Audio slowdown/popping

[ASoberIrishman]

I am experiencing audio slowdown and quality issues with almost every game I am playing. I did not realize that this was a problem until after installing Dolphin on other similar systems and not seeing the same problems. These problems persist using HLE or LLE. My specs:


Windows 7 x64
Intel i7 920
Nvidia GTX 680
6GB RAM
EVGA E758-A1 3-Way SLI Mobo


I have been messing with settings, and after trying every combonation and reinstalling my OS on an SSD the problems persist. I also have slowdown that seems to be tied purely to audio. This is most apparent when attempting to play Gamecube games, but happens consistently with all of them. For example, Final Fantasy IV: The After Years runs perfectly besides the aforementioned audio popping, but when certain tracks (especially ones that were not in the original FF IV) play, the game slows to a crawl. Any help or insight would be appreciated.

[rokclimb15]

Are you hitting 100% emulation speed in any of these games? The audio lag is symptomatic of slow emulation, which is in turn indicative of a slow processor. You have a 1st gen Intel Core which won't run many games at fullspeed.

Which games in particular are having issues?

[ASoberIrishman]

(12-10-2013, 01:03 PM)rokclimb15 Wrote: Are you hitting 100% emulation speed in any of these games? The audio lag is symptomatic of slow emulation, which is in turn indicative of a slow processor. You have a 1st gen Intel Core which won't run many games at fullspeed.

Which games in particular are having issues?

I'm not sure, how exactly do I check? I just ran three games: Sonic Adventure, Smash Bros. Brawl, and Final Fantasy IV, and all of them had popping. SA had a few points where it would slow down, usually when specific music would play.

[Shonumi]

Run Dolphin in windowed mode. At the bottom you should see a %; this represents the current speed of Dolphin's emulation. Anything less than 100% isn't fullspeed, in which case you may run into audio issues.

You can try the OpenAL backend and increase the Latency until it sounds fine. The audio will slowdown (to a certain extent) if the game slows down.

[ASoberIrishman]

(12-10-2013, 02:20 PM)Shonumi Wrote: Run Dolphin in windowed mode. At the bottom you should see a %; this represents the current speed of Dolphin's emulation. Anything less than 100% isn't fullspeed, in which case you may run into audio issues.

You can try the OpenAL backend and increase the Latency until it sounds fine. The audio will slowdown (to a certain extent) if the game slows down.

If that is the only metric then yes, those games run at 99-100%, barring times like my earlier example when a specific song plays that slows the game down. The popping/static happens even at 100%.

[admin89]

Have you OCed that i7 yet ? (Prefers : 3.8GHz or higher)

[ASoberIrishman]

(12-10-2013, 03:08 PM)admin89 Wrote: Have you OCed that i7 yet ? (Prefers : 3.8GHz or higher)

Yeah only a little though, I did it over the summer and I'm in a dusty room air cooling. It's at about 3~ now. Would that explain everything? My friends with similar setups don't seem to be having the same issues.

*Edit

Just checked and it's at 3.4

[ASoberIrishman]

Update:

My CPU is now running at a stable ~3.85GHz, which has virtually eliminated the slowdown and audio with most of the games I tested, though oddly the audio popping in Brawl has noticeably increased. Any thoughts?

[Shonumi]

It bears repeating, but OpenAL with sufficient Latency can eliminate slight audio pops and other distortions. Have you tried that yet?

[ASoberIrishman]

(12-13-2013, 02:27 PM)Shonumi Wrote: It bears repeating, but OpenAL with sufficient Latency can eliminate slight audio pops and other distortions. Have you tried that yet?

I played around with different latencies, but in Brawl it produced a more distorted sound and barely seemed to affect the popping.