Visual stuttering and frame drops regardless of settings

[m-orsh]

Lowered audio buffer, tried 60fps, 59.7275fps, different renderers, everything I could attempt.

There is a consistent frame being dropped every second or two. (Yes frame skip is at 0) I have the audio buffer at the lowest setting, and sync to audio enabled.

I recorded a video to try and upload the stuttering, but amusingly enough, the video recorded at 59.7275fps has zero stuttering when I viewed it.

GTX 1080
i7-9700K

[RafaelTrepaUnCarballo]

I have similar issues only in Windows, while in Switch the framerrate and audio are silky smooth. The issue was present in every build I tested (dev builds, stable 0.9.1-0.7.3).

I could "fix" it by enabling video sync, disabling audio sync and enforcing Adaptative sync (half refresh rate) in mgba profile in Nvidia drivers. The downside is the audio sounds terrible (even with the highest audio buffer) and I can't fast forward beyond the refresh rate (120hz, so x2) of my laptop (I can, but it messes the video/audio flow and doesn't really go faster)

I think FPS target is buggy and raises the frame rate slightly higher than the chosen target with audio sync disabled/video sync enabled
When I choose 60fps or native, mgba FPS counter shows 65-66fps. 45fps option gives 47fps, 30fps option gives 30.6fps, 90fps gives 92-94fps... only 120 seems to run at that framerate (although 2 times faster), but that's probably due to the windows compositor limiting it to the monitor max refresh rate.

Current Device: Laptop legion-5-15arh05h with ryzen 5 4800H, GTX2060 (and a Radeon disabled in BIOS), 16GB RAM, Win10 20h2 and a 120hz monitor (some emulator dislike being run at that refresh rate, forcing me to use Adaptative sync (half refresh rate)

I also have some trouble with framerate in my old computer, affecting this and other emulators. In that case, I think the root problem was the dual GPU (intel HD4600+ Geforce 820M) managed by Nvidia Optimus, giving weird frame pacing and diagonal tearing issues in many emulators and games. I think I "solved" that by enforcing regular vsync in Nvidia global settings (breaking the turbo in several emus) and running mgba with Intel igpu, but I'm not sure...

[endrift]

That issue sounds like #827, which I've yet to be able to reproduce even on my 144 Hz monitor. It's definitely the case that if your monitor is refreshing at >60 fps video sync doesn't work properly, but that's because if it did work the way video sync is "supposed" to work it'd be running too fast, e.g. at 120 fps for a console that runs at 59.727 fps.

[RafaelTrepaUnCarballo]

Why can't video sync fill the extra refresh cycles with duplicated frames? Treating refresh rates that are multiple of 60 as 60hz, the refresh rate mgba is optimized for?

[endrift]

That's not how drawing works here. If I don't push a frame to the GPU it doesn't update the GPU. There aren't "extra refresh cycles". And I'm trying not to push extra frames. Moreover, the point of sync to video is to use the monitor's refresh rate to clock the sync. If the monitor's refresh rate is wildly different from the GBA, then it's meaningless for clocking sync and you'd be better off just using a random software timer. Audio sync uses the audio driver to clock the sync, which is actually predicable and easy to adjust against.

[endrift]

Does anyone here have this issue who isn't using a high framerate monitor?

[m-orsh]

Does anyone here have this issue who isn't using a high framerate monitor?

To be clear, this original issue occurs on whatever monitor I use it on. 60fps, 120fps, etc. I've got two monitors attached running at 60fps currently. My TV is one of them, and it can't do anything higher than 60fps. Both show this issue.

It occurs regardless of what audio buffer is set.
It occurs regardless of what game is running.
It occurs regardless of whether sync to video or sync to audio is chosen.
It occurs on the latest version of mgba.
It occurs while running at 60fps OR 59.7275 (original) fps.

Here's a video i recorded on OBS.

https://webmshare.com/x8gxn as you can see there are little jumps and hops in the framerate. This is what I'm talking about. (Ignore the one moment i hit the speed button by accident)

Not sure what's up. But it's probably related to something related to PC configuration rather than screen.
Windows 10 x64 by the way.

[endrift]

I can see a few little bumps, yeah. Not very many though, and I'm not sure exactly what's going on there.

[m-orsh]

This is the only issue that prevents mgba from looking like original hardware when running for me.

I don't mean to nag but is this getting fixed any time soon? I'm prone to headaches and this issue makes the emulator completely unusable for me. It happens in every top-down game I try.

[endrift]

It might have been improved recently. Please try a development build. The biggest thing holding it back from being fixed is, well, I can't reproduce it so I can't tell if it's fixed or not without other people telling me.

[m-orsh]

Just tried the latest development build. It still stutters, here is some additional info while on default settings opening the emulator:
Audio buffer set to default (1536) -> constant stuttering, very choppy.
Audio buffer set to lowest setting -> much less stuttering, but still has a stutter every 1-2 seconds.

[endrift]

Hmm, I think my sound card may be affecting the situation some if that's what your results are (they're much worse on my end on Windows at the lowest setting, which is bad). What sound card do you have?

[m-orsh]

To be clear when I say lowest setting I mean the 512 setting.
Motherboard is MAG Z390 TOMAHAWK and sound output I believe is Realtek® ALC892 Codec. I don't have any specific PCIE sound card, Realtek HD audio is what drives audio on the motherboard seemingly.