Overclocking Pi4 with recalbox 7

[Zing]

@Kilam As far as I know, there is no specific place within the config.txt file, the important thing is to add these lines.
All configuration lines are interpreted by the system, regardless of their order.
Put at the end of the file, with some identification before, as already mentioned by another user " # rpi4 overclocking" , for example (any line with the sign # in front is ignored, it is not read as a configuration).

[Kilam]

@Zing Thank you very much, how can I verify that the overclock is active?

[Zing]

@Kilam Well, you need to test some heavy games and see if you noticed a difference ...
You overclocked for some reason, probably some game that you wanted to perform better, the test is:
play and see if it improved ...

[LapinFou]

Dreamcast games (ex: crazy Taxi) are good benchmarks.

[sergioad]

@LapinFou Enough to play PSP and Dreamcast fighting games (Super Street Fighter II X, Street Fighter Zero 3 Saikyo-ryu Dojo for Matching Service, Street Fighter III Third Strike, Marvel Vs. Capcom, Soul Calibur, Capcom Vs. SNK, Capcom Vs. SNK 2, Guilty Gear X, Project Justice and Vampure Chronicle for Dreamcast, Street Fighter Alpha 3 MAX, Darkstalkers Chronicle, Fate/Unlimited Codes and BlazBlue Continiuum Shift Extend for PSP) no problem plus Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 only struggling in the flashy team hypersthe first time you use them, the only game still struggles in my pi I tested is Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus, each hit you do everything slows down

[Kruton]

@myjosito Just FYI: It should be possible to temporarily disable all overclocking by holding SHIFT key when Pi is booting according to official OC guide, no need to reinstall whole Recalbox.

→ https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/configuration/config-txt/overclocking.md

[myjosito]

@Kruton Thanks for the info. But that means that the Pi has to recognize the keyboard before it freezes ?!
Anyhow from october on I'm with my OC and happy with it. No more freeze, so I keep it as it is now.
My only pb is still the red led not turning off when I turn off the Pi. Really not a big issue, just keep pressing the button at the rear of the Argon for 5 sec, ans that's it

[sergioad]

Just reporting: Raspberry pi 4 8 GB

arm_freq=1950
gpu_freq=700
over_voltage=8

Runs extremely well

arm_freq=2147
gpu_freq=700
over_voltage=9

"Works" but rather badly, everything is choppy and horribly slow, tons of audio chopping

I think in 30 hours I will try over voltage 10 or 11

[LapinFou]

@sergioad Do you really need this high voltage ?
I'm running those parameters without any issue:

over_voltage=6
arm_freq=2000
gpu_freq=750

Temperature after hours of game is about 50°C.

Increasing a lot the voltage will create a premature aging and/or could damage your board.

[sergioad]

@LapinFou apparently the 8 GB model uses more energy, usually people using Raspberry OS use over voltage 8 for 2147 MHz CPU and 700 MHz GPU but in Recalbox it fails

[LapinFou]

@sergioad Good point. Indeed I'm running a 4GB version.
Thanks for the tips.

EDIT: Why not trying to O/C the GPU at 750MHz ?

[sergioad]

@LapinFou I will, thanks for the tip

[Kruton]

I am observing really strange behavior when I am applying overclock in Recalbox using Pi 4 4GB and looks like @sergioad report confirms my findings.

If I set values below in config.txt

arm_freq=2000
gpu_freq=750
over_voltage=6

then I am getting correct cpu clock when checking back using terminal and framerate especially in PSP games is noticeably better

# vcgencmd measure_clock arm
frequency(48)=2000531200

But if I set maximum allowed Pi 4 OC like this

arm_freq=2147
gpu_freq=750
over_voltage=6

then I am getting only 600 MHz when checking back using terminal, that is significantly lower cpu clock than stock value and it confirms @sergioad report. Emulation is slow like hell in this case. I am using Pi Case 40 from Cooler Master and temps are below 60°C all time and boosting over_voltage is not helping at all.

# vcgencmd measure_clock arm
frequency(48)=600169920

I tried to update to last stable eeprom released 2020-09-03, then applied maximum OC using same method in newly installed Raspberry Pi OS and it was working like charm. Reported clocks were correct and stable. I was testing stability using synthetic load (sysbench) on all 4 cores and temperature did not exceed 65°C after 20 mins of continuous stress testing.

When I returned back to MicroSD card with Recalbox, then I got same strange behavior when applying max. OC. It looks like overclocking in Recalbox still have some issues and needs some tuning by devs.

But overall I am really satisfied with this OS. UX is on totally different (better) level compared to for example RetroPie.

[sergioad]

@Kruton I totally agree, Recalbox is superior in UX, easier to manage and overall amazing, and apparently not even a 2100 overclock is safe from this strange behavior, could you confirm?

BTW the pi case 40 is amazing is not it? I also added the small heatsinks from my kit

[Kruton]

@sergioad Yes, I can confirm arm_freq=2100 is not viable too. measure_clock arm is reporting same strange frequency of 600 MHz as 2147 MHz OC for me.

Pi Case 40 is amazing. Totally passive and well build solution. It has slick power button from factory. Can throw it into my backpack without worries that something broke and play during brakes at work, during party at my friends palace... Just love it, worth of every penny.

[sergioad]

@Kruton I thought so, I also had issues at 2100, could a higher clock solve the problem? (I am thinking like the higher clocks could act like a save file bypassing a corrupt part of a game rather than a speaker adding noice at higher volume) righ now a pi could easily be overclocked at 2300 (I do not do it for safety) so it is worth the try

About the case I agree, sadly I could not configure the power button

[sergioad]

By the way I am getting some occasional hang-up on ES, I do not know if it has to be with my overclock but it is worth to be shared, that way if the devs can check it they could solve it

[sergioad]

This post is deleted!

[sergioad]

Ok friends, I fixed my ES hang ups, I dialed back my pi to 1950 MHz and incremented the over voltage to 9 while keeping GPU the same at 750 and this far I have not had any ES hang up.

If you want my troubleshooting script package from when ES was failing that much HERE it is.

I hope with the findings of the community something could be made to solve the over 2000 issues, I prefer by much Recalbox to the other solutions and not being tied by this bugs would be awesome.

Here are my settings:

arm_freq=1950
gpu_freq=750
over_voltage=9

[rollbrett]

@sergioad i'm not familiar with overclocking the pi 4, but in the documentation i found this about the overvoltage

CPU/GPU core voltage adjustment. The value should be in the range [-16, 8] which equates to the range [0.8V, 1.4V] with 0.025V steps. In other words, specifying -16 will give 0.8V as the GPU/core voltage, and specifying 8 will give 1.4V. For defaults see table below. Values above 6 are only allowed when force_turbo is specified: this sets the warranty bit if over_voltage_* is also set.

if this is correct, the maximum value of overvoltage is 8?

and what about force turbo do you have enable it?