Settings that impact startup? RA hangs at launch

SkyHighGam3r · 15 July 2018 05:19

I’ve noticed that RetroArch is having trouble loading on my system in the last 2 releases. (1.7.2 and 1.7.3) (Windows 10)

When launching a game from my frontend (HyperSpin/RocketLauncher), it pull up as normal and “Configuration Override Loaded” will show. - except it hangs there for about 8 seconds before even a boot screen will play through - during this period I can’t call the RA menu or fast forward or anything.

When launching directly from the .exe, the menu will show, but for those several seconds at launch It does not respond to input commands.

After several seconds it ‘clicks’ and starts moving - but it never used to do this for me and the behavior is odd as I can’t seem to track down any setting that might cause it. Is anyone else experiencing this issue, or have any suggestions?

hunterk · 15 July 2018 13:37

Can you load from a command line with the --verbose switch? You should be able to see what messages are displayed before/after the hang.

You can also try moving your retroarch.cfg to another directory temporarily and see if that speeds it up. If it does, you have an option somewhere that’s causing it, and you should be able to determine what it is by bisecting it (that is, delete half of the options, if it fixes it, delete half of that half, if not, delete the other half; rinse, repeat).

SkyHighGam3r · 15 July 2018 18:11

Oh ho! Because RA will generate the missing values in the config! I can’t believe I never thought of that - I’ll try those suggestions later today and report back. Thanks!

aorin1 · 15 July 2018 23:30

It’s happening here in the latest builds, it’s taking much more time to open, close content lately, it used to instantly, what can cause this?

hunterk · 16 July 2018 00:01

Have you tried moving your config away to see if that speeds it back up?

aorin1 · 16 July 2018 00:18

Yeah, I forgot mention that. I deleted the retroarch.cfg and the retroarch core.cfg, also tried deleting the specific core config inside config folder, it still takes more time to load/unload content and close Retroarch. Could it be some kind of configuration in the Nvidia control panel or is it something I can track with a log?

hunterk · 16 July 2018 00:20

Best thing to do is download different nightlies and see if you can pin down when it started.

aorin1 · 16 July 2018 00:28

Will do, and also I’ll make sure to run it clean in another drive. I’m almost sure it’s something here.

SkyHighGam3r · 20 July 2018 15:40

I totally forgot about playing with this (busy week) but I can tell you that I have defender permanently disabled via the registry. I don’t use ANY antivirus or spyware programs.

Yeah yeah, call me crazy, w/e - anyway so I know it’s nothing coming from there.

I do bring my drive with me ‘everywhere’ I go though, and I get the same result on my work computer.

SkyHighGam3r · 19 August 2018 08:09

So, I hooked my setup up to a third screen and noticed something.

My desktop @ 1280x960 is 4:3, and would have side letterboxes on this 3rd display - BUT when I would open RetroArch the screen would flash like it was changing resolution, and when it came back on it said “1280x960” in the corner - also as if it had changed. It also had a different color profile (whites were yellowed) and was stretched to 16:9 after launch.

Played with every setting I could think of and nothing fixed it - and then I did a fresh nightly install… and despite having done this previously, The problem is now gone…

So I went through and re-setup everything, but did so one-by-one while re-opening the program to identify what setting was causing this.

Except it didn’t happen again… So it’s fixed, but I have no idea why…