Directx 11 exclusive mode no audio through HDMI

09-16-2017, 01:06 PM #1

Hi!

This is my first time in the forum so hi to everybody Smile

I've been using Dolphin for years and I've never had any problem until now. I have a pretty old ATI graphics card and I've always used OpenGL as my graphic backend as I've never noticed any difference in performance between it and Directx11 one (this one is supposed to work better for ATI cards), and because after reading all progress reports I think that it's more mature.

But now I've been doing some tests with Ubershaders and I've changed to DirectX11 as suggested and I've discovered a ¿bug? that is driving me nuts.

I always play in my TV connected trough HDMI to my computer, with both screens duplicated and sound playing fine in the TV via HDMI, but with DirectX11 backend when I turn to fullscreen exclusive I get no sound at all in the TV. I run Dolphin, it boots in a small window, I run the game, it plays sound but then I press ALT+Enter to switch to fullscreen and sound goes away.

This is a summary of what I've tested and the results that I've got in my TV connected through HDMI:

OpenGL video backend:

Windowed: sound is OK
Fullscreen exclusive mode: sound is OK
Borderless fullscreen: sound is OK

DirectX video backend (it doesn't matters if ubershaders are on or off):

Windows: sound is OK
Fullscreen exclusive mode: no sound at all (even if I switch again to windowed mode).
Borderless fullscreen: sound is OK

If I change the display options in Windows to use only my TV as primary screen, the results are the same.

If in the sound options I choose as audio output the computer speakers instead of the AMD HDMI Output I always get sound through them.

The only different thing that I've seen between OpenGL and DirecX11 backends is that when I press ALT+Enter to switch to fullscreen exclusive, in DirectX11 there is some kind of signal "refresh" (my PC monitor shows a display for a few seconds with the current resolution like when you change an input) that doesn't occurs in OpenGL and I think that, maybe, that thing is what is "breaking" the sound.

In the Steam/Origin games that I've played I've never had this problem.

¿Any idea of what's happening here? ¿anyone can reproduce this? ¿should I create a ticket in the issue tracker?

These are my system specs:
Windows 10 x64
Intel i5 3570K
32GB RAM
ATI HD 4870

Thanks in advance!

**KHg8m3r** · 09-16-2017, 01:59 PM #2

You mentioned this not being an issue before. Did it happen after a switch to a new Dolphin dev build (If so, which build did it happen in?), or did it happen after a driver or system update?
Does this happen in only specific games, or all games?
What are your Dolphin settings?

09-19-2017, 05:06 AM #3

(09-16-2017, 01:59 PM)KHg8m3r Wrote: You mentioned this not being an issue before. Did it happen after a switch to a new Dolphin dev build (If so, which build did it happen in?), or did it happen after a driver or system update?
Does this happen in only specific games, or all games?
What are your Dolphin settings?

It wasn't an issue before because I'd never tried DirectX graphics backend before. I've always played with OpenGL graphics backend and as I've said, there is no problem with it at all.

I'm trying now DirectX because I want to try ubershaders and now is when I've seen this problem.

It happens with all games, I always use the latest dev build and I haven't updated anything.

To test it more, I've downloaded the first version where exclusive fullscreen mode was implemented, 4.0.2286 (https://es.dolphin-emu.org/download/dev/8e865f38489f204ea2fabf2cee3acad1a215deff/?cr=es), and it is even worst because I don't get sound through HDMI with DirectX backend even in I set it to launch with "borderless fullscreen" option to ON and "use fullscreen" to ON (in current version this works).

So, in 4.0.2286 I get this behaviour:

OpenGL video backend:

Windowed: sound is OK
Use fullscreen: sound is OK.
Borderless fullscreen: not implemented as there is no exclusive mode in this version for OpenGL.

DirectX video backend (it doesn't matters if ubershaders are on or off):

Windowed: sound is OK
Borderless fullscreen ON, fullscreen OFF: sound is OK.
Borderless fullscreen OFF: no sound at all.
Borderless fullscreen ON, use fullscreen ON: no sound at all.

In previous versions 4.0.2263 and older, this isn't a problem as exclusive fullscreen wasn' implemented.

To compare, this is, again, what I get in 5.0.5528:

OpenGL video backend:

Windowed: sound is OK
Borderless fullscreen ON or OFF: sound is OK

DirectX video backend (it doesn't matters if ubershaders are on or off):

Windowed: sound is OK
Borderless fullscreen ON, use fullscreen OFF: sound is OK.
Borderless fullscreen OFF, use fullscreen ON or OFF: no sound at all.
Borderless fullscreen ON, use fullscreen ON: sound is OK.

**JMC47** · 09-19-2017, 07:05 AM #4

it's likely an issue with Windows or your computer, I strongly doubt Dolphin is invoking this behavior.

It's possible we could work around it if you narrowed down why it was doing this.