SOLVED: Intermittent scratchy sound, persistent across games

[XpanD]

Hi all,

I kinda hate the whole registering-just-to-ask-a-question thing, but I've been having an issue with PPSSPP for a while and just can't seem to figure it out. I was hoping somebody here might have an idea or two.

The problem is pretty simple to explain; every game I've tried to run so far works great, except for the sound. The sound is often very scratchy, though the effect comes and goes. It also seems to get more intense during more complex bits of sound (music especially), which has led to me having to disable music in all of the games I've emulated so far. The weird thing is that normal sounds are generally just fine, it's 90% music that's having issues.

I have read through and tried all of the settings in the sticky'd guide, as well as trying both the latest official release and a bunch of x86 and x64 dev builds from Orphis. I've also tried a bunch of combinations of settings myself, including all-off and all-on. I get a solid 60fps even with everything maxed out, but the sound is just as screwy as with everything turned down.

The issue persists across all the versions I've tried. I have yet to try the Android versions (got Gold on there ), though I'm transferring one of the games I've been playing over to my phone right now to test that.

These are my PC's specs:
CPU: Intel i7 3770 (non-K)
RAM: 16GB of Corsair LP DDR3 at 1333MHz
GPU: AMD Radeon R9 290X
PSU: XFX XTR 750W
Motherboard: MSI Z77 MPower (Realtek ALC898, s/pdif out @ 44.1KHz)

Everything is well-cooled with aftermarket coolers (Noctua NH-U12S and Arctic Accelero Xtreme III with VRM mod), nothing is throttling down. Display resolution is 2560x1440.

Games tried:
Jeanne D'Arc
Disgaea 1: Afternoon of Darkness
Disgaea 2: Dark Hero Days
Phantom Kingdom Portable (JP with fan translation patch)

Any ideas are very welcome. If you need any more info, don't hesitate to ask! Thanks.


EDIT: Testing on the phone is a bust for now, Bluetooth doesn't like a 600MB file and I only have charge-only USB cables around.

[XpanD]

Installing the latest dev build seems to have fixed 99% of the sound issues! I came off of #1278 and onto #1503, and things are pretty great now. Jeanne d'Arc did seemingly break (OpenGL mode, haven't messed around with settings just yet -- a lot of stuff is duped/squashed/wrongly positioned now), but the problem I made this thread for is now gone.

Thanks, devs, and keep up the good work!


EDIT: Graphics issues fixed, turns out the game didn't like the Texture Coord Speedhack option.

[dunno]

Im having the same issues myself. When the game reaches a crucial moment like a high level mob and/or simply a hard level. The sound is like scratching a blackboard.

[XpanD]

Are you on the latest dev build (can't post links, Google: ppsspp orphis), and have you tried frameskipping and the other optimization settings?

[dunno]

Yup. But i havent tried the dev build yet. What is it?

[XpanD]

Dev builds are literally in-development builds of the emulator, e.g. testing versions with the very latest changes merged in. They may be unstable or otherwise screwy, but I've found that the latest ones did fix most of my sound issues. You can find them on the Orphis buildbot, just grab the newest version (v0.9.9.1-1503-gc250074 A.K.A. build #1503 at the time of writing this) at the top.

[Accel]

It's the WASAPI thingy. In God Eater 2, there a buzzing sound when an enemy is roaring and doing Blood Art

[XpanD]

I doubt it. "dunno" reported not knowing what dev builds were, and as such is probably still on the latest stable version which does not yet have the WASAPI changes merged in.

[dunno]

It sounds alright but im kinda scared that it
Might screw up my phone