APU-based Lakka system compatibility?

Libretro Lakka
#21

[QUOTE=gouchi;40366]I tried lastest build x86_64 (20160602230629) and it works. Can you try with another usb port and/or usb stick ?[/QUOTE]I’m unable to get that one installed. Completely formatted my target drive, tried three times in a row, kept getting the ‘prepare_sysroot’ error.

Not sure how a different USB port or stick would change anything, as the image remains unaltered anyway but I’ll give it a try regardless.

EDIT: Tried a completely different USB using a completely different USB port, still ‘prepare_sysroot’ error for build 20160602230629.

A fresh Lakka install with May’s build (20160511215003), no settings altered, no content loaded shows no selectable audio devices whatsoever. When I check ‘System Information’ everything starting from ‘OpenAL Support’ to ‘XAudio2 Support’ has a ‘no’ next to it. I’d very much like to know what is causing this? It worked fine this afternoon and now it’s back to square one, at least on the audio side of things.

#22

First, I mean to try with live usb without installing it. You shouldn’t have the error.

#23

I’d much rather have Lakka fully installed together with roms on the same SSD though. However, yes I have tested it and of course it runs live, though there is still the missing audio devices issue.

#24

Right, I managed to find a workaround for getting audio whilst running Lakka live on the APU. Like I said on the first page of this topic: when using the R7 250 card I am able to select multiple audio devices. After doing so, I then selected ‘Save current config’ from the Lakka dashboard, shutdown the system, took out the R7 250, went back to the APU and things are back to normal for -cerberus-. Whilst I’d prefer to see everything running off of a speedy SSD, I’m currently using a Sony 4GB USB 2.0 stick. It’s better than nothing I suppose.

However it should be noted that if anybody else with an AMD APU encounters the same issue as I have in the future, they might not always have a discrete graphics card handy. In which case I’m afraid I can’t be of any help. I really haven’t a clue why currently a fresh install of Lakka on an APU-based system – be it a full install or running the OS live – results in the user not being able to select audio devices. Something that needs to be taken into account as well is that this might very well be an isolated case. I wish I had various APU motherboards and processors for further testing but alas I do not. Hopefully the Lakka devs will get to the bottom of it someday.

I shall linger around these forums still, and report back should I bump into any other issues or fixes.

#25

Short update on the performance of the ASRock Q1900DC-ITX motherboard with integrated Celeron J1900 2GHz cpu. Of course I didn’t expect much of it but this is a full-blown disaster when it comes to running more demanding N64 games (Biohazard 2, Episode I Racer, Majora’s Mask, Nightmare Creatures, etc.). For some reason I am also unable to detect Lakka on my home network (didn’t have too many issues with it before) so I am forced to use a secondary USB stick with roms. Hence I’m also unable to test roms that require a BIOS in the system folder, it would’ve been interesting to see if the J1900 could handle PS1 emulation – Incidentally, will Lakka ever support direct USB to Lakka file transfer?

In short, for anyone who might be reading this, a Bay Trail J1900 is not suited for N64 emulation or above. I’m better off running the entire thing off of the AMD APU

EDIT: Lowering the resolution from 640x480 to 320x240 is of course one way to get some demanding N64 games to run (Majora’s Mask, Mario Kart 64) but they won’t look pretty. Whether one prefers a stable framerate over eye-candy is up for debate, but lowering the good ol’ trick of lowering the resolution applies in some cases.

#26

I tried with x86_64 20160602230629 and I’m able to reproduce the error

#27

Ah, that’s good. Which error are you referring to though; the ‘prepare_sysroot’-error when installing Lakka onto an SSD/HDD?

#28

Good grief, I’m having quite a lot of trouble making Lakka show up on my network. I don’t understand how it worked perfectly yesterday and the days before, none of the network settings on my desktop were altered, file sharing is turned, etc. I have tested both the latest (20160607151111) and penultimate (20160602230629) nightlies live, but to no avail.

EDIT: By the way, shall I report all of this on githhub from now on? Because I’ve reported a fair bit of issues in this topic now…

#29

Your install issue should be fixed with this nightly build. About network share did you try to put directly ip address instead of \LAKKA ? You can get ip address with Main Tab > Information > Network Information.

