Auto Frameskip options are not working well

[schmurtzm]

Hi, The Frameskip feature is great, it seems to work fine with fixed values and really improve the playability of demanding game on low CPU (I mainly use Mame 2003 Plus on Miyoo Mini, a little Linux handheld).

On last dev versions (b2b642c) the auto frameskip options are able to freeze the screen.
It happens on the Miyoo Mini as soon as I use one of three "auto" frameskip options.
I can also reproduce on PC (Windows) when I use auto agressive or auto max (on PC it works with "auto" but slower than without frameskip).

The auto frameskip options was already malfunctioning on old release (8f1498f) but it wasn't freezing.

Environnement :
Windows or Linux
core build : last current (b2b642c)
Retroarch 1.10.3 or later

Steps to reproduce :

• Any game (I'm making tests with "ninja baseball bat man" as it require frameskip on the Miyoo Mini but same behaviour with "1943".
• Run game and compare "auto" frameskip options to fixed value frameskip options. (fixed values are a lot more efficient, auto value is able to slow down games)
• "Auto max" frameskip should systematically freeze
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  Any plan to improve the auto frameskip options ? May be the "auto" options should be disabled for now ?

[mahoneyt944]

I'm wondering if the device you're using is so low that auto options are just skipping non-stop, skipping every frame or enough to appear frozen?

[MistyDreams]

It looks like its working on audio buffers if the driver isint spot on there will be issues with games such as rygar. These issues went away with using the alsa driver only causes me issues when its set to pulse. The game timming does need updated to be fair but its more likely a driver issue. The same game casues issues on fbneo with with the pulse driver as well but is fine on alsa

[mahoneyt944]

@schmurtzm did using the alsa driver solve your issue ?

[saulfabregwiivc]

It also happens on Wii builds.
"Auto" frameskip options on some cores (including test MAME2003+ builds) aren't working such well.

[mahoneyt944]

Auto frameskip just automatically skips frames when there's slow downs, to help keep performance up. If the performance is so low (skipping many frames), then you'll still notice slowdowns. In other words skipping a frame here or there isn't noticable, but if you're skipping a lot of frames, you'll still notice. In fact, if you skip too many, you'll likely freeze the screen, with the last frame drawn.