Retroarch latest slow directory scanning on linux (ubuntu 20.04)

[retrolush]

So, I just started using retroarch on linux, and noticed that performance of directory scanning is atrocious. I had to do some silly trick someone mentioned in a github bug to start a game and put it into Fast Forward in order to speed up the scanning.

The only forum post I see here about linux performance is below.

Retroarch 1.7.0 slow Scan Directory

I HAVE FOUND WHERE IS THE PROBLEM. It starts from this commit: 25 Nov 2017 - twinaphex - Add HAVE_CONFIG_H to file_stream.c $ git bisect start $ git bisect good 0485bab $ git bisect bad 72fdfb1 72fdfb1edd4ce50c158a16b6c14bb4dc18978d9c is the first bad commit commit 72fdfb1edd4ce50c158a16b6c14bb4dc18978d9c Author: twinaphex <[email protected]> Date: Sat Nov 25 06:17:19 2017 +0100 Add HAVE_CONFIG_H to file_stream.c :040000 040000 4c3025951d2907a31d84f6768d775ee902de3053 de9dfbc03b3e0dc3…

The difference is like 20x faster, so its not a trivial impact. My OS is current and supported. This isn’t a network or hardware limitation (by far). So I have to suspect retroarch has a bug needing attention. Do devs come thru here? or only github?

[hunterk]

Proper bugs usually need to go through github. This ticket seems like it: https://github.com/libretro/RetroArch/issues/15712

I don’t personally have this issue AFAICT.

[alexb3d]

Do you have ppa testing installed? I have noticed it much slower than stable.

20.04? These older versions of Ubuntu have user encryption. It was removed because it made reading/writing very slow.

[retrolush]

No, just the zip version. Again, this isn’t my PC’s problem, because it just works better when doing the trick I mentioned.
If that retroarch Fast Forward feature activates CPU optimizations, etc, that might make sense.

[alexb3d]

@retrolush

No, just the zip version.

ZIP VERSION ???

There are many things that influence performance. I told you two things that personally happened to me.

If it is a performance problem the best way is to create a bug report…

@hunterk

Proper bugs usually need to go through github. This ticket seems like it: https://github.com/libretro/RetroArch/issues/15712

[retrolush]

Sorry, I downloaded the AppImage version, which was zipped. Sorry.

And that is my issue you are linking to. I created the issue first, then posted here asking about the issue. Trying to cover all bases.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

[alexb3d]

@retrolush

And that is my issue you are linking to. I created the issue first, then posted here asking about the issue. Trying to cover all bases.

Excellent. I told him about the things I knew about, the encrypted ubuntu user giving a lot of problems. Now we can only wait for the experts.