Kernel 5.10: On-board audio disabled or not present

busywait

If I configure my Pi4 to use the full KMS kernel with the VC4 HDMI audio driver and disable the Broadcom audio driver then I cannot use the RetroPie audio configuration in the retropie_setup.sh script.

(My audio is working, and it is using the on-board hardware; this post is about running the configuration tool.)

I have done a manual install of RetroPie using the instructions from
[https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Manual-Installation/](link url) and then updated the OS, kernel and RetroPie. Currently 4.7.1.

When I run

sudo ./retropie_setup.sh

and choose
(C) configuration/tools
then
(801) audiosettings.

Then I see the message
On-board audio disabled or not present

I'm using Kernel 5.10-rc5, full KMS and the VC4 HDMI audio driver.

pi@rpi-tv:~/RetroPie-Setup $ uname -r && aplay -l
5.10.0-rc5-v7l+
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: vc4hdmi0 [vc4-hdmi-0], device 0: MAI PCM vc4-hdmi-hifi-0 [MAI PCM vc4-hdmi-hifi-0]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: vc4hdmi1 [vc4-hdmi-1], device 0: MAI PCM vc4-hdmi-hifi-0 [MAI PCM vc4-hdmi-hifi-0]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

I have installed the Raspberry Pi OS December updates with

sudo apt full-upgrade

I have removed PulseAudio

sudo apt remove pulseaudio

I have kept RetroPie up to date using the setup script (current as of Dec 5 2020, version 4.7.1)

In /boot/config.txt I have

# Don't enable the Broadcom audio driver when using the VC4 HDMI audio driver
#https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=1636828&sid=958bf3fcc23ff111d21147ab721cb867#p1636828
#dtparam=audio=on
[all]
# Nov 2020: using the full KMS kernel in 5.10 including audio
dtoverlay=vc4-kms-v3d

mitu

@busywait said in Kernel 5.10: On-board audio disabled or not present:

Then I see the message
On-board audio disabled or not present

The audiosettings scriptmodule doesn't support the configuration you have - Full KMS and the (new) audio driver.

busywait

@mitu said in Kernel 5.10: On-board audio disabled or not present:

The audiosettings scriptmodule doesn't support the configuration you have

Thank you. (That might also make an even better error message than the current one?)

When I start retroarch I see this message:

lvl0: VolumeControl::init() - Failed to mind mixer elements!

Can I make a manual config edit to avoid that?

Thank you for any help on this - I have been ignoring the message for a while, but would like to clean it away if I can. (Or please let me know if I just need to keep ignoring it :D )

mitu

@busywait said in Kernel 5.10: On-board audio disabled or not present:

Thank you. (That might also make an even better error message than the current one?)

Could be, once this configuration will be supported by Raspberry PI OS and RetroPie.

When I start retroarch I see this message:

That's coming from EmulationStation, indicating the AudioDevice/AudioCard options are not pointing to the right audio device/mixer. You can leave AudioDevice to default and play with the AudioCard options, see if one of them will make the message disappear.

busywait

@mitu Thx again - success now :)

To get rid of the lvl0: VolumeControl::init() - Failed to mind mixer elements! message with the full KMS video driver and VC4 HDMI audio driver I needed to edit the file
/opt/retropie/configs/all/emulationstation/es_settings.cfg

I set two values:

<string name="AudioCard" value="default" />
<string name="AudioDevice" value="PCM" />

I ignored the OMXAudioDev element, because I'm pretty sure that the OMX API is not supported by the full KMS kernel.

I found the value ("PCM") to use for the AudioDevice element by running

amixer scontrols -D default

The output was

Simple mixer control 'PCM',0

(All this is for the case where I do not have PulseAudio installed. I don't know if anything would change if PA was installed - I guess I'll find out one day because it's now default in Raspberry Pi OS).

mitu

PulseAudio will not be installed unless you're also installing the desktop - RetroPie doesn't install it by default. When installed, PulseAudio will take over the default ALSA card and instead of PCM, the mixer name will be Master.

2Play

i just updated system and is on 5.10.11

If anyone uses bgm with livewire setup it seem update removes the python-pygame which is needed. (tested on another base and was ok)
So you need to reinstall manually
or use the install script to remove and re install BGM and missing package
If you use @mitu tweak in cmdline.txt
snd-bcm2835.enable_compat_alsa=1
you can set audio so mixer can work to SYSDEFAULT or HW with PCM
if you dont use this and have new default setup
you use SYSDEFAULT or HW and HDMI

NOTE
If you touched the retropie config section audio settings, go back and set to reset to default