I have downloaded RetroArch 1.2.2, downloaded some cores and located some games. Any game that I boot up is slow, like at 50% speed. I noticed that this just happens in the XMB theme, not in the glui or rgui. Also, the XMB theme doesn’t work in D3D mode. My questions are: Is the XMB theme supposed not to work in D3D? And what can I do to get the cores running in full speed when using it?
Both XMB and GLUI require the “gl” driver. D3D support is underway but in early stages. libretro-gl cores like Mupen64+ and PPSSPP also do not work with D3D (the D3D driver will be replaced by the gl one). If you are having performance issues with the gl driver I recommend you to check if your video drivers are up to date. Desktop compositing is also known to slow down games and multimedia applications like RetroArch in some systems so I recommend disabling that too.
I’m not having problems with the driver itself: every emulator that I need is running fine on the GL driver. Problem is, they run fine when they’re not launched from the XMB theme. I think that it’s because the UI is always rendered in the background, so it can be called instantly. Since GLUI and rgui are lighter than the XMB UI, they need less processing power to be rendered and do not slow emulators down. Or maybe it’s my video card, being that AMDs don’t play nice with GL.