Problems running FX chip games like Star Fox with Pi2

[emoni]

So I got myself a Pi2 and set up the awesome RetroPie pack with everything running well. I set up the basic Raspian setup then downloaded RetroPie and installed. Overclocked to 1000 and 2 overvolt.

Things run well, except when I see videos on YouTube of testing the Pi 2’s power with games like Star Fox, it runs great on their videos with the minor over locking, but rather stuttery on mine with a bit of lag and a poor frame rate compared to their videos.

I’ve set the GPU memory to 128, over even over clock to 1100 with 6 overvolts, but it doesn’t make a difference. Something seems off. I even checked to make sure I actually had a Raspberry Pi 2 and they didn’t trick me lol but yes, it appears to be a Pi 2 with nothing problematic about it.

Am I missing a common situation or setting that is necessary for running games like Star Fox well.

I haven’t tried n64 games yet, but I imagine they may have similar problems.

Anyone have similar problems or issues?
The help would really be appreciated.

[cacophony555]

Try pressing “x” immediately after launching Star Fox and then setting the emulator to pocketsnes. The latest default snes emulator (as of about a week ago) is snes9x-next, which is far superior to pocketsnes in terms of accuracy, but it struggles a bit with certain Super FX games like Star Fox. The videos you saw online were probably running with pocketsnes (which is an based on an older version snes9x that’s less accurate but faster on older hardware). If you want you can set just certain games to use pocketsnes.

To be clear, snes9x-next runs at full frame rate on virtually every snes game and is the much better choice overall IMO, but there are a few games that are better to run under pocketsnes, and Star Fox is one of them.

[gizmo98]

I’m not really certain starwing was as fast as the pocketsnes emulation. Pocketsnes runs really snappy but seems to be toooo fast. I can’t remember it ran so fast at all. snes9x-next seems to run slower but there is no audio crackling or input lag. Retroarch runs at decent 60fps. I really think snes9x-next resamples the real behavior of the original hardware.

[cacophony555]

[quote=91737]I’m not really certain starwing was as fast as the pocketsnes emulation. Pocketsnes runs really snappy but seems to be toooo fast. snes9x-next seems to run slower but there is no audio crackling or input lag. Retroarch runs at decent 60fps. I really think snes9x-next resamples the real behavior of the original hardware.[/quote]

Ahh, maybe with overclocking? I’m currently running without an overclock and when I tested Star Fox I was seeing 50ish fps, which did feel significantly slower. But it’s a good point that the original snes hardware struggled too, and more accurate emulators reproduce those slowdowns even while maintaining 60fps. For example Super Ghouls and Ghosts often exhibits a few slowdown points in the first level, but you can see the emulator is still running at 60fps.

[emoni]

Oh? A different emulator? I’ll have to try this… Thanks all.

It didn’t look like they were using pocket SNES, but maybe that’s it. Worth a shot!

Thanks!

[neighbourhoodnerd]

Weird, I’ve been using the default retroarch SNES emulator and Star Fox runs fine (as does Donkey Kong). I’m using Pi2 with 1000mhz clock and 128GB GPU RAM.

Might be worth making sure your software is up to date.

[emoni]

Yea, there seems to be no problem with it from the videos I saw running it as default. I have the most uptodate Pi software, but not sure about RetroPie. Just downloaded a few days ago from the site from the Pi. Is there a way to run an update check?

I almost wondered if something is wrong with the Pi since there was such a difference. That’s why I checked to make sure I had a Pi 2 but it does indeed say that I do.

[emoni]

Changing to PocketSnes helped, but the sound still sounds crackly…

PS: Just found out if you wait on the map screen for a while in Star Fox there is a falling start that shoots across. Neat.

[pokeparadox]

[quote=91737]I’m not really certain starwing was as fast as the pocketsnes emulation. Pocketsnes runs really snappy but seems to be toooo fast. I can’t remember it ran so fast at all. snes9x-next seems to run slower but there is no audio crackling or input lag. Retroarch runs at decent 60fps. I really think snes9x-next resamples the real behavior of the original hardware.[/quote]

Please remember that “Star Wing” is a PAL game and should be running at 50Hz and not 60Hz

If you are forcing 60Hz it will be running too fast! Although many games were just slowed down to 50Hz for PAL. From N64 onwards PAL conversions got more reliable.

[emoni]

Confused… I’m playing the U.S. Version

However, I am now running into problems with the Pi freezing lots… Hmmm nothing but puzzles

[cacophony555]

[quote=91900]Confused… I’m playing the U.S. Version

However, I am now running into problems with the Pi freezing lots… Hmmm nothing but puzzles
[/quote]

I’d remove the overclock settings (last four lines if I recall) from /boot/config.txt and see if the freezing goes away.

The crackling sound might be the rom itself.

[taalas]

[quote=91734]The latest default snes emulator (as of about a week ago) is snes9x-next, which is far superior to pocketsnes in terms of accuracy, but it struggles a bit with certain Super FX games like Star Fox.[/quote]

Is there a way to change this default behavior on a 2.6 SD image install without manually changing the core that is defined in the es_systems,cfg? Do I just install the lr-snes9x-next LR core?

[cacophony555]

[quote=92019]

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>cacophony555 wrote:</div>
The latest default snes emulator (as of about a week ago) is snes9x-next, which is far superior to pocketsnes in terms of accuracy, but it struggles a bit with certain Super FX games like Star Fox.

Is there a way to change this default behavior on a 2.6 SD image install without manually changing the core that is defined in the es_systems,cfg? Do I just install the lr-snes9x-next LR core?
[/quote]

yes, just hit “x” right after launching a game to bring up the launch configuration menu.

[taalas]

This will only let me choose video mode for emulator and video mode for rom.

I might not have the necessary updates set for the new emulator selection mechanism. What exactly do I need to update and what configuration files will be overwritten?

[petrockblog]

which configs have you changed ?

[taalas]

Hi Buzz,

I have

– changed retroarch.cfg to include my Xbox 360 Controller setup (mainly because I followed the steps on the wiki), I can easily redo this though

– changed some controller settings for specific lr cores in the respective retroarch.cfg because I wanted 2 button systems to be B/Y instead of A/B

– removed some systems from es_systems.cfg (the home computers and ScummVM)

[proxycell]

why are you guys using 128mb of gpu memory only? i figured most people were using 256…

[Author]

Posts