Poor FPS on BSNES balanced core on newish laptop

RetroArch General
#1

Hey guys

I am running retroarch on two of my computers. One of them is a 6 year old PC which is hooked up to my living room tv (720p). It performs flawlessly running Nestobia, BSNES balanced etc. cores with an NTSC scanline shader. This computer has a E6750 2.6 GHz cpu and an 8800GT video card.

The other computer has an identical retroarch setup (copied from the other PC). This one is a fairly newish Lenovo T420 laptop with Core i5-2540M 2.6 GHz CPU with Intel HD Graphics 3000 integrated graphics AND an Nvidia NVS 4200M GPU. The laptop struggles horribly with running BSNES balanced with the NTSC scanline shader (30-40 FPS, unplayable) and just barely manages to run games without any shaders, although I was trying to play Super Castlevania IV yesterday and it struggled with and without the shaders.

I am using Retroarch 1.0.0.0 64-bit. I did try the 1.0.0.2 update with the same results.

I find it strange that the laptop is having these issues. I’ve tried other SNES cores with similar results. Genesis runs OK, but I seemed to have similar issues with Nestobia.

Any ideas? Is it possible that the laptop isn’t powerful enough? I haven’t tried using the 32-bit version of Retroarch. Should I try that?

Any help greatly appreciated!

#2

And while I have this thread… What is the best way to update Retroarch? I have seperate configs for each system I emulate with specific borders and sometimes different shaders. Can I copy the config folders, borders etc. from the old Retroarch installation into the new one or do I need to set up each config again through the updated Retroarch?

#3

Sounds like the shaders are too heavy for your GPU. Unfortunately, HD3000 is pretty bad for shaders. HD4000 is good, but even it struggles above 720p, and maister’s NTSC shader is one of the heavier ones around.

Assuming Windows, yes, you can just move over your old cfgs, etc. and it should be fine.

#4

Thanks Hunter!

How about the 4200M? That one should run the shaders OK? I can play games from 5-6 years ago with no issues at all on the laptop.

I would think that the system would use the 4200M rather than the integrated graphics, but I might be wrong. Is there a way to force it?

EDIT

I’ve checked and Retroarch should use the 4200M by default… I might try and change it to use the integrated graphics instead to see if that makes any difference.

#5

Looks like those two GPUs are roughly similar in performance (HD3000 vs 4200M), while the HD4000 is about 30% faster.

#6

OK I see

I’m actually having slowdowns (not major, but enough to cause audio stuttering) even without any shaders…

I will continue testing various different configs to see whether I get any better results.

EDIT

Actually… I see that when using the integrated graphics, the shader won’t even load. Get error: Retroarch [ERROR] :: Failed to load shaders … Retroarch [ERROR] :: [GL] Failed to init shader, falling back to stock.

#7

Not sure if this will help with a laptop, but on my i5 2500k 3.3ghz powered desktop I have to go into Windows (7) power options and change the power plan from Balanced to High Performance to not get sound crackling in certain games on the BSNES balanced core. It seems like Windows can limit CPU power for RetroArch on the Balanced plan somewhat.

#8

You sir, are THE MAN!

Switching to “High Performance” power plan fixed the issue completely! You definitely made my day! I was going crazy with this :slight_smile:

#9

Cool stuff =D

#10

You sir, are THE MAN!

Switching to “High Performance” power plan fixed the issue completely! You definitely made my day! I was going crazy with this :)[/quote]

I must admit I got a little bit ahead of myself there. Although switching the power mode to High Performance did improve the issue considerably, it did not eliminate it completely. I do get slowdowns and audio stuttering occationally in some games if using a shader (using an NTSC shader w/ scanlines). It seems some shaders are easier than others. Is there anywhere I can find information on the different shaders available?

#11

Unfortunately, there’s a wide variation in how shaders perform based on drivers and individual GPUs. About the best you can say is “$SHADER is fast/slow.” Your best bet is just to try them out and experiment with using smaller scale factors in the shader options.

#12

Thanks! Will look into this!

#13

Yeah, those GPUs are weak. Try updating your drivers.

Also, I believe the BSMES performance core is still very good, probably better than snes9x.

#14

Personally, I would recommend Snes9x as a the SNES emulator of choice while bsnes’ only real strength lies in a handful of edge-case games. bsnes just eats up way too much CPU power (and battery life) without making any real difference in 99% of all games. http://www.libretro.com/index.php/wiki/ … lity-list/

#15

It’s worth noting that, while there are very few games with glaring/showstopping bugs on snes9x vs bsnes, there are a number of small differences with timing, etc. where bsnes has a slight edge for accuracy sticklers. In a situation where power consumption isn’t an issue (e.g., powerful, gaming-focused desktops), it’s not unreasonable to choose bsnes-balanced over snes9x, though the benefits will definitely be few and far between (and often imperceptible).

bsnes-accuracy, OTOH, is rather pointless unless you’re a homebrew dev (or really love Air Strike Patrol).