How to fix frame drops in Mario Emulator on MSI B760M?
During high-precision jumps, I'd get these tiny micro-stutters that are absolutely lethal in a platformer. The default scheduling on the MSI PRO B760M-A WIFI DDR4 II was scattering the emulator process across too many cores, causing cross-core communication latency to swing between 15-25ms. I tried setting CPU affinity in Task Manager first, but while the single-core speed improved, it crashed my background apps, so I had to be more careful. I eventually went into the BIOS, enabled Intel Performance Optimization, and set my Windows power plan to 'Ultimate Performance' to force the main process onto the P-cores. In RivaTuner, the frame generation interval went from a jagged mess to a perfect 16.6ms flat line. I did have a scare where the CPU hit 88℃ and throttled slightly after locking the cores, but I fixed that by shifting the fan curve 5℃ earlier. Board temps stayed between 45-52℃. The internal emulator benchmark confirmed the fix, with frame times locked at 16.6ms.
