[Bug]: Android: random crashes in all games

[matheuswillder]

Platform

Android

Renderer

Vulkan

Game exhibiting the issue

All games

Describe the issue

As the title says. I've been experiencing this issue since the core started working again on Android after the big update in #352. However, the crashes are highly inconsistent, sometimes it's right when starting the game, other times after several minutes playing.

Even using the same settings, and using the same Wii System files and saves, the crashes do not occur on Linux, only on my Android device. Standalone Dolphin for Android also doesn't experience any crashes using the same Wii System files and saves.

I only decided to open this issue now because I think that, after all the recent updates, the core is now quite mature and functional, except for this problem on Android.

I'm uncertain if this is a duplicate of #421, but the descriptions don't match: here, the game crashes more frequently when starting the game for the first time, when starting it a second time right after the crash it usually works fine, and rarely it crash during gameplay (although it does happen too).

Edit: corrections.

Log Output

New Super Mario Bros. Wii: crash occurred during the game's intro
retroarch-wii.log

Mario Kart: Double Dash: crashed immediately upon starting
retroarch-ngc.log

[matheuswillder]

Just to add to what was said above, I did some tests last night and although the behavior isn't the same, perhaps this really is related in some way to #421. I disabled Dual Core in the Core Options, restarted the phone (since games crash more frequently when starting for the first time) and there were no more crashes. I played New Super Mario Bros. Wii for about ~30 minutes, and then I played the first track in Mario Kart: Double Dash, without any crashes in either game. Logs with Dual Core disabled:

New Super Mario Bros. Wii:
retroarch-wii.log

Mario Kart: Double Dash:
retroarch-ngc.log

Unfortunately, this isn't exactly a workaround, as many games become too slow to run on Android with Dual Core disabled. Also, since the crashes don't occur in standalone Dolphin with Dual Core enabled, something is wrong in the Dolphin core side.

[KamiLordus]

I don't think this is a duplicate of my report. I have dual core enabled and it doesn't cause any problems – I can play. The problem occurs when I start toggling dual core mode on and off for different games. For example, Luigi's Mansion has graphical artifacts and dual core needs to be disabled. When I finish a game and start another one with dual core mode enabled, my RA freezes completely.

[matheuswillder]

@KamiLordus while what you described is an bad behavior in the Dolphin core, standalone Dolphin has disabled Dual Core by default on desktops since version 2509, so you should be fine in terms of performance to just leave Dual Core permanently disabled (I've been doing this on my desktop since I posted about this Dual Core issue on Android, no performance problems so far). You can read why they disabled it here, and here (it's an interesting read if you like technical details).

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about Android. Many devices aren't powerful enough to run most games without Dual Core enabled, so I'll need to switch back to standalone Dolphin if/when I want to play more demanding games.

[matheuswillder]

Even though this occurs both in GameCube and Wii games, apparently disabling the GameCube BIOS intro in the core settings fixes the issue. I played for about ~10 minutes straight without crashes, and also switched between several games (I'll do more tests tomorrow to confirm this).

But even though disabling the BIOS seems to be a painless workaround, I'll keep this issue open, since it's not an normal behavior and doesn't occur in standalone Dolphin.