No sound in Intellivision

HurricaneFan

Pi: 3
RetroPie version: 4.2.18 (last commit 940186d)
Emulator: jzintv

So I've got the bios files (ECS.BIN, exec.bin, grom.bin, IVOICE.BIN) all in the /home/pi/RetroPie/BIOS folder.

Problem: Roms don't seem to have sound. I've tested a bunch of roms (Astrosmash, Beamrider, etc). And there is no in game sound.

Is this a bios issue? Rom issue?

edmaul69

@hurricanefan not sure the issue. Try updating retropie setup and reinstall jzintv. The bios' shouldnt effect sound. Did you get the exec and grom from the same place as the ivoice and ecs? You might have the homebrew version of them. Try playing 4tris and see if you have audio. If you do then find another grom and exec. Otherwise, no clue what your issue is.

HurricaneFan

@edmaul69 I've updated retropie setup and reinstalled jzintv. I've tried replacing all of my bios files with new files I found. No sound in 4tris that I tested.

I tried one of the Intellivoice roms and that has sound (Tron Solar Sailer).

Can you run an md5 of your bios files? I'll check to see if mine are different.

dudleydes

@hurricanefan How are you outputting audio?

If I use HDMI audio on my monitor, then I too get no sound in jzIntv. I can fix this by adding a -a44000 flag to the jzIntv launch command in emulators.cfg.

You can try running the following commands to see what audio rates are supported by HDMI, if that is what you're using.

tvservice -d edid.dat
edidparser edid.dat > edid.txt

When I do this, I see the following line in the edid.txt file:

HDMI:EDID found audio format 2 channels PCM, sample rate: 32|44|48 kHz, sample size: 16 bits

I believe 44100 Hz is the default for jzIntv but for some reason my monitor doesn't support it and I need to use 44000 Hz.

It's probably worthwhile testing 3.5mm audio as well.

HurricaneFan

@dudleydes Ahh, thats probably my problem. I am using it on a monitor that has built in sound.

Thanks so much for this! I'll test this out with my monitor.

edmaul69

@hurricanefan you can go into /boot/config.txt and remove the hashtag from

hdmi_drive=2

If that doesnt fix it, also add

hdmi_force_edid_audio=1

Those should work. If not, # hashtag out any that you added.

HurricaneFan

@edmaul69 I did both of those commands and it didn't make the sound work in Intellivision.

@dudleydes My edit.txt had that message in it that you posted. Where is the emulators.cfg file that I need to add that flag to?

edmaul69

@hurricanefan its in /opt/retropie/configs/intellivision/

HurricaneFan

@edmaul69 Thanks! I've edited the emulators.cfg file in the /opt/retropie/configs/intellivision path and that did the trick!

@dudleydes @edmaul69 Thank you both for the help. I've got sound working now in my games. :)

dudleydes

@hurricanefan Glad to hear you got sound working.

I looked into this a little more and found that any audio sample rate below 44100 will work. I could've added -a44099 to the jzIntv launch command and sound would work.

These sample rates are not standard so here is a cleaner solution. As @edmaul69 suggested, I added the following line to /boot/config.txtand rebooted:

hdmi_force_edid_audio=1

I now have -a44100 in the jzIntv launch command and sound works fine. I tried -a48000 but that didn't work.

Let me know if this works for you and I'll add the info to the wiki.

What monitor are you using? It would be interesting to see if this issue is specific to certain manufacturer(s) or if it relates to all built in speakers on monitors. I am using an AOC I2757FM.

HurricaneFan

@dudleydes That hdmi_force_edid_audio=1 didn't do anything until I changed the jzIntv launch command.

My monitor is from the same manufacturer: AOC i2367Fh

edmaul69

@hurricanefan did you add the force edid audio and change it to -a44100 instead of what he previously had you set it in the emulator.cfg like he said? Does it work this new way for you?

HurricaneFan

@edmaul69 I haven't had a chance to tweak my pi with the other setting yet. I'll test it this afternoon.

HurricaneFan

@edmaul69 @dudleydes

Changing my setting to -a44100 made my sound stop working. I have both hdmi_drive=2 and hdmi_force_edid_audio=1 in my /boot/config.txt

Below is my command in emulators.cfg:
jzintv = "/opt/retropie/emulators/jzintv/bin/jzintv -a44100 -p /home/pi/RetroPie/BIOS -q %ROM%"

edmaul69

@hurricanefan ok

dudleydes

@hurricanefan Have you rebooted after making changes to /boot/config.txt?

HurricaneFan

@dudleydes Yup, I did it again and the sound still doesn't work.

Did you have the hdmi_drive=2 uncommented out in your config.txt?

dudleydes

@hurricanefan I have checked my /boot/config.txt file and have realised that I had the line hdmi_ignore_edid_audio=1 rather than hdmi_force_edid_audio=1. Apologies for the confusion.

According to eLinux RPi Configuration, adding hdmi_ignore_edid_audio=1 makes the Pi

pretend all audio formats are unsupported by display. This means ALSA will default to analogue.

This doesn't make sense. How can analogue sound be heard through HDMI?

I also tried using hdmi_ignore_edid=0xa5000080 as an alternative. This ignores the EDID data of the monitor "if your display is a crappy Chinese one". Sound works with this setting and the resolution doesn't seem to have been affected. I think this may be the better solution so if you could test this, then that would be appreciated.

hdmi_force_edid_audio=1 didn't work for me and hdmi_drive=2 had no effect either way.

I hope somebody with better knowledge of audio on the Pi can point to an optimal solution though I suspect the problem may be isolated to AOC monitors. I only came across this issue when testing. I output audio through the 3.5mm jack and use this cable to connect to powered speakers.

HurricaneFan

@dudleydes hdmi_ignore_edid=0xa5000080 works for me.

I've commented out hdmi_drive=2 and also hdmi_force_edid_audio=1 from my file.