Update troubleshooting.md

[cobalt2727]

i might come back and modify this more later if i can get xemu itself to successfully build and install using the megascript - the PPA is really well maintained but optimization is everything on devices this weak

[MasonT8198]

@mborgerson this seems like a good merge

[cobalt2727]

Actually don't merge it yet, I got an installer for xemu added to the L4T Megascript, but I still need to make it create the necessary .desktop files since xemu doesn't support sudo make install

[cobalt2727]

So this'll get rewritten when I fix that anyway

[cobalt2727]

This is ready for review

[MasonT8198]

This is good now, thanks!

[MasonT8198]

Whenever @mborgerson gets the chance to merge this it should be fine now I would think

[mborgerson]

• I don't really want to push the official ppa as being "not recommended" and instead suggesting people use something that's marked as use at own discretion. xemu generally is to be used at your own discretion anyway.
• Where are the data behind the "slight speed boost" claim?
• Performance is pretty bad on switch generally... which games in xemu are actually playable when building with platform tuning?
• We can suggest your alternative build script that builds with tuning flags for the platform, but let's at least make it a separate subsection.
  • Also you can build a deb for the platform instead of duplicating the debian install behavior, which is preferable for updates, etc.

[cobalt2727]

• I don't really want to push the official ppa as being "not recommended" and instead suggesting people use something that's marked as use at own discretion. xemu generally is to be used at your own discretion anyway.
• We can suggest your alternative build script that builds with tuning flags for the platform, but let's at least make it a separate subsection.

Sounds good, I'll rewrite that when I get the chance.

• Where are the data behind the "slight speed boost" claim?
• Performance is pretty bad on switch generally... which games in xemu are actually playable when building with platform tuning?

I don't have a message link, but I remember Marco Loves 360#3902 confirming last year in the Discord server that there was a small bump in FPS when manually compiling. Unfortunately I haven't been able to test this myself, but I'm hoping the gap in performance between the PPA and source building increases long term as the emulator gets more ARM optimizations... the CPU is a massive bottleneck for Tegra hardware like the Switch.

• Also you can build a deb for the platform instead of duplicating the debian install behavior, which is preferable for updates, etc.

That's an option, but this approach is more hands off - updates are rebuilt with the Megascript itself by selecting the Auto Updater option in the GUI.

Relevant bits:

XemuUserInput="no" #set this variable to a default response
if test -f /usr/local/bin/xemu; then #check if Xemu's been compiled on the device
        description="Do you want to update Xemu? (May take 5 minutes to 2 hours)"
        table=("yes" "no")
        userinput_func "$description" "${table[@]}"
	XemuUserInput="$output"
fi #create a GUI (or a RetroPie-style terminal menu if connecting over SSH) to ask the user whether they want to update Xemu

# ... running other stuff

if [[ $XemuUserInput == "yes" ]]; then
	echo "Updating Xemu..."
	sleep 5
	bash -c "$(curl -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/$repository_username/L4T-Megascript/$repository_branch/scripts/games_and_emulators/xemu.sh)" || exit $?
else
	echo "Skipping Xemu update..."
fi

[MasonT8198]

I can attest that manually compiling xemu on switch hardware does net better performance, which in a situation where the switch is already power limited, every little bit of perf you can get helps

[cobalt2727]

How big of a difference is there? In the test I mentioned above I remember he only said it was about 1-4 FPS faster on Halo 1.

[cobalt2727]

@mborgerson anything I should do to touch this up?

[MasonT8198]

LGTM