#30

That’s great, I’ll try that particular nightly later tonight and report back. EDIT 19:23 – Works swell, installed without any issues. Thanks for fixing this, gents.

Before I do so, I’ve checked the current nightly (20160607151111) and I’m indeed getting two IP addresses: I assume it’s the (eth0) one? Forgive my ignorance but where should I input this particular IP address (I mean, in the Putty program or something else)? Because inputting Lakka’s IP address in my browser gives me an ‘Unable to Connect’ error.

#31

Yes it should be eth0 if you are connected by ethernet. You should input lakka ip in your file browser like \192.168.0.X or use Windows key+R shorcut :wink:

#32

EDIT: Fixed! Thank you!

And now for some Bay Trail PS1 emulation testing. 60fps or GTFO. I shall return…

#33

Back from testing the Q1900DC-ITX with a variety of PS1 games. The results are what I expected: most games run fine but not optimally. Although many are plagued with slowdowns and hiccups, those are primarily games that were released later in the system’s lifecycle. Also, no upping the resolution here, you’ll have to make do with native 1x. All versions tested are NTSC-U/J unless stated otherwise.

[V] = Playable [X] = Unplayable

[V] Adventures of Lomax -- Very minor hiccups
[X] Alien Resurrection -- Frequent minor hiccups. (*)
[V] Biohazard: Director's Cut - Dual Shock Edition -- The only game that ran at 2x. Makes sense since the environments are all pre-rendered.
[V] Biohazard 2
[V] Biohazard 3 Last Escape
[V] Crash Bandicoot 2 Cortex Strikes Back -- Barely noticable drops in framerate.
[X] Crash Bandicoot 3 Warped -- Major slowdowns. Opening hub portals to enter levels halves the framerate instantly.
[V] Dino Crisis
[X] MediEvil -- Frequent minor hiccups.
[V] Nightmare Creatures
[V] Rosco McQueen
[X] Silent Hill -- Frequent minor hiccups.
[X] Tekken 3 -- Major performance issues. Strange, because I've seen this running fine on a RPi 3.
[X] Tomba! -- Noticable performance issues. Idem Tekken 3.
[X] Spyro the Dragon -- Major slowdowns.
[V] Wipeout 3 Special Edition -- PAL exclusive.

(*) Something odd happened when I accidentally toggled the controller vibration option in Alien Resurrection’s options menu: my Xbox 360 controller kept vibrating long after I had closed the game. Had to unplug the pad for it to go away.

In closing, based on the tests so far, it’s obvious that the Celeron J1900 does not come recommended for PS1 emulation or above unless one is willing to make some serious compromises in the resolution and/or framerate department. Hope this was of some interest to someone.

#34

[QUOTE=-cerberus-;40520]Back from testing the Q1900DC-ITX with a variety of PS1 games. The results are what I expected: most games run fine but not optimally. Although many are plagued with slowdowns and hiccups, those are primarily games that were released later in the system’s lifecycle. Also, no upping the resolution here, you’ll have to make do with native 1x. All versions tested are NTSC-U/J unless stated otherwise.

[V] = Playable [X] = Unplayable

[V] Adventures of Lomax -- Very minor hiccups
[X] Alien Resurrection -- Frequent minor hiccups. (*)
[V] Biohazard: Director's Cut - Dual Shock Edition -- The only game that ran at 2x. Makes sense since the environments are all pre-rendered.
[V] Biohazard 2
[V] Biohazard 3 Last Escape
[V] Crash Bandicoot 2 Cortex Strikes Back -- Barely noticable drops in framerate.
[X] Crash Bandicoot 3 Warped -- Major slowdowns. Opening hub portals to enter levels halves the framerate instantly.
[V] Dino Crisis
[X] MediEvil -- Frequent minor hiccups.
[V] Nightmare Creatures
[V] Rosco McQueen
[X] Silent Hill -- Frequent minor hiccups.
[X] Tekken 3 -- Major performance issues. Strange, because I've seen this running fine on a RPi 3.
[X] Tomba! -- Noticable performance issues. Idem Tekken 3.
[X] Spyro the Dragon -- Major slowdowns.
[V] Wipeout 3 Special Edition -- PAL exclusive.

