@Abadden1 said in Really need beginners help:

I literally do not know what I'm doing.

Start here: https://retropie.org.uk/docs/First-Installation/

@refazeshot1 yeah, the default in retropie was recently changed to alsa_thread for pi4, which should give a same/better improvement. however it needs latest retroarch to automatically apply, and an unchanged config file(s).

@sirhenrythe5th no problem :) it will be the default in future images at least.

let me know if you get any audio drops! the gameplay should keep going but the audio cuts out for a second or two.

Thanks everyone.

MK2 indeed worked better in lr-mame2010. Not quite as smooth as 2003 or 2016 with sound sync off (only noticable on the scrolling "tree" fighter lineup and the "insert coin to continue" slide-in... actual gameplay is great).

NBA Jam TE worked perfect in 2010.

Thanks for the reply.
Removing the line autospawn=no enabled PulseAudio again if I'm not mistaking.

Already tried the 3rd answer on that thread with no luck.

Hi Calikw,

I know that 'lv10 Volume Control: Failed to find mixer" error well! I had exactly the same problem last year with a RPi and a JustBoom DAC HAT soundcard, and got so annoyed that I provided an Audio patch that was incorporated late last year to fix it! In other words... I think I can help you troubleshoot.

That 'lv10 Volume Control: Failed to find mixer" error is the cryptic message that Emulationstation gives when it cannot find the Audio Mixer on the selected Audio Card. You can find more information about that in the Sound Troubleshooting instructions I wrote on the Retropie website

I see that you are running Ubuntu 18.04. I'm guessing you're running ALSA sound drivers, so I'd like you to do a couple of test for me to get to the bottom of this issue.

Firstly, can you please run aplay -L to get a list of the Audio Cards that ALSA recognises on your Odroid XU4. You should get something like this (based on my research):

odroid@odroid64:~$ aplay -l **** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices **** card 0: ODROIDHDMI [ODROID-HDMI], device 0: I2S.27 dit-hifi-0 [] Subdevices: 0/1 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

(You may have different results, just take note of the the HDMI audio card name and keep it for later.)

This will likely show that you have an Audio Card named 'ODROIDHDMI', which is not an Audio Card type that is in the built-in list of Audio Cards in Emulationstation.

The second thing we need to do is figure out what the audio mixers are available on the ODROIDHDMI audio card. To do this I will need you to run the amixer scontrols -D ODROIDHDMI command, which will show you the names of the audio mixers on the ODROIDHDMI audio card. Based on my research you should see something similar to this:

Simple mixer control 'Analogue',0 Simple mixer control 'Deemphasis',0 Simple mixer control 'Digital',0

(Again, you may have different results, just take note of them and modify the command below as needed.)

Take a note of the names of the Audio mixers as we'll need them later.

The next step is figuring out which audio mixer actually controls the volume. On my Rpi Justboom DAC HAT, its the 'Digital' mixer. You will need to experiment to see what works for you. To test the audio mixer, you need to first make a noise out the HDMI, and then second use amixer to adjust the various mixers until you figure out which one changes the volume of the HDMI.

To make a sound out the audio device you can use speaker-test -D ODROIDHDMI -t wav -l 20 & to run the speaker test 20 times in a loop (and go into the background) You quickly then run alsamixer to get a nice GUI for the ALSA mixer, which you can then use to adjust the various audio mixer devices on the audio card

At the end of that testing you should know the Audio Card name, and the Audio Mixer name on that card.

So now we need to tell emulationstation how to use these new cards.

As mentioned earlier 'ODROIDHDMI' is not an Audio Card type that is in the built-in list of Audio Cards in Emulationstation. Luckily this isn't an issue for us, as the patch I added to emulationstation last year allows you to add a Custom Audio Card, and a Custom Audio Device.

To add a Custom Audio Card just follow these instructions and replace the <string name="AudioCard" value="default" /> line in the es_settings.cfg file with <string name="AudioCard" value="ODROIDHDMI" /> . This should allow emulationstation to successfully look for an use the ODROIDHDMI Audio Card.

To add a Custom Audio Mixer just follow these other instructions and modify the <string name="AudioDevice" value="Digital" /> line in the es_settings.cfg file so that Digital is changed to the Audio Mixer name you discovered above with your alsamixer testing.

Please note that if you change the Audio Card or Audio Device settings from within the Emulationstation GUI at any stage, you will lose your custom settings, and you will need to readd them in es_settings.cfg again as described above.

With the combination of settings above you should be getting sound when you go into emulationstation.

Now I've got something to ask of you. As you have an ODROID XU4 and I don't, can you please reply to this message with the output of the aplay -l and amixer scontrol -D ODROIDHDMI, so that I can see what the audio dcard and audio mixer names are, as I would like to submit a new patch for the ODROID, so that ODROID users in the future will be able to just select the ODROIDHDMI option from the list.

Cheers
Tminit

sory here is the full link to the setup intructions for the amp: https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-max98357-i2s-class-d-mono-amp/raspberry-pi-usage

@quicksilver It might be... However it's connected to an hdmi monitor. As I mentioned, the hiss is slightly more audible when I use, CRT for an example, when the metadata is scrolling. It was less audible when I switched to the Pixel theme.

@mitu worked great! Speakers are installed and volume sounds great! Thanks!

Update

A pull-request (PR) has been submitted to the upstream pcsx_rearmed core that improves the gaussian audio interpolation algorithm. If/when this PR gets merged, maybe you can give another try to Spyro 2/3 and see if the sounds doesn't crack anymore and the sound quality improves thanks to the interpolation. Hopefully gaussian interpolation is not so taxing to the RPI.

Ref: https://github.com/libretro/pcsx_rearmed/pull/218

I have this problem each time and have to remember to set it both in retropie and using the raspbian tools. Oh, and remember to turn up the volume on my amplifier :)

@tackskull

Move out to the root menu, then to 'Input'. From there, you should see the player one input map menu selection.

Dont worry i fixed it turnes out i just had o switch the audio from auto to the audio output in the audio menu.

@jonnykesh Yup, the audio works just fine going through either 3.5 mm to the computer speakers or HDMI to the TV speakers. It's just that the error that keeps showing up and distracts from an overall pleasing experience with the interface. This is more of a cosmetic issue at this point than a functional one.

Super Metroid (especially noticeable at title screen) I still notice this as well. Trying to figure it out. It also happens on my FPGA SNES so it might be an HDMI issue.

Sorry for the lengthy delay in replying...
IRL got in the way :-)

OK so it's definitely only the navigation sounds missing. I've tried several themes and none seem to have sound.

I'm guessing they must not be supported in Ubuntu as i don't seem to have them in the Sound Settings menu item.

Oh well :-)