Audio pros and cons

madmodder123

Retropie 4.2.2 on a Raspberry Pi 3
Hey all
I was wondering what would be the best audio driver/setup to use for RetroPie and the pros and cons of each of them.
When I use the 3.5mm jack for audio I get white noise, but I am able to remove this white noise by adding "audio_pwm_mode=2" to my /boot/config.txt file.
I was reading the "Known rough edges" section here: https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=136445 but I was unsure how these affect real world game performance.
HDMI audio seems to be fine (little to no white noise), and I was basically wondering if I could leave "audio_pwm_mode=2" enabled for cases where I need to use the 3.5mm for audio (so I wouldn't have to change it). This way I would be able to just "plug-and-play" and would make it more user friendly.

I was playing a PlayStation 1 game that where the audio would stutter when I enabled the higher resolution, but when I was using the "audio_pwm_mode=2" option it seemed fine even with the resolution enabled.
Also I tried "disable_audio_dither=1" with a combination of HDMI/3.5mm and "audio_pwm_mode=2" and did not notice any differences whatsoever.

Basically I (and i'm sure many others) would like a table of the pros/cons for each audio driver/setup
example table:
alt text
(also maybe a 4th column for notes)

Thanks :)

Zigurana

Another option is to use a USB sound-card, if audio over hdmi is not an option.

caver01

@Zigurana said in Audio pros and cons:

Another option is to use a USB sound-card, if audio over hdmi is not an option.

I used USB audio for a while, but found that I was running into odd compatibility issues all over. For example, I always had an error message about PCM, which I eventually assumed came from attempts to either set volume, or preserve volume settings. You see, the Adafruit USB I have wants to be called "headphones" when using amixer controls. I would LOVE to see this table expand to include USB audio, and perhaps reference the best way to configure it too. It has been a while since I gave up on it, so maybe the OS has improved in this regard.

Zigurana

yeah, getting it to work properly, was a bit of pain in the behind. I am using a Logitech S150 speakerset, which registers as a USB soundcard, and a keyboard (HID).

Below the notes I made over a year ago to get it working sufficiently well:

INSPIRATION FROM: http://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/40831/how-do-i-configure-my-sound-for-jasper-on-raspbian-jessie

create a new conf file in modprobe.d

$ sudo nano /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf
----add this -----------------------
# This sets the index value of the cards but doesn't reorder.
options snd_usb_audio index=0
options snd_bcm2835 index=1

# Does the reordering.
options snd slots=snd-usb-audio,snd-bcm2835
------------------------------------------

Now for the buttons:

user triggerhappy to configure the keymappings:
https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=53916&p=411882
set the deamon user to pi:
$sudo nano /etc/init.d/triggerhappy
and update the following line:
DAEMON_ARGS="--daemon --triggers /etc/triggerhappy/triggers.d/ --socket /var/run/thd.socket --pidfile $PIDFILE --user pi /dev/input/event*"
then, create config file:
$ sudo nano /etc/triggerhappy/triggers.d/volumectrl.conf
with the following content:

# DaPo: 29.03.2016: First version, triggerhappy config for volume control of USB sound card.

KEY_VOLUMEDOWN  1       /usr/bin/amixer sset PCM,0 2dB-
KEY_VOLUMEUP    1       /usr/bin/amixer sset PCM,0 2dB+
KEY_MIN_INTERESTING     1       /usr/bin/amixer sset PCM,0 1+ toggle

and restart the triggerhappy deamon with:
$sudo invoke-rc.d triggerhappy restart or $sudo service triggerhappy restart or $sudo /etc/init.d/triggerhappy reload, whatever.

Hopefully that gives you some inspiration to get it working!

caver01

@Zigurana Thanks for the note. I have pages that are quite similar!
I have done the index and the reordering. It works for the most part. However, notice how your volume command /usr/bin/amixer sset PCM,0 2dB- references PCM? That will fail on my USB because it is looking for HEADPHONES as a controller name. Sure, I can simply adjust my volume commands, but it is the embedded calls to PCM that would generate errors and for some emulators, I would get no audio. Perhaps I need to find another USB Sound card. The problem is that "amixer controller name" is not usually in the documentation!