The mesen libretro suddenly has choppy audio on some games (most noticeable in Castlevania III). CPU is powerful, so I know that's not the issue...

[PurpleTentacle]

The computer I have my default build on has an Intel i7 8700k & 1070ti (not that I'd expect the GPU to matter), so I know the issue isn't lack of power. Nestopia & FCEUmm libretros work fine, as far as I can tell. I've heard that the Mesen libretro has the best accuracy, so I'd like to figure out what the issue is (also want to fix it in case the cause negatively impacts other things without me noticing). 

The gameplay, as far as I can tell, is smooth, it's just a clicking-popping sound (even with the game is paused). Not every game does this with Mesen, but it's enough that I don't want to just switch the games that do it to Nestopia (would be hard to test every game, too). 

 

Any ideas? I actually just tested opening up Castlevania III manually within Retroarch, and it seemed to play fine. I don't have any extra command line parameters in Launch Box, so I'm not sure what the difference is. 

[Lordmonkus]

Very weird, I just did a test here on my system using the latest release of Retroarch and Mesen core and the latest version of LB and I have no audio issues at all in Castlevania III. My CPU is a Ryzen 2700X which is very slightly less powerful in single thread performance than an 8700.

[PurpleTentacle]

Yeah, I don't think I have any specific audio settings that aren't default. I do have the bezel project stuff, but when I open it manually within RetroArch, even with the bezels, it works fine. 

[Jason Carr]

@PurpleTentacle Most likely this is a driver issue of some sort. Have you tried upgrading your drivers?

[PurpleTentacle]

Just updated all my drivers, along with Windows itself. Still getting the sound issue. Here's a clip I just uploaded to YouTube just to give an example of what it sounds like: 

 

 

I also installed the same build of Launch Box (which same games & settings) to my laptop, and it has a very similar sounding issue (I don't think it's quite exact, but it's close). The laptop's CPU & GPU are very outdated compared to my main computer, but it's not really too bad (have no problem emulating N64 games, for example). I should mention that the green flicker you see a few times isn't present when actually playing it. Must be introduced from the recording. I also need to move/hide my mouse, lol.

 

Unrelated, but I'm also having an issue with RetroArch where it will stop responding to my hotkeys after making a change (I use the "Enable Hotkey" to input commands into RetroArch). Doesn't always happen, but it does make controlling RetroArch a bit unreliable.

Edited March 4, 2019 by PurpleTentacle

[Lordmonkus]

That certainly doesn't appear to be a performance related issue at all.

Did you do any recent updates to Retroarch or anything ?

Could you try setting up a fresh install of Retroarch and adding it to LB without the bezels and stuff so it's just LB and RA and nothing else and see if the issue still persists ?

[PurpleTentacle]

That's a good idea! I had a copy of my build on another hard drive on my main computer (sort of a "test build" for stuff like this), and unfortunately, still have the same issue with a fresh version of RetroArch. At least I ruled out bezels/configs being the issue. Even tried a few different version of the same game. 

 

Worst comes to worst, I'll just use Nestopia. I'm less concerned with which core I use, and more concerned with fixing whatever the cause of the problem is, in case it influences other things. 

[Lordmonkus]

Do you have Nvidias GeForce Experience software installed ?

I ran into issues with that and Retroarch one time though it wasn't the same issue you are showing in your video but it did cause performance issues.

[PurpleTentacle]

I do. Just tried closing it & no difference, although I don't know if I need to disable it from starting up with Windows, as opposed to merely closing it? Still trying to figure out how to disable it on startup (it's not under the Startup section in Task Manager, no option in Geforce Experience itself). 

[Lordmonkus]

I had to reinstall my drivers and unselecting the GFE software to remove it, I don't know if that would fix your issue but it was something that did cause me issues in the past so I no longer ever install it. When it did cause the issue for me it was after a driver update.

[PurpleTentacle]

Remembered that my 3rd computer doesn't have a GPU, since it's my old computer where the GPU died. No GFE, and it still is having the same issue. I'm baffled. Probably just gonna switch to Nestopia for the time being until I can figure it out.

[Lordmonkus]

Yeah issues like this can be very frustrating, especially when they are happening but only for you and no one else that we are aware of.

[PurpleTentacle]

Yeah, I literally Googled the problem, and one of the few relevant results was this thread, lol.

[Lordmonkus]

Yeah your issue is a weird one cause it's not even a performance related glitch where you get shitty framerate and audio pops, the audio glitching you are getting in your video is a weird one.