Graphics Glitching with Physical Memory Card on SuperStation
Posting this in hopes that it saves someone else some troubleshooting. I was getting some seemingly random screen tearing with my SuperStation One, just on the top part of the screen. Was also getting some odd shadow banding in specific in game areas, again just near the top of the screen. Looked very much like a sync issue to me, so I tried tweaking all of the vsync and VRR settings on my SS1, Retrotink 4k, and TV to no avail. I'll spare you the full list of stuff I tried, but I swapped power supplies, tried a new SD card, etc. but it kept happening inconsistently.
Turns out my problem was using a physical memory card without a PS1 controller plugged in. I was playing with a PS5 controller but wanted to try out using a physical memory card, so I had changed pad2 to SNAC and plugged in my memory card to slot 2. It only starts happening once the card is accessed. Goes away if I change the pad from something other than SNAC or if I plug an original PS1 controller in to port 2 (but not port 1).
If anyone wants to see an example, it's really obvious when you're on the world map in Final Fantasy 7. I'm not really looking for a fix, since it's easy enough to avoid and takes a very specific set of circumstances to trigger, but I am curious whether it's just my unit or a larger issue. Hope someone finds this helpful.