no sound using Vulkan

RetroArch Windows devices
#1

After a thorough search in this forum looking for posts/solutions related to my stumbling block, I found a couple threads that hinted at a similar problem/issue. I apologize in advance if this inquire is considered inappropriate or repetitious to this forum. But the threads I found offered no clear solution or answer, just a sort of work around.

My system specs… Dell Optiplex 3050 Micro w/Intel Core i5-7500T (Intel UHD Graphics 630 GPU), 8GB RAM OS - Windows 11 64bit (all updates to date) Latest Intel graphics drivers installed (30.0.101.1404)

My issue… Running RetroArch under a virgin install of Windows 11, I have no game sound when selecting Vulkan as my video driver. Graphics/visuals are perfect. But no sound. It does not matter the specific game core. And it does not matter the specific audio engine (wasapi, xaudio, dsound, etc). No sound using Vulkan.

Running RetroArch using GL, GLCORE, D11, D12, etc or any other video driver, I do have game sound using any of RetroArch’s audio rendering engines. Video performance is however seriously affected. So using any of these alternatives proves useless regarding game play.

However… and here’s the odd thing… If I configure Retroarch to run WINDOWED w/Vulkan and I load a game rom, I have sound nearly all the time. There are obvious compromises to doing this.

I’ve troubleshooted on several TVs. I’ve used a couple different AV receivers. I changed the HDMI cable… Tried playing with sound buffers, changed from 44100hz to 44000hz. Nothing. Same result concerning Vulkan in RetroArch… Great visuals, but no sound.

So the problem seems to only happen running in regular/standard full screen mode. I have no idea where to go from here. I do believe there is some sort or sharing issue going on considering my specific GPU but don’t know where to begin. Thank you in advance for any assistance ya’ll might be able to provide. EXH

#2

A little late on this, but have you tried plugging external speakers or headphones into your computer and see if sound comes out that way?

#3

DIsabling HDMI in Windows 11 and forcing any Windows sound to be transmitted through the internal speaker or headphone outputs… Yes. Using Vulkan driver in RetroArch… Sound does in fact work using the computer’s little internal speaker etc.

#4

It’s clearly a bug with the implementation of Vulkan, I think part of Vulkan is overriding the sound driver for Retroarch, and it’s not been properly configured for certain setups. We both use computers with Intel chips instead of proper GPUs with an HDMI connection, this might be why it manifests only on certain hardware, it probably works on computers with a HDMI connection through the GPU just fine, but it’s just hiding the fact theres a problem at all.

If it’s a bug like I just described, not much we can do till they decide to look at and fix it.