Audio crackling and popping

RetroArch General
#1

I haven’t really noticed it on NES or SNES(Could be a coincidence), but it does certainly happen on GBA (Vba m and vba next). In the original standalone it doesn’t seem to happen (But that doesn’t have the same syncing method as far as I know). Yes, the sound is always fuzzy because it’s a GBA, but no pop sounds every now and then. In my case it’s only pops coming up in retroarch. They’re not very loud but noticable enough to get on my nerves. Reminds me of when a Vinyl only slightly doesn’t work correctly anymore.

On the getting optimal vsync performance page it says you need about 0.1% accurate measurement of your refresh rate. Thing is, It’s always stuck at 0.5%. Which for my screen always equals 60.002, which might not be accurate enough, I’m guessing. I tried increasing and decreasing manually but no luck.

Audio latency setting has no effect. I can put it on the highest and it still happens.

Still happens with GPU Hard Sync off. Tried vsync on or off, threaded video on or off, that throttle sync thing on or off and audio sync on or off. I tried the three differrent audio drivers. I also tried increasing the priority of the emulator in Windows. It happens in the older Retroarch versions as well, so it’s not exclusive to the new version. I’m testing with Pokemon Fire Red.

This is the only thing that makes me still use the standalone versions sometimes (except for a few emulators), so I’d love to find the cause.

#2

This is usually caused by framerate drops. Does it act any differently with the mgba core?

#3

Actually, it seems like, yes, it’s less bad in mgba. But I’m not sure on it, I’d have to test a bit more. If it’s frame drops, I wonder why frames would drop in gba emulation. Let’s check with frame display on if it pops when fps changes. edit: Dangit, t was at 60 when it popped. but the fps counter seems to refresh only every short amount of time, so I can’t really check. Can it also happen when it goes up?

Maybe it has something to do with my setup/hardware and not Retroarch itself?

edit: Question, if borderless window is disabled, and I alt tab, does it go into borderless window until I get back to retroarch? Because for some reason, when hovering the mouse over a tab in chrome and a text box pops up, I can hear the game lag. Those text boxes always make my window mode games lag, but not my exclusive fullscreen ones.

#4

It still seems to happen there. When Vsync is on, I also get a small stutter about every 6 seconds.

‘‘While using RetroArch, the default settings might not be adequate, and you might experience video stuttering and/or audio crackling. For correct synchronization, video_refresh_rate must be configured for your monitor.’’

Maybe that setting really is just set wrong.

#5

Okay, I did the test with this command. Retroarch --verbose --menu

60.002400, with 0.671% frame deviation (went for about 10k frames). This was the second test, the first one was the exact same number.

And yet, it’s still stuttering when I put it at that number :c. So I guess it’s not that after all. The stutter is probably something that happens in all my emulators.

The standalone gives me either the same thing, or sometimes a weird strobing effect, so I guess Retroarch beats it in video department either way. I guess for the stuttering, only G-sync would save me.

I’m gonna go see later what happens in the Linux version in kms.

#6

Update: Sorry for the tripple posting, but I think I’ve found the source. Forcing off Vsync in the Nvidia settings = no crackling/popping. I used to play like this, so that’s why I never noticed it before. Also, Normally the audio would mess up when doing other stuff alt tabbed a lot and now even that barely happens. I think it’s because with it on, my fps indeed drops slightly below 60 sometimes. Now it stays 60+.

The problem with this is that a :No Vsync at all (lots of tearing) but most importantly b: The menu is crazy fast. So fast it’s really hard to control. This can be fixed with limit maximum runspeed, but fastforward stops working and the problem comes back.

So as for video/sound, it’s kind of a pick your poison scenario. Would I rather have no audio popping/crackling and teary/stuttery visuals, or audio popping/crackling but smooth (although not perfectly smooth) visuals? I’m fine with picking one, but the problem is still that I can barely control the menu. If only I could limit the fps to 60 when in the menu, but not in game. If it’d be possible to add a function that only enables the fps limiter on the menu but not in the game, that’d be awesome :3 If that’s not possible, an optional function where I’d have to always manually press up or down in the menus, disabling being able to hold the button would make them controllable as well.

#7

You shouldn’t have to change anything in the Nvidia control Panel. Exception if you’re using multiple displays, then try forcing just one screen (happened at a friend’s place, multiple screens = random lags).

Audio latency to 96ms, but you already tried that.

#8

Forcing Vsync off in there does work though. The game speed is still fine because of audio sync. So syncing with just audio = audio is fine. Syncing with video and audio = audio messes up occasionally. I have no clue why.

#9

I really don’t know what to do. I was just playing on standalone mame and the sound/audio syncing was superior. :/.