Slow performance on Pi3?

[Freakadude]

Hi guys,

So i have been trying out attract mode and i have basically two issues which prevent me from switching from Emulation station completely. Maybe there is a fix for these or maybe its just the nature of Attract mode at the moment. Hopefully someone here can enlighten me.

1. Scrolling through displays slows down considerably after one or two scrolls. This happens both in the main displays menu where you scroll through the systems but then again also within individual systems when scrolling through roms. What happens is that after a couple of scrolls the system starts to wait a few secs before being able to scroll to the next item etc.

2. I noticed that when using attract mode my Pis CPUs are getting hot pretty fast. Normally in emulationstation CPU temp is around 50 C but even without playing anything in attract mode but just having it on with the menus the CPU temp creeps up to 75-80 C relatively fast.

If anyone has solutions to these problems i would appriciate the tips.

Thanks

[verion]

@1
If that display menu is using video this may be the culprit (slow SD card or USB access by RPi) - try to switch to static images and see if it helps. Or switch to the less demanding display menu theme

@2
I'm guessing you are using someones "image" that has the older version of AM (that doesn't support hardware acceleration) - please update AM to the newest version (see sticky thread) that supports hardware acceleration for videos and switch on hardware accel in settings.

[Freakadude]

@2: Nope. Built Attract from source as per the wiki guide. Also HW accel is enabled in the display menu.
@1: Well all of the roms are on an SMB share as are the video snaps etc. Not sure what constitutes a less demanding theme since i thought the whole point to Attract mode is to have something more flashy then the regular emulationstation layouts.

[verion]

@1
if it's on SMB share it's even worse (I mean even slower access). I'm currently testing (well... Chris is testing - to be precise) why FLAT BLUE theme runs unbearably slow on RPi. It looks like slow access to the artwork is the main culprit. I can't tell you which theme is working good on RPi since I'm not using AM on RPi. But I can tell you that SOME of the themes are slow on RPi - as users say. You can try ROBOSPIN theme - I know that omegaman was talking about optimising it for RPi - but I don't know if he succeeded.

You can temporarily use a really plain theme (one of the build-in themes) and see if it's ok. If it's still too slow - you have to host your files locally.

@2
Good! Sorry for "standard" reply - but it's 99% the case.
AM can be pretty tasking when it comes to RPi. Keep in mind that AM originally was aimed for computers and lacks the optimisation that retropie/emulationstation has. The latter is "tailored" for RPi, AM is simply "compiled" for RPi. It's like using RPi and KODI with really heavy theme - it's no go.
Sounds a little harsh - but that's the truth. We just have to wait for themes designed and coded with RPi in mind - or simply check which existing themes are suitable for RPi.

[akafox]

Arcade bliss skips and stutters a little on my pi...and makes it run HOT...even and I compiled it myself..and am using mml.

The pi is a cell phone...cell phones are limited no matter what...even desktops are limited if you overload it.

There are flashy themes that run fine on the pie..and some that don't.

If you are going to use a network connection then load the artwork on sd card and load the games from the network. Loading the artwork from the network will slow everything down to a crawl. (I know I've tried.)

USB HDD is the way to go honestly...well that is until they can make a 1024 GB sd card for less than $50.

[progets]

You guys are right in saying that not every layout/theme is going to work well on the Pi. You are also correct to say using the network for anything other than roms will result in lag when browsing in AM. There are a few things you can do to make the best of the Pi hardware.

1. use unzipped Attract-Mode layouts. They will work zipped but they do take a performance hit.
2. use the best SD card you can get. This makes a huge difference especially if you can safely overclock it.
3. use a 64 GB SD card or smaller. Once you step past 64 GB you won't get the same performance and be able to overclock the SD card.
4. use mmal hardware decoding (I know most are already doing this)
5. run your Pi without a SD card and use a good USB flash or hard drive https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/pi-3-booting-part-i-usb-mass-storage-boot/
6. overclock everything. Make a backup of your SD card and then push your Pi to the max!


use at your own risk. If you don't have a great high speed SD card don't use the SD overclock line.

/boot/config.txt partial for Pi 3 (not Pi 1, 2 or zero)

Code: [Select]

#Overclock Settings
#CPU Based
arm_freq=1350
over_voltage=6
temp_limit=80
core_freq=500

#GPU Based
h264_freq=333
avoid_pwm_pll=1
gpu_mem=450
v3d_freq=500

#Ram Overclock
sdram_freq=588
sdram_schmoo=0x02000020
over_voltage_sdram_p=6
over_voltage_sdram_i=4
over_voltage_sdram_c=4

#SD Card Overclock
dtparam=sd_overclock=100


@verion - FLAT BLUE runs ok on a Pi if it's setup right. I haven't figured out why it doesn't work unzipped on the Pi but that would help too.

[verion]

FLAT BLUE [...] I haven't figured out why it doesn't work unzipped on the Pi

We did figured that out - it was tested on win that is not case sensitive when it comes to file names. But linux is case sensitive - and we have to correct filenames or nut file calls. We'll sort it out and upload a new version if you want to test it.

[progets]

FLAT BLUE [...] I haven't figured out why it doesn't work unzipped on the Pi

We did figured that out - it was tested on win that is not case sensitive when it comes to file names. But linux is case sensitive - and we have to correct filenames or nut file calls. We'll sort it out and upload a new version if you want to test it.

I figured that might be the issue but didn't have time to pull it apart. I also figured the zip file names would still be the same as the unzipped names in terms of lower or upper case.

I look forward to the updated layout. It's pretty slick.