hrydgard
Random stuttering in Ridge Racer 2
Game or games this happens in
Ridge Racer 2, Wipeout pulse, Motorstorm arctic edge, Wipeout pure, Metal gear solid peace walker
What area of the game
There is a micro stutter that seems to happen randomly in every game I have tried, this happens regardless of what rendering backend is chosen, however on the two devices i have, my Samsung galaxy tab a9+ runs better in opengl than vulkan, but the stutters happen anyway on both devices.
These stutters began on the A9+ only after a recent software update from samsung, as it used to work perfectly fine before.
The games i have tried are: Ridge Racer 2 ~~Wipeout pulse Motorstorm arctic edge Wipeout pure Metal gear solid peace walker~~
Changing the rendering resolution likewise does not help, in the default 2x resolution, most of the games besides motorstorm, have always ran just fine on this very device (Galaxy tab a9+), but as of the latest version, 1.19.3 from the play store, this stutter has shown up in every game like i mentioned. The stutter itself is very brief, but using the speed and fps counter, it reflects that right during the stutter, it can drop down as far as 93% and then spring back up to 100%.
I haven't installed anything else on the tablet that could be running in the background and taking focus away from PPSSPP, and even stranger, I have just gotten myself a brand new Galaxy tab s10 lite, which is about 20% faster than the a9+ and it has these exact stutters as my old tablet which i have used PPSSPP on for a long time without any issues.
The galaxy tab s10 lite also seems to perform better in opengl, but oddly enough, stutters are more common on there if set to opengl, if set to vulkan, overall performance is worse as confirmed by Motorstorm arctic edge, as it's an already intensive game, and it seems to create these stutters more often even though the game is running at 100%. If set to opengl, performance overall is better, but said microstutters become even more frequent than before.
I've already mentioned it, but just so it's clear, even if i reset the app completely and all settings to default, and then turn the rendering resolution to 1x, this stuttering happens on both tablets, though slightly more common on the Galaxy tab s10 lite.
The specs of both tablets:
Galaxy tab A9+ Chipset: Qualcomm SM6375 Snapdragon 695 5G GPU: Adreno 619 8 GB Ram (Ram plus turned off) Display set to 60hz Latest security updates already installed Android 15, One UI 7.0
Galaxy tab s10 lite Chipset: Exynos 1380 GPU: Mali-G68 MP5 8 GB Ram (Ram plus turned off) Display set to 60hz Latest security updates already installed Android 15, One UI 7.0
Galaxy tab s10 lite screenshot:
Galaxy tab a9+ screenshot:
I've attached a screenshot and frame dump each from both tablets, hopefully this helps. For the sake of the frame dump, i've set the S10 lite to Opengl for the rendering backend, and rendering resolution was left on 2x which is the default
Another thing to note, this only happens on my two Samsung tablets, i have an older and relatively weak Nokia T21 tablet, and these games run just fine on there at 1x resolution. Ridge racer 2 which i've used to test on the samsungs, have this stutter even at 1x resolution, this doesn't happen on the Nokia. To put in perspective how much weaker it is, the specs of it are: Chipset: Unisoc Tiger T612 GPU: Mali-G57 4GB Ram Android 14
According to benchmarks, the S10 lite's chipset is about 144% faster than the Nokia T21, and the GPU is 554% faster than Nokia T21's. Setting the internal resolution on 3x on the S10 also shows that the game continues to be running completely fine save for the micro stuttering bug which happens at 1x also anyway.
After more testing, I've found out that I have managed to reduce, but not completely get rid of the stutters by disabling the "graphics commands buffers" and setting them to 0, by default they're set to 2. Reason I say they're not completely gone is that they still happen sometimes, but more infrequently and are way less noticeable, the stutter itself being way quicker, but still there if you look for it.
Turning vsync off also gets rid of the stutters completely and even returns the speed counter to a normal 100% instead of 99.5% during gameplay in ridge racer 2, but this results in the image looking terribly jittery with uneven framepacing. Forcing 60hz from developer settings instead of leaving it to "request 60hz" also does the same thing even if vsync is turned on.
