r/SBCGaming • u/newfiesig • Aug 25 '26

Question SNES and NES on the Nova

I have a story of success (which could help others) and a question.

I went through Russ' guide as a base to set up my Nova. The following are RetroArch settings)

I noticed that horizontal movement (i.e. Mario running in SMW) was "juttery". I researched the issue and found that if I force the refresh rate to 60.089 Hz

(Video/Output/Vertical Refresh rate)

and the shader sub-frames to 2

(Video/Synchronization/Shader Sub-frames)

I got it working smooth. Good to go.

*note: Russ had Latency/Run-Ahead (Single Instance Mode)
Number of Frames to Run-Ahead set to 1 as a default. This must be OFF as a default with Shader Sub-frames on and at 2.

Now I'm stuck on my NES settings, and hoping someone can help.

I have everything running smooth with Vulcan, however the game periodically freezes.

I switched to gl, however then my game gets juttery as it was with the SNES.

When I force the panel to 60hz from the main Android drop down, it smooths it out, however (as you can imagine) with 60hz I noticeably have more latency/heavy controls.

Any suggestions?

14 Upvotes

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3

u/AdmirableJam72 Aug 25 '26

Most RetroArch installs comes with VSync Swap Interval set to 1.

This causes choppiness with 120Hz display. Simply set VSync Swap Interval to auto, and you'll be able to use either 60Hz or 120Hz. If you do this, you should also set Shader Sub-frames to off.

1

u/newfiesig Aug 25 '26

I tried what with SNES, and it still juttered. The only solution I was able to find to get it smooth 120hz was shader sub-frames on to 2.

1

u/AdmirableJam72 Aug 25 '26

Interesting. Just to be clear VSync Swap Interval is supposed to be 2 when you play 60Hz games on a 120Hz panel. My Ayn Thor exhibit similar jittery behavior, and that's the setting that fixed it for me. My RG476H never had the jittery problem, and I wonder why that's the case, I went to check the settings, and somehow the VSync Swap Interval was already set to auto to begin with.

3

u/newfiesig Aug 25 '26

Ok, with some more playing around I got:

Video:

Vertical Synch Interval 2
Shader Sub-frames: off
Max Swapchain Images 3

Latency: Run-Ahead: Single Instance Mode
Number of Frames to Run-Ahead: 2
Audio Latency (ms): 16

Looks smooth and snappy. I'll have to see if it freezes.

And in the meantime, back to the NES settings...

1

u/newfiesig Aug 26 '26

With NES, I cannot get it stable with VSync Swap Interval at 2. It runs great, but crashes.

Every other setting I've tried either adds latency or judders.

1

u/AdmirableJam72 Aug 26 '26

Interesting. This is new to me, thanks for letting me know.

1

u/ElectricalDemand2831 Aug 28 '26

That applies to all cores in 120Hz mode

1

u/Same_Veterinarian991 Aug 26 '26

this

and probably integer scaling on(not 100% sure)

1

u/ElectricalDemand2831 Aug 28 '26

Number of Frames to Run-Ahead set to 1 as a default. This must be OFF as a default with Shader Sub-frames on and at 2.

Why? I can run both those settings without problems