Unwanted audio artifacts in Hatari

jamesbeat

I've nearly finished a project I'm working on - a Retropie box specifically for computer based emulators such as the ZX Spectrum, C64, Atari ST etc.

I have almost everything set up how I want it, but I have encountered a sound issue with Hatari (Atari ST emulator).

I'm getting unwanted sound artifacts, which sounds exactly like the problem described in the manpage:

To prevent extra sound artifacts, the frequency should be selected so that it either matches evenly with the STE/TT/Falcon sound DMA (6258, 12517, 250033, 50066 Hz) or your sound card frequencies (11025, 22050, 44100 or 6000...48000 Hz). Check what your sound card supports.

Trouble is, I have tried every frequency available, and I'm still getting the artifacts.
The default (44100 I think) seems to work the best, but it is still bad enough that I noticed the problem in the first place.

I would usually suspect the emulator, but I have used Hatari on several other devices (including on a PC with the x86 version of Retropie) without sound issues.

In case it makes a difference, I'm using the analog audio jack for sound because I'm using an HDMI to VGA adapter.

Any ideas?

Raspberry Pi 3
Retropie 4.2 (standard SD card image)

edmaul69

@jamesbeat really strange that your vga adapter doesnt have a headphone jack on it. When using the audio port on the pi and you have these issues you need to open up the file /boot/config.txt and add this to the bottom:

disable_audo_dither=1

edmaul69

@jamesbeat edit on previous post. There is no capital D on the word disable. Stupid phone and auto caps on a new line

jamesbeat

Interesting, I didn't know about audio dithering.
Would this affect only the one emulator though?
All the others sound fine.

jamesbeat

Ok, I tried turning off dithering, and it didn't seem to make any difference.

I'm still getting artifacts, like echo-type sounds, sounds that go on longer than they should etc.

I have listened carefully to games that I am very familiar with on other systems, and this definitely only seems to affect Hatari.