Posting here for more awareness.
Apparently for a couple years now, the latest Vita RetroArch builds have been plagued with slow loading times.
People suggested me to use RA 1.9.0 because they said it was somehow better (I doubted them), but loading Yoshi's Island on 2002 core with it took a mere 1-2 seconds, and closing content 1 second.
They were right, but that was with a clean install. Once I transferred my old data/retroarch folder, the loading times went back to being terrible.
I found out that the problem lies in the data/retroarch/assets folder, and this happens no matter what RA version you're on.
If you load a game while using the ozone UI, but delete the contents of the assets folder, the core/game loading speed is twice as fast compared to if you load a game with the contents of that folder downloaded; from 10-12 seconds to 5-6.
Fair warning though; ozone UI will look different and certain UI elements disappear when you do this, for example typing in the menus using your dpad/joystick will be hard.
Ordered in terms of loading times being faster or not (xmb is the slowest):
rgui > ozone > glui >>>>> xmb
Fair reminder that for changing the GUI in Retroarch, you go into Settings > User Interface > Menu.
For anyone who mostly just plays one core (emulator) on their RetroArch at a time:
Go to Settings > Core > Always Reload Core on Run Content, and turn it OFF.
This will give you faster loading times for first boots into the app, and for switching to different games using the same core.
This is all on nightly btw. I don't know if this is an option on 1.9.0.
The setting describes that it increases system stability when ON, but I haven't seen any issues with it off.
It also helps to delete both core and info files for emulators you don't use, from ux0/app/RETROVITA
Try for yourself.
Attached is data + analysis from a fellow user who tested all the different ways mentioned here, to speed up load times.
Guide for people who aren't so savvy with RetroArch (requires VitaShell)
Apparently for a couple years now, the latest Vita RetroArch builds have been plagued with slow loading times.
People suggested me to use RA 1.9.0 because they said it was somehow better (I doubted them), but loading Yoshi's Island on 2002 core with it took a mere 1-2 seconds, and closing content 1 second.
They were right, but that was with a clean install. Once I transferred my old data/retroarch folder, the loading times went back to being terrible.
I found out that the problem lies in the data/retroarch/assets folder, and this happens no matter what RA version you're on.
If you load a game while using the ozone UI, but delete the contents of the assets folder, the core/game loading speed is twice as fast compared to if you load a game with the contents of that folder downloaded; from 10-12 seconds to 5-6.
Fair warning though; ozone UI will look different and certain UI elements disappear when you do this, for example typing in the menus using your dpad/joystick will be hard.
Ordered in terms of loading times being faster or not (xmb is the slowest):
rgui > ozone > glui >>>>> xmb
Fair reminder that for changing the GUI in Retroarch, you go into Settings > User Interface > Menu.
For anyone who mostly just plays one core (emulator) on their RetroArch at a time:
Go to Settings > Core > Always Reload Core on Run Content, and turn it OFF.
This will give you faster loading times for first boots into the app, and for switching to different games using the same core.
This is all on nightly btw. I don't know if this is an option on 1.9.0.
The setting describes that it increases system stability when ON, but I haven't seen any issues with it off.
It also helps to delete both core and info files for emulators you don't use, from ux0/app/RETROVITA
Try for yourself.
Attached is data + analysis from a fellow user who tested all the different ways mentioned here, to speed up load times.
Post automatically merged:
Guide for people who aren't so savvy with RetroArch (requires VitaShell)
Attachments
Last edited by iTheBeep,
