Nestopia Sound Not Working w/ LaunchBox/BigBox

[radamsearcy]

I've been setting up my HTPC to run with BigBox and so far I've had no issues. In fact, the issue I'm now having did not occur until I purchased my license and started poking around BigBox to OCD my collection. I'm sure I'll discover that it was something I've done to mess up the sound.

Nestopia's sound works with my roms when I load them via the emulator through the File->Open dialogue. Unfortunately when I load via LaunchBox or BigBox the sound does not work. If I access the Nestopia menu Options->Sound and select OK in an attempt to 'activate' the sound I get an error message:

Here's all the info that my LaunchBox has going on plus the Options->Sound dialogue from Nestiopia.  If there's anything else I can provide please let me know. Much appreciated with any insight.

LaunchBox Info:

Nestopia Sound Options:

My system:
w/ NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950

 

Thanks again!

[Lordmonkus]

Does Nestopia need a sound command parameter to load a rom using the command line ?

[SentaiBrad]

I would try FCEUMM or Nestopia in RetroArch if you can't solve this, but this is really really odd. I've never heard of something like this. I'll ask Jason if that error means anything to him.

[Jason Carr]

Sadly this is nonsensical to me as well...I know Nestopia's sound works fine on all the systems I've tested so all I can figure is it would be some sort of weird driver bug with your sound card. Sorry I don't have better news.

[SentaiBrad]

I thought driver bug too. Direct Sound is related. I would try two things, running Driver Booster and K-Lite Codec Pack. How the second one directly links to this? I have no clue, but drawing on my experience with "Direct Sound", these are the only two things I could think of. Let Driver Booster do it's thing, and if K-Lite says if found any broken or out of date codecs, let it fix them.

http://www.iobit.com/en/driver-booster.php

http://codecguide.com/download_k-lite_codec_pack_standard.htm

[radamsearcy]

Thanks for the replies gents!

Sidenote: I tried dragging a rom.zip onto nestopia.exe and the same issue happened. Loaded the rom fine but without sound. Sound still works when opening through the file menu.

21 hours ago, lordmonkus said:

Does Nestopia need a sound command parameter to load a rom using the command line ?

I've never seen anyone need this so I wouldn't think so.

19 hours ago, SentaiBrad said:

I thought driver bug too. Direct Sound is related. I would try two things, running Driver Booster and K-Lite Codec Pack. How the second one directly links to this? I have no clue, but drawing on my experience with "Direct Sound", these are the only two things I could think of. Let Driver Booster do it's thing, and if K-Lite says if found any broken or out of date codecs, let it fix them.

http://www.iobit.com/en/driver-booster.php

http://codecguide.com/download_k-lite_codec_pack_standard.htm

I'll give this a try and see where this takes me. I like the idea you had using RetroArch but with my noob status with emulator front ends etc, I guess I'm unnecessarily intimidated. Are there RetroArch tutorials in the tutorials section of the launchbox main site? I'm sure there are.

Will keep posted about progress! Thanks again.

[Lordmonkus]

There are Retroarch tutorials.

If you want a good stand alone emulator for the NES try out puNES, it's really nice.

[radamsearcy]

Thanks lordmonkus I'll take a look at that one.

Another piece of development. If I launch a NES rom through LaunchBox and the option to be in fullscreen on startup is unchecked (within nestopia options) the sound works fine. Even with the alt+Enter command pressed afterward to make it fullscreen and the sound continues to work.

Was looking for the proper command line verbage to place within the Default Command Line Parameter field within Edit Emulator window but have yet to find the correct one.....
-preferences fullscreen on start : yes
-fullscreen
--fullscreen
the above do not work but that's just from google so far, anyone know the proper line?

 

Curious: If standalone emulators work fine with Launch/BigBox as the front end, what is the draw for RetroArch and cores? is it ease after initial setup? organization reasons? personal preferences? Interest officially piqued!

[Lordmonkus]

Stand alone emulators do work but depending on the emulator sometimes there can be some minor hitches to work out. Some are easier to sort out than others.

The draw for Retroarch is the emulation quality in general is very good, some cores aren't so good but there aren't many. Retroarch also has great shaders, easy to manage save states and very low input and audio lag once certain settings are tweaked.

[SentaiBrad]

RetroArch also automatically assigns controller inputs to a lot of popular controllers. If you plug in a PS3, PS4 (both require an extra piece of software), a 360 or Xbox One controller, then each core will automatically assign the proper buttons to each button (except for PC cores). It's also personal preference at this point.

If you want help with NES, check out this:

It's one of the older tutorials, but it should still apply. Some things have just been updated since then, especially RetroArch. If you want a more beginner friendly, assumes nothing tutorial for both RetroArch and LaunchBox, check out this one as well:

 

 

[radamsearcy]

Sorry for the late return on this topic. Been super busy with hosting holiday and kids.

Again I appreciate all the info regarding tutorials.

Re: the sound not working with nestopia
It seems to work just fine now and I'm not sure anything was changed as far as settings. I recently jumped back into launchbox/bigbox and the sound worked find. 

Just wanted to post the update.

Thanks again!!