feat(scroll): report a panel that cannot reach its refresh cap, and suggest one it can hold (#759)

* feat(scroll): report a panel that cannot reach its refresh cap, and suggest one it can hold

Scroll speeds are solved against display.hardware.limit_refresh_rate_hz,
which is only a ceiling. A panel that cannot reach it still moves whole
pixels per frame, but every scroll runs slow by the shortfall and the
"smooth" ladder is the cap's, not the panel's. A user rig (Pi 4, 2x128x64,
adafruit-hat-pwm, pwm_bits 9, gpio_slowdown 5) measured 107.6-113.1 Hz under
a 120 Hz cap: 60 px/s ran at 55, and nothing said why.

- scroll_config: refresh_shortfall() (more than 3% under the planned rate),
  holdable_cap() (a multiple of 10, 5% under the measurement, since the
  measurement is the fast end of an uncapped panel's drift), and
  describe_refresh_shortfall().
- FrameTimingRecorder.plan_refresh(): once the measured period has held for
  three trusted windows, a shortfall is logged once as a warning naming the
  cap to use. DisplayManager calls it only for a real panel, not the
  emulator or the fallback canvas. The stats file records
  planned_refresh_hz (additive).
- GET /api/v3/config/refresh-rate, plus a hint under the Display tab's
  Limit Refresh Rate field (js/pages/display.js) with a button that fills in
  the suggested cap.
- _panel_refresh_hz (behind the Vegas slider's advice) ignores a measurement
  written under a different cap, so a changed cap stops being advised from
  the old rate before the display restarts.

Verified on ledpi with a temporary 200 Hz cap: the warning logged about a
minute after the restart ("about 132 Hz ... Set Limit Refresh Rate to
120 Hz"), the endpoint returned the same shortfall, and the Display tab
showed the hint; its button filled in 120. ledpi was restored afterwards.
Rebased onto main after the Display tab became an ES-module page (#771); the
hint moved from inline script into display.js, with a jsdom test.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* fix(scroll): count only agreeing windows toward the refresh shortfall; ignore a null planned rate

Review fixes on #759.

- A window the period estimate rejects (more than MAX_REFRESH_DROP faster
  than the adopted period) no longer counts toward the shortfall check, and
  it restarts the run. After a loaded start fixed a slow period, later
  windows at the real, faster rate were rejected yet still counted, so the
  warning could name the slow rate against a cap the panel was meeting. It
  now needs REFRESH_CHECK_WINDOWS consecutive windows that agree with the
  period.
- _panel_refresh_hz treats a stats file whose planned_refresh_hz key is
  present but null as no measurement. The emulator and the fallback canvas
  write it that way (DisplayManager never plans a refresh for them), and
  their frame rate says nothing about the cap. A file with no such key (an
  older display) keeps the old behaviour.

Three new tests fail on the previous code and pass now.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

---------

Co-authored-by: Claude Sonnet 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
This commit is contained in:
Chuck
2026-10-09 10:40:08 -04:00
committed by GitHub
co-authored by Claude Sonnet 5.5
parent 370c8fe273
commit 1bcb524fc3
14 changed files with 458 additions and 5 deletions
+19
View File
@@ -19,6 +19,25 @@ accepts both, but the store flags the old spelling as deprecated
## Unreleased
### Scroll speed: a panel slower than its refresh cap is reported
- Scroll speeds are solved against `limit_refresh_rate_hz`, so a panel that
cannot reach its cap ran every scroll slow by the shortfall, with no sign
why (one Pi 4 on a 120 Hz cap refreshed at ~110 Hz: 60 px/s ran at 55).
Once the display has measured the real rate over three windows of
scrolling, a panel more than 3% short of the cap is logged once, as a
warning from `src.common.frame_timing` that names a cap it can hold (a
multiple of 10, 5% under the measurement). The Display tab shows the same
under Limit Refresh Rate, with a button that fills it in, from the new
`GET /api/v3/config/refresh-rate`. Not checked in the emulator or on the
fallback canvas.
- The frame-stats file records `planned_refresh_hz` (additive), and the
scroll-speed advice behind the Vegas slider ignores a measurement written
under a different cap. Until now, after the cap changed, the slider kept
advising from the old rate until the display restarted.
- New in `src.common.scroll_config`: `refresh_shortfall()`, `holdable_cap()`
and `describe_refresh_shortfall()`.
## 3.8.3
Fresh installs on Raspberry Pi OS Lite work again: 3.8.2's installer reported