Help with problem using crt_emudriver with Vulkan

[Retroman_X_Games]

Hello everyone, sorry for the bad English I don't speak the language so I had to use the translator.
I will try to explain my situation clearly lol.

I used my PC connected to my CRT TV with the CRU, as I have an Nvidia card, not having many configuration options with the CRU, I ended up giving up on the idea and getting a Radeon HD 7770 to use as a second GPU.

So far it worked fine, my main graphics card apparently did the entire process and AMD's GPU managed the TV output. I felt some slight gameplay glitches in the PCSX2 emulator and Dolphin, figured that was why amd's opengl drivers are bad.

Then came the pandemic, until a few months ago there was a decent amount of work showing up to keep me going but recently my jobs have gone down a lot so because of the value I decided to sell my nvidia graphics card.

I took it out of the office this week and went to do some tests only with the HD7770, and the gagging ended!

It's running smooth only with the HD 7770, both with OpenGl and Directx, I even managed to scale x3 in one of the tests, and it was perfect.

So I went to play my Zelda TOOT on Retroarch, with the Parallel core and I get a message from E.R.R. on screen, this never happened with the nvidia graphics card as the main card.

I put the nvidia card back in, and the emulator works perfectly, but the slight glitches have reoccurred, they are not crashed hard, but still, in 2d platform/action games they are bothersome.

I looked for information about this type of problem, and I saw on the libretro forum that this problem on android devices is usually caused by the lack of two extensions in the vulkan driver, which are:
VK_KHR_8bit_storage
VK_KHR_16bit_storage

I looked for some way to download and install these extensions to do some tests, but I couldn't find it.

Things I did to try to use AMD graphics card only:

Before performing these processes I always used AMD driver removal software.

1. I downloaded the official adrenaline driver version in the same version as the crt emudriver driver, extracted, copied some files from the display folder and pasted it into the system32 and syswow folder.

2. I also tried to install this official driver, and then the crt emudriver driver, without success.

3. I downloaded the newest version, installed it, then installed the crt emudriver, also without success.

4. I formatted the PC, and redid everything, it didn't work either.

5. I installed the Vulkan SDK

I am inclined to not sell the Nvidia Graphics Card anymore, but the problem of gagging, even slight ones still occurs when I use it together with the HD7770.
The best resolution for my situation would still be selling it and solving this problem using only the HD7770 if possible.
Thanks.

[Calamity]

Hi Retroman_X_Games,

Just to rule out the most obvious problems:

- The Emudriver version you have to install for your card is the one based on Adrenaline 18.5. This one should have Vulkan support.

- If this Vulkan support is just not enogh (newer features are required), then an user here suggested get the Vulkan files from a newer driver version and copy then manually. This sounds like what you already did.

- If none of the above works, then I'm afraid there's nothing that can be done, until CRT Emudriver gets an update (assuming the needed features are solved but the updated driver, can't say).

-----

Somewhere, surely not in this forum, someone must have recommended a lot of people it was a good idea to use an Nvidia card as rendering device and an AMD as the output one. I never thought CRT Emudriver would be used this way and never tested it. I'm surprised it works at all that way. I can't recommend it though. From your story, it sounds like the emulator is doing v-sync on the wrong gpu... I couldn't tell without seeing it directly though.

[Retroman_X_Games]

Hi Calamaity, thanks so much for replying.
Answering your questions:

1. I am using crt_emudriver 18.5.1 Adrenalin

2. I did these steps following the topic you found, but the error persists

3. I did a test now: I did a clean installation of the system, installed the latest official driver which is 21.5.2 and it worked perfectly, without any error message in parallel core.
I came to believe that maybe my card didn't fully support Vulkan's features, but I think some feature that came in more recent driver versions .

Now wait , retroarch's parallel core delivers a precise Nintendo 64 emulation that no other emulator has delivered until now and with lots of cool features.

Anyway, thanks, I saw that the card is not the problem, so wait for a future update.

A question, do you intend to support the newer future drivers for Apus Ryzen?

[Rion]

This information is for linux but should apply to windows as well

https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxhardware/comments/he9nhe/amd_and_nvidia_gpus_in_the_same_machine_it_works/

[Retroman_X_Games]

Hi Rion, thanks for replying, I did the same tests that were in the thread as you.
I switched, inverted the slot video cards but I still have slight gagging.
There's still the problem of using the strongest gpu in the second slot and it has to go to 8x which is how my motherboard works.
I did some tests with my nvidia card in the second slot running current games and got a 30% fps drop using it on pci-e 8x, so use two video cards, with nvidia or the video card plus powerful in the second slot does not pay.
As for the Vulkan problem in Parallel core I will wait for the most updated drivers from crt_emudriver itself.
Now I have a doubt, you who are more experienced, on pcsx2 choosing opengl as a render I have a lot of lag with the HD7770, I know amd's opengl drivers are bad, but is it possible to compensate the bad driver with brute force?
For example: If I change this hd7770 for an r9 380/380x will pcsx2 run more smoothly in opengl even with the bad drivers?

[Rion]

Hi Rion, thanks for replying, I did the same tests that were in the thread as you.
I switched, inverted the slot video cards but I still have slight gagging.
There's still the problem of using the strongest gpu in the second slot and it has to go to 8x which is how my motherboard works.
I did some tests with my nvidia card in the second slot running current games and got a 30% fps drop using it on pci-e 8x, so use two video cards, with nvidia or the video card plus powerful in the second slot does not pay.
As for the Vulkan problem in Parallel core I will wait for the most updated drivers from crt_emudriver itself.
Now I have a doubt, you who are more experienced, on pcsx2 choosing opengl as a render I have a lot of lag with the HD7770, I know amd's opengl drivers are bad, but is it possible to compensate the bad driver with brute force?
For example: If I change this hd7770 for an r9 380/380x will pcsx2 run more smoothly in opengl even with the bad drivers?

I suppose you would need a better motherboard suited for dual gpu setup.
I would think so. Just looking at the comparison here it would be quite a big leap
https://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/AMD-R9-380-vs-AMD-HD-7770/3482vsm7710