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
+25
View File
@@ -77,6 +77,31 @@ The Vegas **Scroll Speed** slider in the web UI shows the same thing live: a
line under it says what your speed will run as on this panel, and links to the
nearest smooth speeds.
### A panel that cannot reach its cap
Speeds are solved against `limit_refresh_rate_hz`, the configured cap, but a
cap is only a ceiling: a long chain, a high `pwm_bits` or a big
`gpio_slowdown` can leave the panel below it. One Pi 4 driving 2×128×64 on
`adafruit-hat-pwm` with `pwm_bits 9` and `gpio_slowdown 5` measured
107.6–113.1 Hz under a 120 Hz cap. Frames still move whole pixels, but
every scroll runs that much slower than configured (60 px/s ran at 55 px/s),
and the smooth speeds are the cap's rather than the panel's.
The display measures the real rate from its own frames. About a minute
into scrolling, a panel more than 3% short of its cap is logged once:
```
WARNING - src.common.frame_timing - The panel refreshes at about 113 Hz, below
the 120 Hz that scroll speeds are planned for ... Set Limit Refresh Rate to
100 Hz (web UI, Display tab), which this panel can hold, and restart.
```
The Display tab says the same under **Limit Refresh Rate**, with a button
that fills in the suggested cap (`GET /api/v3/config/refresh-rate`). The
suggestion is a multiple of 10 at least 5% under the measurement, because
an uncapped panel drifts and the measurement is the fast end of it. A cap the
panel holds also stops the drift.
### How a slow speed stays crisp
`SwapOnVSync(canvas, framerate_fraction)` holds each frame for N panel