Fixing games that require the NDS Microphone in Drastic

shutterbug2000

So, experiencing NDS games (such as Zelda) not working on Drastic for Raspberry Pi (and by extension, Retropie) I decided to dig a little deeper

I booted up the emulator via command line, which resulted in it telling me
"ERROR: Unable to open audio capture device hw:0,1 (No such file or directory)Aborted"
As many people have noted, it was a problem with being unable to find and use a microphone.
The solution is something that is fairly simple to do, just requiring some knowledge with a hex editor.

Simply get the drastic executable (over SFTP, can be found in /opt/retropie/emulators/drastic), download the file named "drastic", and open it in a hex editor such as HxD.
Then, search for "hw:0,1" and replace it with "hw:1,1".
Save it and upload it back to the same place, then try running a game like Spirit Tracks.
It should work, and the microphone input will simply be what is currently playing in-game.

2Play

@shutterbug2000 hi there. Have you tested this?
I have tried that edit but still rom exits

roslof

Yeah, I don't think that's going to work. Maybe there is another way, but not by changing that string.

sterlingrod

All this does is change the text in the error message, it doesnt actually change anything mic related.

Chuck_B

Maybe this can help.
Go to question n°37
http://odroidarena.com/frequently-asked-questions/

it says
"In order to enable it you need the following: Microphone can be used with a USB DAC by setting DRASTIC_MIC_EN=1 and DRASTIC_MIC_NAME=”hw:#,#” in drastic.sh where #,# is the ALSA card and device ID."

I have no chance to try. If anyone here can test it, it would be cool to know if it really works

SartreFan

@Chuck_B I've purchased a usb microphone to attempt fixing drastic issues but cannot figure out how to assign the microphone as the default audio capture for Drastic. Is it even possible to set this on the Raspberry Pi version?

mitu

@SartreFan It could be, since the drastic binary should be the same. But I don't see the script that the FAQ references in their distro.

What you could try is

Find out the Alsa device ID - try using arecord -l from the command line and record the numbers.
Edit /home/pi/.profile by running nano /home/pi/.profile and add the 2 settings at the end of the file:

export DRASTIC_MIC_EN=1
export DRASTIC_MIC_NAME="hw:X,Y"

replacing X and Y with the values of the ALSA ids from the previous step. Then reboot and give it a try.

SartreFan

@mitu Thank you for the reply. I tried adding that but it still gave the same error. The hardware setting for the usb microphone would have been hw:1,0 but still came back as hw:0,1 in the error log. This was in the runcommand log

Found game in database: titled Grand Theft Auto - Chinatown Wars. EEPROM backup: 2000 bytes
Failed to load backup file.
No custom cheat file at /opt/retropie/configs/nds/drastic/cheats/Grand Theft Auto - Chinatown Wars (USA) (En,Fr,De,Es,It).cht.
Checking cycle hacks for gamecode 45584759
Performing recompiler base block translation (2000800 2380000).
Calling recompiler event update handler (@ 0x8490130).
Remapping ITCM limit from 2000000 to 2000000
Remapping DTCM from 27e0000, 4000 to 27e0000, 4000
DTCM moved off of main RAM, remapping main RAM to it.
ERROR: Unable to open audio capture device hw:0,1 (No such file or directory)/opt/retropie/supplementary/runcommand/runcommand.sh: line 1007: 1629 Aborted /opt/retropie/emulators/drastic/drastic "/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/nds/Grand Theft Auto - Chinatown Wars (USA) (En,Fr,De,Es,It).zip"
~

mitu

@SartreFan It may be because it's trying the open the 1st Mic device, which would be at hw:0:1. Unfortunately I don't have an USB mic to test - can you post the output of arecord -l ?

SartreFan

@mitu

**** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
card 1: Device [USB PnP Sound Device], device 0: USB Audio [USB Audio]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

edmaul69

@mitu where is the drastic.sh located? I couldnt find it in the roms folder, config folder or emulator folder.

mitu

@edmaul69 The drastic.sh is the name of the package file (scriptmodule), the installed emulator is simply drastic and it should be in /opt/retropie/emulators/drastic/drastic.

edmaul69

@mitu ok. So the guy above had posted the 2 lines to add to the drastic.sh, but looking at it on github i dont know where the lines need to be added. I put them where you stated but that didnt do anything.

mitu

@edmaul69 The drastic.sh script is used only for installation, not for running the emulator, so they wouldn't be added there. Are you referring to the lines I posted ?

edmaul69

@mitu yes. A guy previously posted adding them to the drastic.sh. So i was confused about where i would put them in there. I understand the .sh is for installing it. Just trying to understand what the other dude posted.

mitu

@edmaul69 Ah, I glossed over that line. It's actually not for RetroPie, but for the Odroid Arena scripts, that's why you can't find it.

edmaul69

@mitu ok. Makes sense.

Chuck_B

@mitu so that workaround is not compatible with Retropie?

mitu

@Chuck_B It might be, but it looks like my previous hint didn't work and I don't have a microphone to test it myself.

SartreFan

@Chuck_B I made a post about this issue on the Drastic forum back in January but had no reply. This is a comment the developer made in May 2017 about further development so it might eventually get addressed

"Finally, I do want to say that I really want to get another release out (and some sub-forums here), and I apologize that I haven't despite saying a few times already that I was planning on it. To be totally honest I've been having some hard times and it's been hard to sit down and focus on things like this, but I'm really hoping that will change soon."

And another update June, 2017

"I also intend to work on getting the Raspberry Pi version in a better state, and then I can most likely release more or less equivalent builds for Linux and Windows PCs (just x86 desktop, not Windows Phone)"