Jump to content
Due to a large amount of spamers, accounts will now have to be approved by the Admins so please be patient. ×
IGNORED

Custom built MAME cab upgrade to RetroPie - lag problems


Recommended Posts

Hi all, first time posting in this section of the forum.

 

I've had a custom built MAME cab for a number of years and it's been fantastic. Never had much trouble with it and it runs everything great. Picture below.

 

IMG_3422.thumb.jpg.c0f6dc6816270e018802a7861fd21cd0.jpg

 

Anyway, one thing that's always bothered me is that it runs on a PC. While this of course means it's got the grunt, it also means it's got lots of moving parts and something will fail one day. I wanted to remove that aspect from the equation and make everything solid state - hence me jumping on the recent special I spotted for a snazzy RetroPie 3 Model B (which included some SNES controllers which I'll chuck in a crate somewhere).

 

Downloaded a great big pack of ROMs, bought a decent sized 128GB SD card, dumped the pie image off the 16GB and put it on the 128GB and expanded the filesystem. All good so far. But before I tackle the MAME cab (I need to upgrade the LCD in it first), I decided to hook it up to my TV so my wife can play one of her favourite games - Yoshi's Island. She sits down to play and... It's a laggy mess. Choppy, slow, sound cutting and slowing. It was horrible.

 

All this time I built this up in my head as a fantastic new replacement for that PC in the MAME cab and it was a massive fail - it can't even play SNES games, I can't even imagine how bad arcade games would be?

 

So my question is: was I completely naive to expect the RetroPie to be my silver bullet? I had kind of expected these little things to be on par or surpass PCs from 6 years ago... Or if I have some configuration optimisations that could solve my problem, does anyone have any tips?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have only recently purchased a raspberry pi and have been playing with it a bit on my tv. I found that I had to go into the settings of the NES and SNES emulators and change the resolution to that of the full hd tv otherwise I was getting lag, tearing etc... So could be a settings issue for you.

 

Although after playing with the pi I still find my 10 year old mame setup just works better. Easier to create custom lists, custom background theme etc...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks everyone for the replies. It sounds like I need to mess around with the install and look at configuration. I'm glad to hear this is not a normal experience and that the Pi can do the job. Meanwhile if there's any other config tips people can offer I'm all ears.

 

Thanks!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Another cause of poor performance is an inadequate power supply. If the Pi doesn't get enouhh juice it goes into a throttled mode. You can usually spot this by the presence of a lighting or rainbow coloured icon appearing sonewhere on the screen.

 

It's generally not wise to use pre-built images either, better off with a fresh install and configuring it yourself.

 

You can also play with overclocking with heatsinks and a fan.

 

The Pi will flawlessly run all 8, 16 bit and early 80s/90s Mame if running properly.

 

Oh and turn off any screen shaders.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yep your model 3 should kill SNES games. My model 2 runs all SNES perfectly.

 

I went from running my Pi2 on an LCD to a large screen TV, you have to change some video output config settings if using a CRT, did you change anything in the setup ? As you will not get the correct video display if you didn't.

 

offhand I can't remember exactly what it is, but I think it's in the boot file, there is a video section. From memory, it's also commented in that file what to change, if you are using CRT.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...