutter is all smooth
Enter a Nes/Genesis/Snes game with a refresh of 60 (usually NTSC) --> VRR is working ? According to my experience VRR is not able to activate itself when you pass from BigBox with VRR off to the game you've selected. 

I have the latest amd drivers and a RX 6400 (24.5.1)

 

[skizzosjt]

hi @cybermat my experience is different than yours. consider what we are doing with this profile setting. we turn VRR off for a single program, Big Box. it has no impact on any other program or game and its use of VRR. this is the point of making it a profile adjustment, rather than a global adjustment. I use a variety of emulators and play many storefront games all being launched from Big Box and VRR works as expected for everything else. I've never had an issue with VRR engaging when a game is launched from Big Box, even when VRR is disabled for just Big Box through a game profile in AMD Radeon Settings.

edit: test with a modern game that is going to push your GPU. prove to yourself that VRR doesn't work if you launched a modern game from Big Box that cannot run at the max Hz of your display. the old consoles you mention can run on a low spec potato system. VRR isn't really very helpful there since they should be at their max FPS output the whole time. you could enable v-sync and get the same benefit which is just preventing screen tearing. unless you're getting screen tearing on these NES/SNES/Genesis games then VRR is working (assuming v-sync is off too.....if v-sync is on then turn that off to make sure VRR is engaged)

Edited June 25 by skizzosjt

[cybermat]

15 hours ago, skizzosjt said:

hi @cybermat my experience is different than yours. consider what we are doing with this profile setting. we turn VRR off for a single program, Big Box. it has no impact on any other program or game and its use of VRR. this is the point of making it a profile adjustment, rather than a global adjustment. I use a variety of emulators and play many storefront games all being launched from Big Box and VRR works as expected for everything else. I've never had an issue with VRR engaging when a game is launched from Big Box, even when VRR is disabled for just Big Box through a game profile in AMD Radeon Settings.

edit: test with a modern game that is going to push your GPU. prove to yourself that VRR doesn't work if you launched a modern game from Big Box that cannot run at the max Hz of your display. the old consoles you mention can run on a low spec potato system. VRR isn't really very helpful there since they should be at their max FPS output the whole time. you could enable v-sync and get the same benefit which is just preventing screen tearing. unless you're getting screen tearing on these NES/SNES/Genesis games then VRR is working (assuming v-sync is off too.....if v-sync is on then turn that off to make sure VRR is engaged)

In retroarch vsync and vrr should stay on, it's a RA spec.

The user case is from Big Box with VRR off, if retroarch is used for nes / snes / genesis and you launch a game with 60 hz what you see on hud display ? What OS are you using ? There are a lot of variables, OS, monitor used and so on.

Unfortunately seems that a few users use Launchbox with VRR monitor, because i didn't see many posts about it.

EDIT : maybe i found out the root cause of my issue. This happens just with Retroarch (for the moment). If i start Retroarch in fullscreen and i come from Big Box with VRR OFF, there's no way to activate VRR on Retroarch. What i did to solve my issue is removing -f command under Launchbox Emulator section and put under Hotkey script to press ALT ENTER after some seconds after RA has been launched. This works like a charm, 

 

Edited June 26 by cybermat