Speed seen in PPSSPP
93% (57/60) (during a stutter) 99.5 (60/60) (during normal gameplay in ridge racer 2)
GE frame capture and debug statistics
Platform
Android
Mobile device model or graphics card (GPU)
Galaxy Tab A9+ and Galaxy Tab S10 Lite
PPSSPP version affected
1.19.3
Last working version
Graphics backend (3D API)
OpenGL / GLES
Any other notes or things you've tried
I have tried: Resetting the app, deleting all its data Changing rendering resolution to 1x Changing rendering backend to Vulkan and Opengl Changing I/O Timing method to host Changing the display to 90hz and back to 60hz
Checklist
- [x] Test in the latest git build in case it's already fixed.
- [x] Search for other reports of the same issue.
- [x] Try resetting settings or older versions and include if the issue is related.
- [x] Try changing graphics settings to determine if one causes the slowdown.
- [x] Include logs or screenshots of issue.
In my search, i've discovered that this stuttering bug seems to happen in Ridge Racer 2 on other platforms as well. I have tried the latest stable build of PPSSPP on my laptop which has decent enough specs to run even Motorstorm at 3x resolution perfectly fine. It's got an Intel i5-8300H @ 2.30 GHz and a discrete Nvidia GTX 1050 running Windows 10. Ridge Racer 2 continues to have sporadic stutters, but it seems to happen on some tracks more often than others, the first track in the game, Seaside Route 765 in particular has a lot of stutters. The backend i'm using is Direct3d 11, all other settings set to default besides vsync being turned on, however, on PC, the stutters happen with vsync turned off as well, while on the tablet(s), the stutters disappear when vsync is disabled.
The other games i've mentioned, mainly Wipeout, their stutters seem to be related to the I/O timing, as i've managed to get them to disappear on the S10 Lite by changing it to simulate slow UMD speeds.
There is also some sound crackling when entering any tunnel on any track. This happens on every single device i've tried regardless of video or audio settings, might be an unrelated bug to this.
I have found a video on youtube of someone playing Ridge Racer 2 on an extremely high end PC with an Intel i9-13900K and a RTX 4090, these stutters are visible and audible there as well alongside the crackling in the tunnels. Go to timestamp 7:07, this level is rife with stutters exactly like i've described, seems to be less of a hardware problem, and more of a bug with this game. The person recording it has the game upscaled and has a texture pack applied, but the bugs i've described are similar, it being a recent video, means must be a recent version of PPSSPP, https://youtu.be/M1z-6sUMq0A&t=427
I really hope this makes for good evidence that it doesn't happen only on my devices, on which i've tried on 3 tablets and 1 PC.
Hope this is helpful, if there's anymore logs needed, i'll be happy to provide, and hope it's not too confusing to read through.
Have you tried the latest dev build from https://www.ppsspp.org/devbuilds ? in case this issue have been fixed.
Yes, I have already tried, including older versions, all the way down to 1.17.1, the stuttering in ridge racer has been there for quite a while, however, seems like for the other games, it's a reduction in performance that started with 1.18, as I've tried Motorstorm on 1x resolution via the opengl backend, as it's the fastest on my devices, and on the S10 lite, Motorstorm often falls all the way down to 85% speed during races, while 1.17.1, stays at 100%~ the whole time with no audible or visible stutter. This applies to the A9+ as well, where this reduction in performance is visible.
Random Stuttering Issues on Samsung Tablets with PPSSPP
A user reported persistent random stuttering in various games on the Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 Lite and Galaxy Tab A9+, specifically after a recent software update. Games affected include Ridge Racer 2, Wipeout Pulse, and Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. The stuttering occurs regardless of rendering backends (OpenGL or Vulkan) and persists even after resetting app settings.
The user found that disabling graphics command buffers reduced stuttering but did not eliminate it. Turning off V-Sync also alleviated stuttering but resulted in poor image quality. Notably, the issue does not appear on an older Nokia T21 tablet. Further testing on a PC revealed similar stuttering in Ridge Racer 2, suggesting a potential game-specific bug rather than a device-related issue.
I am not sure if the reply above is some AI summarization of sorts, but like i've stated, this doesn't happen only on samsung devices. It's mostly exclusive to Ridge Racer 2, it just took a long while to realize that it only happens in that game, and on all devices as of the latest version, even on PC.
I assume it also happens in Ridge Racer, since it's a large subset of Ridge Racer 2...
This could be related to the lens flare thing in that game, where we end up creating and freeing a large texture for it several times per lap. That itself is not supposed to be a heavy operation but maybe it is somehow... otherwise I don't really know, will have to investigate that case specifically.
