Fixing G.Skill DDR4 3200 transmission issues in Mario Emulator
It was honestly ridiculous; in a simple 2D emulation scene, the screen was tearing like a piece of paper. It was more stressful than the actual game traps. I found that the PCIe link was flipping between Gen2 and Gen3 in Auto mode, creating instant latency spikes of 15-22ms. I tried updating the emulator kernel first, but that actually made it worse, increasing the stutter frequency to four times a minute. Total nightmare. I went into the BIOS and forced the PCIe slot speed to Gen3 and updated the chipset drivers. Looking at the RivaTuner frame time graph, the spikes dropped from 12-35ms to a smooth 11-14ms, and the tearing stopped completely. I did have a couple of issues where the GPU wasn't detected on cold boot after locking Gen3, but a CMOS reset sorted it out. Board temps are sitting at 42-48℃. I exported the system logs to confirm the link errors were gone, and fans are steady at 1400-1600RPM.
