@Paxi said in RetroPie on Ubuntu Mate 20.4.01 HDMI sound issue:

there is only a 32bit version available.

RetroPie has only experimental support for 64 bit on the Pi, using the Raspberry OS 64 bit beta version.

Isn't there anything more I could try, specifically in RetroArch/Pie config?

You can try to disable PulseAudio and make sure RetroArch uses ALSA.

hdmi_safe=1 is equivalent to:

hdmi_force_hotplug=1 hdmi_ignore_edid=0xa5000080 config_hdmi_boost=4 hdmi_group=2 hdmi_mode=4 disable_overscan=0 overscan_left=24 overscan_right=24 overscan_top=24 overscan_bottom=24

You can add

hdmi_force_hotplug=1 hdmi_ignore_edid=0xa5000080 config_hdmi_boost=4 hdmi_group=2 hdmi_mode=4 disable_overscan=1

instead of hdmi_safe=1.

I wonder if any "good brand" TV of that time has also this problem ?

Telefunken used to be good, they sold the name, its not really telefunken anymore.
DGM is a total unknown brand.

I wonder if any LG TV has audio problems.

I couldn't get speaker-test to work, or aplay. alsamixer had volume.

I ended up just re-imaging the SD card with a fresh copy of RetroPie. This fixed my issue. All ROMs I've played have had appropriate audio.

@mitu thank you. That was the issue. I knew it was something easy. Thanks for the support!

@ahndrooan You can edit the topic title - there's no 'solved' checkbox :).

@TheBossT said in Retropie 4.4 HDMI Problem: Garbled Sound When Playing ANY Console/Emulator:

Also if anyone can maybe give some alternatives to bluetooth audio as the lag ain't great, that will be greatly appreticated!

There aren't many solutions out there and it seems this solution not only breaks other audio outputs but also is unusable due to the lag. I'm almost certain the Pi dosen't have enough horsepower to emulate games and stream bluetooth audio, as per the tutorial above I have completely removed it and I recommend that you should too. Let me know how you get on and if you find an alternative that doesn't stutter.

Thanks for answering, check that other users had the same problem, so check my settings thoroughly:
thanks to this help guide:
https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Sound-Issues/
This step solved the problem for me:

USING THE BUILT-IN HDMI AUDIO
If you have a standard RPi and want to send audio over the HDMI connector then it should just work. In some instances though, you will need to manually modify the raspberry pi boot config file (sudo nano/boot/config.txt) and ADD the following lines to those already there:

# forces HDMI mode hdmi_drive=2 # Setting hdmi_force_hotplug to 1 pretends that the HDMI hotplug signal is asserted, so it appears that a HDMI display is attached. In other words, HDMI output mode will be used, even if no HDMI monitor is detected. hdmi_force_hotplug=1 # Pretends all audio formats are supported by display, allowing passthrough of DTS/AC even when not reported as supported. # May not be needed for all HDMI devices hdmi_force_edid_audio=1

Once you've made the change, save the file, restart your Raspberry Pi, and move onto Step 2.

Yes, the problem with lr-mame2000 is that is not compatible with all games. :(

In any case I will try to configure the gpicase controller searching in the config files for mame4all

I ended up just going back to the 3.5mm jack for audio in my cabinet. Based on the linked article, I just made sure I had the following settings in my config.txt:

disable_audio_dither=1
audio_pwm_mode=2

For some reason my pwm_mode was set to 0 in my config and changing that to 2 resolved all my issues with the 3.5mm jack.

Unfortunately, I was never able to get the crackle / hiss / static noise issue resolved when sending audio out HDMI to my HDMI to VGA adapter.

@griffon I hear you. Others have reported similar or related issues, and I have a similar problem on my TV as well, whereby sometimes the audio won't play until I change channels and then come back to the HDMI input on my Toshiba LCD TV.

Clumsy HDMI handshake implementations is my best guess.

@bytethis right, and I changed the source of course to see the video. But it didn't work until I changed the pi from the HDMI2 on the back of my TV to the HDMI1.

Boom, plenty of sound.

Very happy!

Thanks again,
Paul

Additionally, is your HDMI routing directly to your TV or is it passing through a soundbar or AV receiver?

@Floob @NinjaX567 after one of the new updates i no longer get audio in dreamcast either. Its only in dreamcast. I havent tried composite audio to see if it works on it.

I had this problem last weekend after updating everything to the last version. It seems in some emulators de audio driver was changed to alsathread. I changed it back to sdl2 and the audio was back on the emulators. I did have sound in Emulationstation but aftering entering an emulator it was gone.

Access retroarch configuratie with select+x and check the drivers in settings.

Hope it helps.