Posts made by Cap

@Zing said in DOSBox: Games stutter and audio crackles while moving the mouse:

Have you tried that?

Sorry for responding late! I tried it out today. Unfortunately it did not solve the issue. I made some videos for comparison with different settings for vsync and the joystick (apologies for the flickering and ghosting - I'm still in love with my old plasma TV ).

Video 1 - vsync=true / joystick=auto (game runs fine, but crackles and stutters in other games when moving the mouse):

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pbFlCd8BjJwvoESBtKRqwarnzCUkgAF1

Video 2 - vsync=false / joystick=auto (game runs fine in the first few seconds, but after that drops down to 10-15 fps):

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cSQQaYCfmoingki7lGnav24mx0whqf_K

Video 3 - vsync=false / joystick=none (shows the same issue as in video 2):

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hM-MgBu0MlRGfVypZ-icdwuYrDLo_4z7

As a side note, when setting joystick=none, the virtual keyboard in DOSBox does not work anymore, or to be precise: it cannot be operated with the joystick anymore (works fine when using a USB mouse).

I also noticed that even with vsync=true the game shows some tearing effects. Below is one frame of video 1 (the half-way transparent green and magenta area is caused by my TV):

I did some more tests with vsync=false and found another issue. With this setting, some games run smooth in the first few seconds, but then performance drops massively. Can be seen in Prince of Persia: When starting the game and skipping the title screen quickly, all animations look smooth (character, torches in the background), but then the game drops down to maybe 10-15 fps.

I remember a similar issue with ScummVM in the 7.0 release: https://forum.recalbox.com/topic/21886/scummvm-pi-4-laggy-animations

It looks exactly the same when playing Prince with vsync=false and the fix for ScummVM was enabling SDL vsync in the Python config generator package if I remember correctly. Maybe the issues are related somehow?

@AgedLove Good idea! I played around with different settings (most of the time editing the config file directly over SSH) for vsync in combination with different setups for output and renderer. So far, I could not find a combination that has both (smooth videos and no crackles when mouse is moved). I think I'll stick with vsync turned off, as many games are unplayable otherwise because of the mouse issue.

This is also recommended in the Wiki (when using the pastebin link; the provided default config in /recalbox/share/system/configs/dosbox has vsync set to true instead).

I nailed the issue down to a combination of these two values in dosbox.cfg:

[sdl]
vsync=true
output=texture

When switching to output=surface or disabling vsync, the issue is gone. Unfortunately, disabling vsync seems to decreases performance in other situations. Observed in the intro video from System Shock f.e., with vsync=true the video plays much smoother.

Hello! I have Recalbox 7.1.1 running on a RPi 4. I'm playing some games from the eXoDOS 5 collection after using ExoDOSConverter and some own scripts to adopt and scrape the games as described in the Wiki. So far, so good - every game I tested seems to work. Some of the games are obviously beyond of what the RPi4 can handle, but I have a strange issue with games that I think should run fine:

Every time I move the mouse (I have keyboard and mouse connected via USB), the performance drops significantly and the sound starts to stutter. As soon as I stop moving the mouse, the game runs smooth again. That can also be observed when moving the mouse while in the main menu (or other static screens that should not consume a lot of CPU power).

I played around with different settings in the dosbox.cfg (cycles at auto / max / fixed value, increased mixer blocksize etc). Observed for example in Warcraft 1, C&C Red Altert but also many others.

Thanks for any idea on this!

@sroach The -noserversend argument is only used if it's included in your game's custom commands file. So I just removed it from those that don't start otherwise. E.g. for lair2, with my current commands file from above, the launcher invokes

# ps aux | grep hypseus
root 1186 11.8 1.7 65544 27196 ? Sl 15:23 0:02 /usr/bin/hypseus lair2 vldp -framefile /recalbox/share/roms/daphne/lair2.daphne/lair2.txt -fullscreen -useoverlaysb 2 -datadir /usr/share/daphne -homedir /recalbox/share/roms/daphne -nocrc -noissues -nolog -prefer_samples

The sound issue in Space Ace is very prominent in the scene where you fly with your ship for the first time, when Kimberly shouts "Get me out of here!!!". The video is clearly way too late. It seems to get worse the longer a scene goes on. Sometimes the sound also stops before the scene is actually over.

I also noted this with Dragon's Lair 1 and the dle21 rom. When Dirk breaks through the drawbridge in the very beginning, you can hear the sound before you actually see him breaking through.

@Saween Ah yeah, I think there might be an issue with your rom. The only one that is used is lair2.zip (unless you rename your game folder) and for me its MD5 is 0c2736f0e6a024ad111fe6c5150f38a4. Actually, more important is what's inside the zip, which should be this one file:

dl2_319.bin 6d762087a3d6b2cb098a46d53e2f4995

I don't think this forum is intended to share roms, but if you google for "dragons lair 2 rom files" you should be fine (first hit should give you one with matching MD5).

