Retroarch no TV Picture via Steam Link

RetroArch Windows devices
#1

Hi,

I am currently trying to figure out why retroarch won’t work with steam link anymore.

I get a black TV with sound when starting retroarch.exe when the video driver “GL” is selected. It used to work flawlessly some weeks ago. I don’t understand what suddenly could be causing this problem. It worked with Vulkan but I need to run GL otherwise most of my library won’t work.

Any ideas?

What I already tried:

  • using just a single monitor
  • trying different steam in-home-streaming settings
  • disabling shadowplay
  • uninstalling geforce experience
  • no fraps is installed
  • selecting the correct display in retroarch video settings
  • windowed/fullscreen mode

Temporary Solution for black screen with sound and no TV picture

  • Start Retroarch through Steam Link (still GL)
  • Go to PC switch the video driver to D3D and close Retroarch
  • Start Retroarch again and switch back to GL and close Retroarch
  • Start Retroarch again and there is TV picture

I don’t understand how this is possible though. It actually is quite ridiculous.

Solution today 22.04.2017

is uninstalling nvidia driver from device manager and let OS roll back to default driver.

This worked for me twice.

System: Windows 10 creators update Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 Ti.

#2

I don’t have a solution, but I’m experiencing something very similar. Same symptoms, yet I’m using an AMD 7950 on Win10, and for me it is Vulkan which shows the black screen (just on the Steam Link client, the video is find on the host); the GL driver displays fine.

Your temporary solution didn’t work for me, so I’m now experimenting with different AMD driver versions. It might not help me, but what Nvidia driver version would up working for you after you rolled back the driver?

#3

Sorry for the late reply!

I don’t have the exact version, but I rolled back to stock Windows 10 Nvidia Drivers.

Simply uninstall the driver (in device manager) until Windows gets the driver via Windows Update.

It took a great deal of time until I accidentally stumbled upon this solution by thinking I had already reinstalled the latest driver when I was actually using the latest driver provided by Windows Update.

I don’t know whether this helps you or not but I’d give it a try.

Did it actually ever work properly on your system or did it suddenly stop working?

#4

Thanks! I did basically try that. I was on AMD 17.4.3, then uninstalled, and after restarting Win10 “helpfully” automatically installed the prior version I was using which is 16.6.

It’s still not working (black screen with Vulkan). I honestly don’t know if this is new or not. I only recently attempted to use Vulkan since GL has been giving pretty poor performance in all cores, and even the Retoarch menu, when using Steam’s in-home streaming to the Steam Link (but not on the host…).

At this point, my temporary solution is to use the D3D display driver in Retroarch. It’s giving better performance than the GL driver, and I can actually see the screen :slight_smile: