Default Audio card not present or turned on

Coffeekin12

Hello! I am working an a Gameboy zero as expected i am using a Raspberry pi zero W and i am using GPIO button controls, I am wanting to use GPIO Audio, i have used a premade image from an older retro pi and GPIO audio with buttons worked flawlessly, however i wanted to update to the newest version of retropie doing so resulted in my audio settings in Retro pie showing up with "Default Audio card not present or turned on" despite it being activated in the config file and even the specific pin listed

mitu

The audio option in RetroPie's audio setup dialog only supports the onboard audio in the Pi system (HDMI/Headphone jack), not I2S/GPIO audio, hence the message. If your (GPIO/I2S) audio is the only one present in the system and you disabled the onboard audio, then you don't need any extra settings. What are you trying to do, exactly, so that you need the Audio settings menu ?

Coffeekin12

@mitu I didnt know that the audio tab dosnt control it, in the older image i used it did, but even so the speaker still is not out putting it and im not entirely sure why

mitu

@Coffeekin12 Maybe the configuration in config.txt is not working ? What audio cards are listed when you run

aplay -l

Please add more details about your setup, as asked in https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3/read-this-first.

Coffeekin12

@mitu it says no sound cards are found, as for my system info
Board: Pi Zero W
Power supply is a PD USB C block
retro pie version: 4.8
no USB Devices
Controller is GPIO via Adafruit Retrogame

Aplay gives this
aplay: device_list:272: no soundcards found...

this is the audio section of my config maybe something's going wrong there

# Enable audio (loads snd_bcm2835)
dtoverlay=audremap,pins_18,enable_audio=1

mitu

Please use ``` to surround code fragments since it provides better readability. I added them to your previous post.

Please post the exact RetroPie version you have installed (and how ?) and the entire content of your config.txt, seems like the lines you added are not enough to make the audio cards to be registered.

Coffeekin12

@mitu currently installed retro pi version is 4.8

 For more options and information see
# http://rpf.io/configtxt
# Some settings may impact device functionality. See link above for details

# uncomment if you get no picture on HDMI for a default "safe" mode
#hdmi_safe=1

# uncomment this if your display has a black border of unused pixels visible
# and your display can output without overscan
#disable_overscan=1

# uncomment the following to adjust overscan. Use positive numbers if console
# goes off screen, and negative if there is too much border
#overscan_left=16
#overscan_right=16
#overscan_top=16
#overscan_bottom=16

# uncomment to force a console size. By default it will be display's size minus
# overscan.
framebuffer_width=320
framebuffer_height=240

# uncomment if hdmi display is not detected and composite is being output
#hdmi_force_hotplug=1

# uncomment to force a specific HDMI mode (this will force VGA)
#hdmi_group=1
#hdmi_mode=1

# uncomment to force a HDMI mode rather than DVI. This can make audio work in
# DMT (computer monitor) modes
#hdmi_drive=2

# uncomment to increase signal to HDMI, if you have interference, blanking, or
# no display
#config_hdmi_boost=4

# uncomment for composite PAL
#sdtv_mode=2

#uncomment to overclock the arm. 700 MHz is the default.
#arm_freq=800

# Uncomment some or all of these to enable the optional hardware interfaces
#dtparam=i2c_arm=on
#dtparam=i2s=on
#dtparam=spi=on

# Uncomment this to enable infrared communication.
#dtoverlay=gpio-ir,gpio_pin=17
#dtoverlay=gpio-ir-tx,gpio_pin=18

# Additional overlays and parameters are documented /boot/overlays/README

# Enable audio (loads snd_bcm2835)
dtoverlay=audremap,pins_18,enable_audio=1

[pi4]
# Enable DRM VC4 V3D driver on top of the dispmanx display stack

mitu

@Coffeekin12 said in Default Audio card not present or turned on:

@mitu currently installed retro pi version is 4.8

Is this a 3rd party image ? We don't offer support for those here in the forums.

Coffeekin12

@mitu No, its the latet Download of Retropie I know i spell it 7 different ways in one sentence but its the latest install Version 4.8

mitu

I suggest you start with a fresh image, then modify the config.txt and add the lines with the audremap overlay. Try to see if you get any audio cards listed when running aplay -l and - if you do - check whether the audio output is working.

Coffeekin12

@mitu Tried both of those none of them worked, i found a version of Retropie 4.5 and that worked fine however it was a premade image with built in controls i cant seem to remove so i think im just gonna have to find someone with a fresh install of 4.5 i dont know what it was but these newer Retopie installs do not like the pi zeros with one of my first issues being on 4.6 they deprecated FBCP which prevents TFTs from being used especially on zero 2 Ws

mitu

I think the issue is that the instructions you have for the Gameboy Zero are not working with recent version of RetroPie/Raspbian, it's not that the PI zero is not supported by RetroPie. Nethertheless, without someone that understand and has experience with both (Raspbian and the Gameboy zero) you'll be stuck with an older (but functioning) version.

Coffeekin12

@mitu well in the other images sound just worked and the audio section of the retro pie menu as well as Aplay both pick up the PCM as the audio card but in the new image even with the same config file setup it just dosnt show up in any audio related menu

mitu

@Coffeekin12 Yes, I understand that and this is what I was saying also - the configuration(s) that worked for older version of Raspbian don't work with more recent version of Raspbian (even though the current RetroPie image is still based on an older Raspbian version).

Coffeekin12

@mitu I understand, thank you for your help anyway im sure if i kept trying it could work, however other people i ask point to old tutorials or just say to wire a cheap USB Sound card so for now i think i will stick with the older version, unless there is somthing about the config file im not understanding (Which im sure there is alot)

mitu

You can try asking in the Raspberry Pi forums, they have users that are more knowledgeable with this kind of modifications (audio via GPIO) and they may be able to assist you with making this work with recent RasiOS version.
They'll probably ask you to use a recent RaspiOS Lite version, for which RetroPie has only beta support, but if you describe your hardware I'm sure someone may be able to assist you there.

Coffeekin12

@mitu I will try that, Thank you