Extreme Input Delay in Mame and RetroArch while using BigBox only

[SilverFrankie01]

Over the last few days my games in BigBox have EXTREME input delay. From what I’ve tested it’s only with Mame and Retroarch platforms. However it is only input delay. The games are running at full speed, music and all, and looking at my task manager everything seems normal.

If I boot up the arcade versions of Ms. PAC-Man or Street Fighter 3 with Mame, say I go left, then right, then left. The inputs will work for the first few. Then I’ll either get inputs receiving a whole 10+ seconds after inputting them or they won’t input at all. Same with NES or Atari Jaguar or any other system I’ve tested that uses RetroArch. Also, oddly the same with SEGA Naomi at well, which is using Demul. Regardless of if I use an Xbox controller or arcade buttons/keyboard controls on these emulators I get extreme input delay, even in Mame and Retroarch’s settings.

Here is all I’ve troubleshooted so far:

It’s not a controller problem since it’s happening with multiple controllers.

Its not a hardware problem that I know of because everything looks normal with no spikes in task manager

It ONLY happens when booting these emulators through BIG Box. Launchbox works perfectly fine like normal, booting the emulators straight through RocketLauncher works fine, and the emulators on their own work perfectly fine.

The BIG Box menu UI does NOT slow down. It’s only the games themselves and their emulator’s menus that do. Once I back out of the game everything’s fine again. 

I do not think it is some weird settings change either considering I restored a backup of when BigBox was working (to my knowledge) and the issue persists. I could be wrong on this though as I have not used BigBox as much recently before this.

It is also not the work of some specific BigBox theme. No matter what themes I use or how many times I refresh image caches and what-not the issue persists.

any ideas??  Help would be much appreciated.

 

[C-Beats]

15 hours ago, SilverFrankie01 said:

Over the last few days my games in BigBox have EXTREME input delay. From what I’ve tested it’s only with Mame and Retroarch platforms. However it is only input delay. The games are running at full speed, music and all, and looking at my task manager everything seems normal.

If I boot up the arcade versions of Ms. PAC-Man or Street Fighter 3 with Mame, say I go left, then right, then left. The inputs will work for the first few. Then I’ll either get inputs receiving a whole 10+ seconds after inputting them or they won’t input at all. Same with NES or Atari Jaguar or any other system I’ve tested that uses RetroArch. Also, oddly the same with SEGA Naomi at well, which is using Demul. Regardless of if I use an Xbox controller or arcade buttons/keyboard controls on these emulators I get extreme input delay, even in Mame and Retroarch’s settings.

Here is all I’ve troubleshooted so far:

It’s not a controller problem since it’s happening with multiple controllers.

Its not a hardware problem that I know of because everything looks normal with no spikes in task manager

It ONLY happens when booting these emulators through BIG Box. Launchbox works perfectly fine like normal, booting the emulators straight through RocketLauncher works fine, and the emulators on their own work perfectly fine.

The BIG Box menu UI does NOT slow down. It’s only the games themselves and their emulator’s menus that do. Once I back out of the game everything’s fine again. 

I do not think it is some weird settings change either considering I restored a backup of when BigBox was working (to my knowledge) and the issue persists. I could be wrong on this though as I have not used BigBox as much recently before this.

It is also not the work of some specific BigBox theme. No matter what themes I use or how many times I refresh image caches and what-not the issue persists.

any ideas??  Help would be much appreciated.

 

Only thing I could think of trying is to go to Options and look in the controller section. Make sure to DISABLE the "Use All controllers" options. To make this work we have to poll your computer for new devices regularly which can cause some delays on some machines for unknown reasons. Typically we hear about stuttering mouse pointers, not sure I've heard of input delay ever being caused by the app though. Let me know if changing it solves it so I can leave a note for the team should this come up again.

[SilverFrankie01]

Sadly that did not work. The issue still persists, and still only within certain emulators. Here’s a video of the issue at hand. Here’s also a look at my task manager in both Big Box and LaunchBox (LB has no lag) while running Ms PAC-Man on MAME. They look pretty identical. Should I do some type of reinstall of BigBox at this point?

13 hours ago, C-Beats said:

Only thing I could think of trying is to go to Options and look in the controller section. Make sure to DISABLE the "Use All controllers" options. To make this work we have to poll your computer for new devices regularly which can cause some delays on some machines for unknown reasons. Typically we hear about stuttering mouse pointers, not sure I've heard of input delay ever being caused by the app though. Let me know if changing it solves it so I can leave a note for the team should this come up again.

 

[C-Beats]

Not entirely sure at the moment then unfortunately. You can try a new install and see if that helps. I'd not uninstall your current one just incase it doesn't affect it you don't have to rebuild everything out..

[SilverFrankie01]

22 minutes ago, C-Beats said:

Not entirely sure at the moment then unfortunately. You can try a new install and see if that helps. I'd not uninstall your current one just incase it doesn't affect it you don't have to rebuild everything out..

I installed the same version over my existing one and it did not solve the issue. Out of curiosity I ran HyperSpin instead of LaunchBox and the emulators are operating perfectly fine there as well. I’m extremely stumped as this problem seemingly came out of nowhere and nothing is running in the background. Especially since it is ONLY in BigBox and the BigBox menus (and some of my emulators) are working fine. Everything’s at 60 hz as well.

[C-Beats]

Yeah, I've never heard of anyone having an issue like that so I'm not entirely sure how best to help you out. I'll ask around and see if I can come up with something.

[SilverFrankie01]

On 7/16/2024 at 9:29 AM, C-Beats said:

Yeah, I've never heard of anyone having an issue like that so I'm not entirely sure how best to help you out. I'll ask around and see if I can come up with something.

I am thinking it may have had something to do with an antivirus deleting something that BigBox uses, causing it to operate incorrectly.. but I have no idea.

[SilverFrankie01]

56 minutes ago, SilverFrankie01 said:

I am thinking it may have had something to do with an antivirus deleting something that BigBox uses, causing it to operate incorrectly.. but I have no idea.

New discovery. I did a fresh install of LaunchBox onto another part of the same drive. Added a singular emulator to test it out and it works perfectly in BigBox. So something really weird is going on with the settings of the original install. Is there an easy way to transfer all my platforms and images from the original install to the working fresh install so I don’t have to re add all my games manually?