PPSSPP slow? Try these settings

[labelwhore]

I’ve been doing a bunch of testing on PPSSPP. It looks like only about 30% of games work at all, and the ones that do can be pretty slow. But there is something you can do.

Disclaimer: My testing has been almost entirely subjective, except for some initial fooling around with the FPS meter to determine some good general settings. Your results may vary. I’ve got a Pi 2 with the 3.3 Jessie image.

Autosave
First, when you start a game, turn off autosave. Saving seems to slow games down, sometimes quite a bit. So leaving autosave off seems to help with speed issues.

OVERCLOCK aka. Warranty be Damned!
Next, a healthy overclock. (I’m using the word “healthy” liberally here, this will probably void any warranty that you might have on the pi.) This is beyond what the default overclock settings will allow. Seriously, don’t do this unless you have a heatsink with a fan plus a really good power supply. (Read: Tested and know that it provides a clean 2 Amps.) At the end of boot/config.txt, I changed what was there to this:

gpu_mem_256=128
gpu_mem_512=256
gpu_mem_1024=384
gpu_mem=384
arm_freq=1100
core_freq=550
sdram_freq=500
over_voltage=4

force_turbo=1
avoid_pwm_pll=1
v3d_freq=450

I got these settings from a post on the official Raspberry Pi forums talking about overclocking. Apparently, they’re about the highest (on average) that can be used relatively safely, without extensive hardware mods.

Quick tip to make this process easier.
1. Launch PPSSPP then hit Esc
2. go to settings > controls
3. assign new pause menu button to an unused button on your controller
This does two things; makes the config setup process easier, and will allow you to exit games without a keyboard. On my xbox360 controller, I used the right thumb button. (No more need for lr-PPSSPP.)

Now to the good stuff…

This seems to have helped quite a bit. Especially for games that were just barely too slow or had choppy audio. But the next part seems to have much more dramatic effects from game to game, and is less risky to your hardware for obvious reasons.

Create config files per game in PPSSPP. I haven’t used the libretro version out of performance concerns, but the standalone version allows you create configs for each game via the “pause menu” (hit esc).

Before creating your first config file, lets make some changes to the default settings to get a good starting point for all games, you can tweak each one from there to get better performance.

AUDIO TAB
To start change the audio settings. These will stay the same for every game, and make a very noticeable difference in audio, as well as overall performance.

Audio Latency = high
Audio Sync = off
Sound Speed Hack = on

GRAPHICS TAB
Next start with these settings for every game. (Leave what’s not mentioned here at their default settings.)

Mode = buffered rendering
Simulate block transfer effects = off
frameskip = 1
Auto frameskip = on
Prevent fps from exceeding 60 = on
Rendering resolution 1xPSP
Lazy Texture Caching = on
Retain changed texture = off
disable slower effects = off
spline/Bezier quality = med
Antiscopic filtering = off
texture coord speedhack = on
timer hack = on

The changes above that make the most difference are the Antiscopic filtering, and the settings the mention speed or performance in the UI. Turning Antiscopic filtering off completely will cause more jagged edges and tearing, but it by far seemed to make the largest difference to performance. My interest was getting the games to run, then tweaking them from there, so moving on…

Tweak Settings for Individual Games
Once you have the above default settings, you can start launching games and testing their performance. Some games perform really well and can get some upgrades, more about that later. For now, what about the games that still don’t perform well?

First, create a config file for your game from the PPSSPP pause menu. Then open the settings menu and open the graphics tab. These changes will be saved automagically. :P

For games with 2D sprites like fighting games, try this:
Retain Changed Texture = on
While it makes most games slower, certain types of games get a performance boost.

For 3D games try:
Mode = unbuffered
This will make some games crap out completely, graphically. But others get a performance boost.

If you’re still having speed issues try:
spline/Bezier quality = low

As a last resort, (this will give folks reliant on perfect performance nightmares) if you don’t mind lower fps in favor of getting to play a game at all. Try this:
Frameskip = 2
or even “ugh!”:
Framskip = 3
Try that in conjunction with the “mode” and/or the “auto frameskip” settings.

Games that run well
Most games will skip and stutter on the pi, for now we’ll just have to deal with that with PSP games. But still, and handful of games run nearly perfectly. For these games you can try a few things to squeeze better graphics out of the game.

Change mode to buffered rendering first, then you can change
Rendering Resolution > 1xPSP
I find up to about 3xPSP works fairly well for some games, and looks great.

Next, try increasing the Spline/Bezier quality.

Finally, if the game is still performing great, try enabling/increasing Antiscopic filtering.

Repeat this for every game. Good luck and high scores! lol

[rookervik]

Great list! I will try these settings out later on. I have had the same issues with lr-ppsspp. It’s completely useless. Tho I have better results in PPSSPP. I’ve had many games run at full speed at 1080p. Hotshots Golf, for one, runs wonderful even at 1080p. A little stuttering in places, but overall a great experience. Hopefully I can get the controller working as well as you have.

[labelwhore]

I think I tried one game in PPSSPP and game up on that one. Performance on the libretro version is hopeless at best. lol

[dankcushions]

if the libretro version is slower you should add a comment to this issue: https://github.com/libretro/libretro-ppsspp/issues/12

it must be some relatively simple config issue, but it won’t get fixed unless we raise it :)

[zerojay]

Extremely few games use splines or Bezier curves, so the recommendation to use “spline/Bezier quality = low” isn’t really worthwhile. About the only game I can think of that uses them are the Loco Roco games and they play fast enough with them set to defaults. Setting it to low won’t give them a speedup and will just make the game look horrific as almost everything is rendered with Bezier curves.

[labelwhore]

yep, that’s why I mostly left it at med. I didn’t notice much difference. The only time I changed it any lower is when the game already was running pretty poorly, which as you know is the case with a lot of games.

[labelwhore]

I haven’t been able to get hotshots to work, that’s one of my favorite series. The game would crap out when I went to swing.

[robertybob]

Slightly relevant – does anyone have a PPSSPP config file for an Xbox 360 controller? For whatever reason it doesn’t let me configure more than 2 buttons before becoming unresponsive.

I’ve tried lr-PPSSPP, but as others have commented it doesn’t run anywhere near as well.

[labelwhore]

I should, do you know where it’s stored? I can post it for you once I get home from work tonight.

[labelwhore]

here’s the contents of my /opt/retropie/configs/psp/PSP/SYSTEM/controls.ini

[ControlMapping]
Up = 1-19,10-4033
Down = 1-20,10-4032
Left = 1-21,10-4031
Right = 1-22,10-4030
Circle = 1-52,10-189
Cross = 1-54,10-188
Square = 1-29,10-190
Triangle = 1-47,10-191
Start = 1-62,10-197
Select = 1-66,10-196
L = 1-45,10-192
R = 1-51,10-193
An.Up = 1-37,10-4003
An.Down = 1-39,10-4002
An.Left = 1-38,10-4001
An.Right = 1-40,10-4000
Analog limiter = 1-60
RapidFire = 1-59
Unthrottle = 1-61
SpeedToggle = 1-68
Pause = 1-111,10-200
Rewind = 1-67
DevMenu = 10-198

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