Android 120hz display jittery scrolling

[aorin1]

I’m new to these higher refresh rate displays, and I’m surprised that it’s very hard to get smooth scrolling as I get in the old 2011 LCD TV I got, I mean, the old TV is really smooth, no jitters, no micro stutters, just smooth gameplay overall.

The device is a Poco Pad on Android 16, Snapdragon 7s Gen2 with 8GB RAM

I can force it to run on either 60/90/120hz, but the recommended is to use the auto mode, still, no matter what mode I choose, I can never get the smooth scrolling I get on the old TV with little to no fiddling AND with runahead+shaders, no issues there.

What I’ve tried so far, setting video driver to either Vulkan/GL, changing sync settings, activating the VRR option, sometimes I almost get there, the sound doesn’t crack, unless I turn off V-Sync and things like that.

I must be doing something wrong, standalone applications such as PPSSPP/Dolphin and native games run so smoothly, there must be something I’m missing as it’s clearly a miscommunication between Retroarch and the display driver, what can I do to solve this?

[hunterk]

Usually, setting vsync swap interval to 2 for 120 Hz should be smooth.

[aorin1]

I set Vsync Swap Interval to 2 and the game indeed played with very smooth scrolling, after a few minutes, I noticed uneven frame pacing plus sound crackling, so I took a few screenshots showing my current settings and a short video showing the deviation that’s caused for some reason I`m still not sure what that is, also, I imagine I should activate Sync to Exact Content Framerate?

The last one shows I can either use default or force a specific rate from 60/90/120hz, I set default mostly.

https://youtu.be/OfQ8TgXV-oU

[hunterk]

that dynamic refresh rate thing is probably why it’s going wrong over time.

[aorin1]

Any ideas, can I solve this?

[hunterk]

Can you take it off dynamic and set it to static 120 Hz?

[aorin1]

It looks as if whether I choose Default of force 120hz, Retroarch will use the fastest refresh, unless I force 60.

I recorded this short clip showing the Scrolling Test in Test Suite 240p for the Genesis, the tablet can only self record at 90FPS at best but it’s enough to illustrate how jerky it is, the video makes it look as it’s much worse but on the device itself it’s not THAT noticeable, but it’s not as smooth as in my old 2011 TV.

https://youtu.be/3W4Gz4v0gN8

[hunterk]

so, forced 120 hz (i.e., not dynamic) and vsync swap interval of 2 still gets choppy after a while?

[aorin1]

I just recorded setting 120hz (forced) and immediately starting Retroarch and running the Scrolling Test, while there’s no sound crackling in normal gameplay, I can totally see the scrolling isn’t smooth. I set the video driver to GL, but Vulkan behaves the same:

https://youtu.be/-N3w_qokv0k

I set the video recorder to 90FPS, but it seems Youtube sets it to 48FPS for some reason, I might re-record in 60 and see if that illustrates better the scrolling issue.

This is the recording after setting the Video Recorder to 60FPS instead of 90, I’m only keeping the above one as it shows I forced the refresh rate to 120hz:

https://youtu.be/fZeBfhmU9gs

Edit: I just tested a standalone MD emulator (MD.Emu) and ran the scrolling test, using 120hz, it still has jittery scrolling, even though it has a lot of Frame Timing options, I forced the screen to 60 and the test shows a smoother scrolling, but playing the recording back on the PC it’s clear the recorder isn’t ideal for that as it displays more jitter than it actually happens during the test.

So, I think it’s not Retroarch and probably I cannot do much else as it seems to be my device’s fault, they don’t build these things for retro gaming, that’s sad but it’s what I think it’s happening.

[aorin1]

To wrap it up I used the smartphone to record the scrolling test while forcing the screen to 60 and I think it works much better, the initial stutters of the recording weren’t present, it’s just the app caching the video I think:

Also, I noticed Youtube adds jitter that doesn’t exist in my local recording video file: So I uploaded the raw recording to a temporary link in case you’d like checking it out, it’s very short.

VID_20260403_143310.mp4 - TempFile.org

I’ll force the screen to 60 as I noticed it gets rid of the scrolling issue, mostly.