Mame 182 Port Audio

[Lordmonkus]

For those of you that do not know what this is it is much lower audio latency which in turn means sound effects are now for all intents and purposed happening exactly when they are supposed to matching what is happening on screen. To take advantage of this new feature you will need to edit your mame.ini file and change the following settings:

# OSD SOUND OPTIONS
#
sound                     portaudio
audio_latency             1

#
# PORTAUDIO OPTIONS
#
pa_api                    "Windows WASAPI"    
pa_device                 default
pa_latency                0.003334

If after making these changes you find you have really distorted audio or any other speed issues your system may not be able to handle this so just go back to your old settings.

There is one drawback to this new feature however. Mames sound will take over all audio from your computer so if you like to play music through your system while playing Mame games at the same time you won't be able to do it. Maybe there is a workaround to this.

[Malhavoc]

This worked on my PC, but unfortunately I also play MAME through launchbox from my TV (using Steam Link). And with Steam Link, using this option makes no sound.

[ckp]

aha!, that's what is causing this for me! @Malhavoc you have now fixed my mame crashing and audio with steam link. thanks!!

[Redmist]

Sorry to resurrect this thread but I tried this out and it makes a big improvement to MAME authenticity.

I own a couple of real arcade machines and when I compare MAME with Port Audio, G-SYNC and HLSL scanlines, it's unbelievably close to the real thing.  It makes you completely forget that you're playing an emulator.  Port Audio removes audio lag, G-SYNC removes input lag and tearing and HLSL recreates the visual look.  I can't wait for big screen TVs to arrive that support variable refresh rate so that I can have this experience in the lounge room.

It's so good that I'm pushing to have DOSBOX support a low latency audio mode.