My lair2.commands for reference:

-nocrc -noissues -nolog -prefer_samples

Note that especially the first three arguments are not helpful for finding errors.

@Saween Hmm weird. You could still try to delete lair2.commands just to rule out errors. Also, verify your rom with the MD5 sum from above.

I had one more issue where Daphne games won't start at all. After connecting a new controller for the first time, I did not configure it. It was plugged in via USB, detected automatically and everything just worked, so I thought I was fine. But daphne/hypseus did not start because the Hotkey button was not mapped. After running the Controller Configuration and mapping the Hotkey button, it actually worked.

I can confirm that the pairing is lost sometimes (7.0.1 on RPi4, 2 x SN30 Pro in dinput/Android mode), but for me it does not depend on the number of controllers that I use. That is, I can pair both controllers, restart Recalbox and they will still be paired.

What I noticed is that I have to turn off the controller when restarting Recalbox. Otherwise it won't connect, even though I'm back in ES and the controller LEDs are blinking (indicating that it's still trying to connect). When turning off the controller and then turn it on again, it connects instantly. I think this is rather an issue with the controller.

@Saween There is actually no command to delete -noserversend. Instead, you can pass command line arguments to the launcher by creating an additional file in your game folder. E.g. for lair2, that would be

./roms/daphne/lair2.daphne/lair2.commands

If you have no such file, then you also don't have the -noserversend argument.

I think that you use a wrong folder name (you wrote you have your files in DL2.daphne). So the launcher will try to find a rom called "DL2", which does not exist. Be sure that the name of this folder reads "lair2.daphne". Also be sure that your rom file sits in the correct place. Its expected to be in

./roms/daphne/roms/lair2.zip

@sroach I did a few checks with the roms I'm using. This is the list of roms that don't work with the -noserversend argument:

cliff
gpworld
tq
esh
lair2
roadblaster

These roms work fine with the -noserversend argument:

uvt
lair
bega
cobraconv
galaxy
astron
badlands
interstellar
mach3
sdq
sae

I'm not even sure if it makes any difference whether to include -noserversend or not for hypseus on Pi. Anyway, it's working now so I'm happy. The only issue left is that sometimes the sound is out of sync with the video. Noticeable in Space Ace for example, in some scenes the sound is ahead a second or so. Not a deal breaker, though, as the button timing is correct and in sync with the video, so the games are playable.

Ok I got it running! It actually was the "-noserversend" argument which I had in the lair2.commands file. As soon as I remove this, DL2 runs just fine, both from command line and from ES. (I think the command line from my post above was wrong and did actually not include -noserversend).

Interestingly, I use -noserversend in other command files and there it does not seem to cause issues. Anyway, thanks for helping!

@sroach Thanks for checking! So my rom file seems to be correct, but the game is still not starting. hypseus just terminates with exitcode 1.

I checked the command line that ES generates, which is

LANG=en_US.UTF-8 TERM=linux SHELL=/bin/sh CONSOLE=/dev/console SDL_VIDEO_EGL_DRIVER=/usr/lib/libEGL.so SHLVL=3 PREVLEVEL=N SDL_NOMOUSE=1 PWD=/ dev=/dev/mmcblk0p1 RUNLEVEL=S elevator=deadline PATH=/sbin:/usr/sbin:/bin:/usr/bin INIT_VERSION=sysvinit- HOME=/recalbox/share/system _=/usr/bin/python SDL_VIDEO_GL_DRIVER=/usr/lib/libGLESv2.so /usr/bin/hypseus lair2 vldp -framefile /recalbox/share/roms/daphne/lair2.daphne/lair2.txt -fullscreen -useoverlaysb 2 -datadir /usr/share/daphne -homedir /recalbox/share/roms/daphne -noserversend

When SSH-ing into the machine and executing this command, I get the same result (no traces / logs, just exit with code 1). Now the interesting thing: when I skip the ENV vars and just execute

/usr/bin/hypseus lair2 vldp -framefile /recalbox/share/roms/daphne/lair2.daphne/lair2.txt -fullscreen -useoverlaysb 2 -datadir /usr/share/daphne -homedir /recalbox/share/roms/daphne -noserversend

it actually works! Will investigate further.

@sroach Could you maybe provide the MD5 hash of your lair2.zip file? I have the same issue (I'm using 7.0.1 on Pi4). Most other Daphne games work fine.

I want to quickly add one more detail about this issue: It only happens a few seconds after starting a game. That is, within the first few seconds everything is smooth as expected, then the frame rate suddenly drops and you get the behavior as mentioned above.

Note that when you open the ScummVM menu via hotkey it won't show up unless you move the cursor. If you open the menu during the first few seconds it shows up immediately.

Tested several games using an out-of-the-box installation of Recalbox 7.0.1 (just added the game files). The same game files run fine with Recalbox 7.0.1 on a RPi3.