Bad emulator performance with SNES9x EX, RetroArch etc.

[dekar24k]

Hi guys, this is my very first post here on AndroidCentral.

So I recently got my HTC One, currently updated with Android 2.2. I'm a retro gaming geek, so one of the reasons I just swapped my iPhone 5 for a HTC One, is because I can run emulators without jailbreaking/rooting.

Anyways, I have installed both Snes9x EX and RetroArch, but both emulators really suffer in every game. I'm not even trying to play SuperFX games (like Star Fox), but "simple-to-emulate" games like Super Turrican, Metroid, Super Mario World etc.

In Snes9x EX the scrolling just isn't smooth and the sound occasionally skips. In RetroArch the scrolling is smooth, but I get occasional slowdowns with sound stuttering and frame drops. I am only using NTSC (60hz) ROMs of course.

I've had several Android phones in the past and I seem to remember they could handle SNES emulation a lot better than this. Besides, the HTC One should be more than powerful enough for emulating both NES and (most) SNES games at 100% full speed.

It seems to me, especially noticeable in RetroArch, that there's one, or more, background processes that hogs a lot of the resources.

So, to get to the point; has anyone successfully emulated NES and SNES on their HTC One's without frameskipping, slowdowns and/or sound jittering? If so, I'd like to know how you do it.

Thanks in advance for the replies.

 

[vernotzy21]

use snesoid ,fpse(ps1),n64oid(n64),or mupen64 ae they work best iv tested extensivly on many devices and have good speeds (most of the time depends on game)

 

[dekar24k]

use snesoid ,fpse(ps1),n64oid(n64),or mupen64 ae they work best iv tested extensivly on many devices and have good speeds (most of the time depends on game)

Thanks for the tip. I've been looking for SNESoid, but I can't find it. I tried searching on slideme, but all I could find was something called SNESdroid?

Edit: Ergh.. Found it. I just had to look. Will give it a shot now.

Edit 2: Ok SNESoid was definitely a whole lot better than the others I've tried. Smooth scrolling when I set max frameskip to 0 and only occasional stutter here and there. I guess this will do for now. What's sad is that this emu is no longer worked on, if I'm not mistaken?

 

[Christopher Carr]

Hi Dekar. I recently downloaded retroarch and found it to be nearly unplayable on my HTC one. I thought this was strange because my weaker nexus has no trouble with it. I may have a fix for you.

On a whim I decided to disable vsync.

This for some reason has cleared up all of my issues and I now run games, in snes9x at least, silky smooth. Also made sure I ran games at calibrated screen refresh rate and turned off the Threaded video driver.

 

[limitbreak09]

Epsxe is better Ps1 emulator than fpse ( I have both) then also check out the new Nintendo Ds emulator called Ds Drastic.. it is by far the best emulator so far in google play and it runs buttery smooth all the game that I play

Sent from my LG-E980 using AC Forums mobile app

 

[dekar24k]

Thanks for the tip! I just tried disabling vsync and setting refresh to the calibrated one, but the sound is all cracking and messed up. Which makes sense as the NTSC roms are running at 60hz and my screen was calibrated at ~57hz. With no sound interpolation or forced refresh, then sound will be messed up. Also, where did you find the threaded video driver option? Thanks!

Hi Dekar. I recently downloaded retroarch and found it to be nearly unplayable on my HTC one. I thought this was strange because my weaker nexus has no trouble with it. I may have a fix for you.

On a whim I decided to disable vsync.

This for some reason has cleared up all of my issues and I now run games, in snes9x at least, silky smooth. Also made sure I ran games at calibrated screen refresh rate and turned off the Threaded video driver.

 

[Christopher Carr]

OK, after trying some other games I started having more trouble. I have now enabled the threaded driver under settings then video settings in retro arch. After that I had it calibrate my refresh rate again. It was lower than it had previously stated... Somewhere around 58.3. I then manually set that as my rate and have since then had no trouble with audio or video. Let me know if you keep having problems. If I notice something else I'll post it.

 

[dekar24k]

OK, after trying some other games I started having more trouble. I have now enabled the threaded driver under settings then video settings in retro arch. After that I had it calibrate my refresh rate again. It was lower than it had previously stated... Somewhere around 58.3. I then manually set that as my rate and have since then had no trouble with audio or video. Let me know if you keep having problems. If I notice something else I'll post it.

I'll give it a shot a little later and report back. Thanks again.