(*) Something odd happened when I accidentally toggled the controller vibration option in Alien Resurrection’s options menu: my Xbox 360 controller kept vibrating long after I had closed the game. Had to unplug the pad for it to go away.

In closing, based on the tests so far, it’s obvious that the Celeron J1900 does not come recommended for PS1 emulation or above unless one is willing to make some serious compromises in the resolution and/or framerate department. Hope this was of some interest to someone. [/QUOTE] Thanks for all your contributions! Many things you posted helped me a lot. I also noticed that now there are 2 builds for each x86 and x64 releases, bios and EFI! Will test them later on my Pipo X7S with 32bit UEFI!

#35

^ You’re welcome, mate. Glad it helped someone.

–

Alright, I did a full install on my definitive setup (well, the one I’ll be using until I start my mini server project) and I’m back with some other random bits of info and a few questions. Just to sum things up, here are the full specs:

MB: ASRock Q1900DC-ITX CPU: Intel Celeron J1900 @ 2GHz onboard RAM: Corsair ValueSelect 2x2GB DDR3-1333MHz SSD: Crucial M550 256GB mSATA (+ DeLock mSATA to SATA adapter) PSU: Trust Primo Laptop Charger 70W 19V OS: LAKKA (20160607150900) INPUT: Official Microsoft Xbox 360 Controller

  • Timed the following: 12s coldboot 12s shutdown 27s reboot 21s emulation startup 21s emulation shutdown

  • Questions:

  1. Everytime at startup the menu scrolls up and down rapidly and stops after about 5s (or until I touch the controller). I’ve seen this happen before with other devices, this is because of the Xbox 360 controller. However, are there other LAKKA users experiencing this?

  2. 21s for emulation startup and shutdown regardless of rom, isn’t that a bit excessive?

  3. I’ve briefly touched on this in my previous post but now I’ve noticed many PS1 games that use the rumble feature cause my Xbox 360 controller to vibrate until I either unplug or shutdown the system.

#36

ACHTUNG!

[QUOTE=-cerberus-;40539]… 21s emulation startup 21s emulation shutdown … 2) 21s for emulation startup and shutdown regardless of rom, isn’t that a bit excessive?[/QUOTE]For some reason, these long startup and shutdown times are caused by the network cable being plugged in. I’ve quadruple checked this: starting up and shutting down any rom without a network cable attached, unfailingly, is instantaneous. Plugging the network cable back in results in overlong emulation startup & shutdown times. Did I miss something somewhere in the settings perhaps?

Are you able to reproduce this issue, gouchi/Kivutar/others?

#37

Got a new speedy SanDisk USB stick in the mail this morning and what better way to give it a test drive than with Lakka. Incidentally, I also wanted to see how my more powerful i7 & GTX760-based office system would handle Lakka emulation

Setup 20160607150900, added a few roms via another system and ran it live from the new USB stick on the i7 system. Navigating the dashboard works perfectly but launching a rom, any rom, instantly throws me back on the dashboard. Took out the GTX760, ran it live using just the i7; same story. Unplugged the stick, tried on two other systems (A10-based and the J-1900-based), worked perfectly.

Any reason why Lakka has trouble launching roms on that particular system?

#38

Regarding your troubles with audio detection on apu builds. I’m using a amd a1 5350 for my lakka box and have a similar problem. It won’t allow me to choose an audio device. And unlike you I don’t have a spare gpu… or even a case big enough to fit one. You know of a workaround for it… or am i out of luck?

#39

A spare GPU is the only workaround I’ve found so far, it grieves me to say. For the time being, I think you’re out of luck.

Say, have you been able to test out PS1 and N64 games with the 5350? I’d be grateful if you could elaborate on the performance it has to offer. I’m curious to know which framerates you get and at what resolution.

#40

For the audio issue, can you try to provide a log (You need to access lakka command line interface first) ?

and get the output of :

lsmod | grep snd

aplay -l

Thank you.