← All Miyoo Mini Plus fixes Fix Guide

How to Fix Screen Flicker and Tearing on the Miyoo Mini Plus

💻 Device: Miyoo Mini Plus 🗓 Added

Causes

  • Video sync settings misconfigured in RetroArch — the default per-core configuration may have VSync disabled or set to Adaptive, which causes visible tearing on the 640x480 IPS panel at certain refresh rates
  • Heavy GPU-accelerated overlays and shaders (CRT Royale, LCD grid, scanline filters) that push the SigmaStar SSD202D's 2D accelerator beyond its pixel-fill limits, dropping frames and producing flicker
  • Incorrect refresh rate match between the emulated system (e.g., 60 Hz for NTSC, 50 Hz for PAL) and the Miyoo Mini Plus display driving at 60 Hz, causing periodic micro-stutters and horizontal tears
  • Outdated or corrupted Onion OS configuration files (retroarch.cfg or per-system override files) that have accumulated invalid video timing values after multiple firmware updates
  • Specific RetroArch cores known to have tearing issues on this hardware — particularly the N64 (ParaLLEl), Nintendo DS (Drastic), and PSP (PPSSPP) cores which demand more GPU throughput than the basic 2D accelerator can reliably provide

How to Fix

  1. Boot the Miyoo Mini Plus with Onion OS and launch a game known to have screen tearing. Press Menu + Select simultaneously to open the RetroArch Quick Menu.
  2. Navigate to Quick Menu → Options → Video and set VSync to On (not Adaptive). Also set Frame Delay to 1 (higher values increase input lag). Exit the menu and test — tearing should be eliminated or significantly reduced.
  3. If tearing persists, disable overlays and shaders entirely: from the Quick Menu, go to On-Screen Overlay → Overlay Preset → Disabled. Then go to Shaders → Shader Passes → set to 0. Apply changes and restart the core.
  4. For system-wide fix, exit the game and navigate to the main Onion OS menu. Press Select to open the Apps menu, choose Tweaks → Advanced → RetroArch Settings. Scroll to Video → Vertical Sync (VSync) and set it to On. Scroll to Video → Threaded Video and set it to On — this offloads video rendering to a separate CPU thread, reducing frame-time variance on the single-core SSD202D.
  5. If specific cores (N64, DS, PSP) still flicker, configure per-core overrides: launch the problematic game, open Quick Menu → Overrides → Save Core Overrides. Then go to Quick Menu → Options → Video and reduce Video Threaded to Off for that specific core (some older cores conflict with threaded video).
  6. Reset all RetroArch video config to factory defaults: from the Onion OS Tweaks app, choose Advanced → Reset RetroArch Config. Confirm the reset. This clears any corrupted values accumulated from version upgrades. After reset, reapply only VSync and Threaded Video as described above — do not add overlays until you confirm stable video.
  7. If flicker appears only when charging, it may be electrical noise from the USB-C charger affecting the display driver IC. Test with a different charger (5V 2A recommended), and avoid charging while playing for extended periods if the flicker is reproducible only on USB power.
  8. As a last resort, flash the latest Onion OS release fresh on a clean SD card. Configuration drift across multiple OTA updates is a known cause of screen issues that stubbornly resist per-setting fixes. A clean install of the OS resets all display-related kernel modules and DRM settings.
← All fix guides View Miyoo Mini Plus specs →