Audio slowdown during key areas of the game STEAMDECK

[ElKameleon]

Played through the whole game 100% on my Steam Deck using the flatpack version of the game, also using the redub mod. 90% of the game ran great, but at key points in the game, there was significant slowdown to the audio, framerate was unaffected. First really noticeable location was Tsurumi bossfight. I think it might be related to transparency. Would also sometimes happen during mech battles. There were a few rooms in the gourmet submarine dungeon this was apparent too.

[klorfmorf]

Did you use the Flatpak or the standalone version?

There's some weird audio issues on Linux and in my testing using the Flatpak fixed those issues.

[ElKameleon]

I played through with the flatpack version, as I stated in my original post. I'm willing to do some more testing if you need, could probably get some video.

[klorfmorf]

I played through with the flatpack version, as I stated in my original post. I'm willing to do some more testing if you need, could probably get some video.

Ah, must have glanced over it somehow.

A video of the problem along with the RT64 debug graphs would be nice, you can activate it by open the graphics.json config file and setting the debug setting to true and then pressing one of the function keys (I forgot which).

Though audio problems seem like more of a CPU-issue somehow.

[ElKameleon]

I had to play through the game again to get this video, sorry it took so long. I tried to bring up the render tab thing with F1, but no matter what I tried I couldn't get it to work on the steamdeck, so this is all I have.

https://youtu.be/1t1Lcj5jRgU?si=aY1UumzzfjbypirG

[klorfmorf]

I had to play through the game again to get this video, sorry it took so long. I tried to bring up the render tab thing with F1, but no matter what I tried I couldn't get it to work on the steamdeck, so this is all I have.

https://youtu.be/1t1Lcj5jRgU?si=aY1UumzzfjbypirG

Did you set developer_mode to true in graphics.json?

It doesn't seem to be a matching issue anyway, I've tested it on my system and the performance impact of those bomb explosion isn't nearly enough to cause slowdowns like this.

Are you using an external controller? There could be some driver issues causing this.

[klorfmorf]

Does it go away if you set Rumble Strength to 0% in the menu?

Here's a tip to get to the boss battle quicker: Create a new save file, once in-game press the L-Trigger, Z-Trigger and D-Pad Right all at once to bring up a level select. Once on that level select go up and select SIRO and then go all the way up to Stage 113, that'll be the boss room.

Could you also tell me more about your setup?

[ElKameleon]

I had to play through the game again to get this video, sorry it took so long. I tried to bring up the render tab thing with F1, but no matter what I tried I couldn't get it to work on the steamdeck, so this is all I have.
https://youtu.be/1t1Lcj5jRgU?si=aY1UumzzfjbypirG

Did you set developer_mode to true in graphics.json?

It doesn't seem to be a matching issue anyway, I've tested it on my system and the performance impact of those bomb explosion isn't nearly enough to cause slowdowns like this.

Are you using an external controller? There could be some driver issues causing this.

Yes I set those options, and the debug tab shows, but pressing F1 on an external keyboard just changes the brightness on the steam deck screen.
I was using the 8bitdo 64 controller. I've played through the whole game and i've never had rumble working, so I don't know if that's related. I tried the shortcut option to get to that boss battle, and i'm not getting any slowdown through that route... it's so strange.

What do you mean about my setup? I'm just using a default OLED steam deck, I don't have any plugins or any of that customization some people do.

[klorfmorf]

I had to play through the game again to get this video, sorry it took so long. I tried to bring up the render tab thing with F1, but no matter what I tried I couldn't get it to work on the steamdeck, so this is all I have.
https://youtu.be/1t1Lcj5jRgU?si=aY1UumzzfjbypirG

Did you set developer_mode to true in graphics.json?
It doesn't seem to be a matching issue anyway, I've tested it on my system and the performance impact of those bomb explosion isn't nearly enough to cause slowdowns like this.
Are you using an external controller? There could be some driver issues causing this.

Yes I set those options, and the debug tab shows, but pressing F1 on an external keyboard just changes the brightness on the steam deck screen. I was using the 8bitdo 64 controller. I've played through the whole game and i've never had rumble working, so I don't know if that's related. I tried the shortcut option to get to that boss battle, and i'm not getting any slowdown through that route... it's so strange.

What do you mean about my setup? I'm just using a default OLED steam deck, I don't have any plugins or any of that customization some people do.

The controller might be having I/O issues on Linux. The controller implementation is multithreaded and I/O issues could cause the threads to not give up their mutexes and cause slowdowns. The game only has rumble in the giant boss battles. Did you fight against a giant boss in the same session you fought Tsurami?

Use the same setup as before (external controller, rumble strength set to 20%). A quick way to test it would be to open up the same level select as before, go down to 3DBOSS and then select STAGENAI.NO 1, beat the boss, once you're back in Iga open the level select again and go to SIRO and then STAGENAI.NO 133.

If you still have slowdowns that probably confirms the controller I/O issue, if it's gone there might be another issue happening during the game session.

[worleydl]

Ran into the same issue from the video testing on Xbox yesterday. I'll see if I can get a debug chart later today.

Link to UWP port: https://github.com/worleydl/Goemon64Recomp-uwp

edit: Hrm no issues today warping to Tsurami directly, also no issue doing the rumble fight then warping to Tsurami so can't capture anything useful unfortunately. I encountered the issue from the video during a continuous playthru, maybe the debug warp is resetting something.

[klorfmorf]

A temporary fix would probably be to simply use a compatibility layer like Proton and play the Windows version as that is somehow more stable than the native Linux versions. You won't have to deal with other Linux oddities either and performance is also pretty solid.

[worleydl]

I think the UWP testing confirms this is possible on Windows too. Seems to only affect longer playthrus, I wasn't able to replicate using warps but I do have the debugger available the next time I trip it.