Choppy/Echoing sound issue.

[payment_due]

Hello all, I am having a sound issue and I am wondering if it is an issue that has still not been worked out or if it's something that I can fix.  Basically my sound is very choppy and echos a lot.  By echo, I don't mean it sounds like it's in a can, or anything.  Take Street Fighter 2 for example.  At the beginning of your match, the announcer usually says "Round one... FIGHT!"  I hear this:

"Round -ound one.... Fight -ight!"
or maybe characters:
"Sonic -ic boom -oom!"

This is the same for many games, and not only voice. It happens to music, sound effects, etc.  It doesn't affect gameplay though. The games play just fine, but the sound does this all the time.   Here are my specs:

Front End: Gamelauncher
Emulator: MAME (dos version)
Running WindowsXP Professional
AMD Sempron 2.8gHz
512mb of RAM
40gb HDD
Arcade VGA
typical soundcard, I believe it is an internal card.

The games I usually play are Street Fighter 2, Mortal Kombat series, NeoGeo games and the like, as well as many of the classics.  Even so, this rig should be able to run these games and not have any issues.   I know I used to run the games on a different version of MAME (Mame32 windows ver) and it didn't have this problem.  Well it did, but it was not nearly as bad.  Anyone have any tips on this?

Thanks for any help!

[Barry Barcrest]

I have only seen this when the pc wasn't quick enough or the emulated game had errors. My 3.4ghz P4 does it on Starblade. "This - is is geosword -word" etc... But your spec should not be having speed issues like this. What resolution are you running these games in and what o/s ?

[Space Fractal]

Use Windows version instead of dos, since your running Windows XP. Dos and XP do not talk together trouch, and dos is only a emulation in XP.

You may need to update the sound drivers.

[payment_due]

I have only seen this when the pc wasn't quick enough or the emulated game had errors. My 3.4ghz P4 does it on Starblade. "This - is is geosword -word" etc... But your spec should not be having speed issues like this. What resolution are you running these games in and what o/s ?

I'm running them on Windows XP and on their native resolutions as dictated by the ArcadeVGA card.

I tried using MAME32 and it's still doing the same thing. I'm not sure what's going on with it.

[Space Fractal]

Did you use the sounddriver from the manufactor for your motherboard? Dont use the standard Microsoft sounddriver. They sucks.

First update the driver.

If you still have problems, you may set audio latency to 2 instead of default of 1. add a "-audio_latency 2" to the commandline.

Otherwice you should get a better soundcard (like a "cheap" Creative Audigy or even Live!).

[payment_due]

Did you use the sounddriver from the manufactor for your motherboard? Dont use the standard Microsoft sounddriver. They sucks.

First update the driver.

If you still have problems, you may set audio latency to 2 instead of default of 1. add a "-audio_latency 2" to the commandline.

Otherwice you should get a better soundcard (like a "cheap" Creative Audigy or even Live!).

Well I do have a PCI sound card, maybe there are some updated drivers on the net.  I'll look into that and post my results here.  Thanks!

[SirPeale]

What resolution are you running at?  The higher the resolution, the slower Mame runs, which of course causes the stutter you're experiencing.

[payment_due]

The games are all running at their native resolutions, via the ArcadeVGA.  XP itself is running at around 800x600 or so, I have to look at it but I've never changed the rez since I got the machine.

[bot-spacefractal]

I guess it more than a (crappy) sounddriver problem or such. Games like Street Fighter 2 should not sound choopy in machine like that.

I do not known the framerate is stable on thier native framerate? (if remember you can see on f11 or f12). It should been stable, otherwice the sound may been choppy, and may need to set it to 22025hz instead of 44050khz for better sound in mame.

The XP desktop resoulution should not effect any.....

[Space Fractal]

oops, the above username is also mine, wich normally only use in the wiki (not here).

[payment_due]

Well, here's a small update.  I noticed I had an internal sound card as well as the PCI one I had installed.  I guess I didn't notice that when I first put the machine together. 

Anyway, I removed the PCI card and updated the driver for the internal card and I'm still seeing the same issue. 

[Space Fractal]

what say the framerate (FPS)? It is stable?

in mame.ini (wich should been created in first run, otherwice create that file with "mame -createconfig" from the commandline), you may try this:

### Windows video options ###
autoframeskip 1


### Mame CORE sound options ###
samplerate              22050
samples                 1
sound                   1
volume                  0

For the above to work, you should try to use Windows commandline version.

If still problems, you may try to add "-audio_latency 2" to the commandline.

[SirPeale]

in mame.ini (wich should been created in first run, otherwice create that file with "mame -createconfig" from the commandline), you may try this:

### Windows video options ###
autoframeskip 1

No, no, no...you never want auto frame skipping on.  It actually runs slower that way.

[Space Fractal]

Some games may run slower, but I got them to work with full speed (like Superman, wich was one of them).

I remember this was used on my cab:

Code: [Select]

autoframeskip           1
frameskip               0
waitvsync               1
triplebuffer            1
window                  0
ddraw                   1

I think the autoframeskip was to set to one, to make sure the sound didden't cracle, when it skip some frames.....

Otherwice I can only recommed to expermiment with the ini file to work best on your configuration.

[Barry Barcrest]

Autoframe skip makes the newer games run worse in mame i know that.

[Space Fractal]

This simply because they removed in my cab.... So you may been right, it depend of games.

So is just a taste of mind.

you can of course set it to autoframeskip 0, and see what happens, and it would work.

But anyway for the sound, 22khz should perform better than 44khz (sound can been very busy for the cpu for emulate in many games).


NB. Should this thread moved the to the software section, since it a MAME problem, and not about jukebox (even it a very fine thread)?