How can I improve my sound? (Paper Mario - The Thousand Year Door)

[Azma]

I'm running sort of desperate with my sound. Now, I don't know if it's a game issue or an emulation issue, but I can't really help this: I only have one game. (My sister has all the rest and she's... far away.)

I have read that this was a known issue in the game thread, but that it had been corrected. But I'm pretty sure I have the latest version, and it still shows up. I don't know if this can be a hardware-related issue. The maximum I've seen my processor run at was 38%, and FPS have always been great.

So, here. There is a lot of crackling in the sound. So much that sometimes, it sounds like Mario shouts twice when jumping, and the music is unrecognizable.

There is one thing though: I have noticed that saving (not loading) a state will often (very temporarily) restore the sound to perfection (or near-perfection). Until I change areas or some random unexplained event switches it back to crackling without a known reason.

Sometimes, also, the sound seems mostly fine (with a little bit of crackling once in a while) for a long while. Then someone talks to me over Skype, and when the call is over, the sound is permanently going to crackle a lot more. Emulator restarted or not. Though when I go to sleep and come back the following day it's better for some reason. I might be imagining this and just noticing the crackling more after a restart than when I play for the first time of the day, but regardless, I'm almost sure the crackling tends to intensify over time.

I've tried to fiddle with the latency. At 16 ms, I seem to reach the best compromise: before it crackles even more horribly, and after, well, the sound is so late it's ridiculous. (And BTW, the emulator and I don't have the same milliseconds. The sound is clearly a good 1/4 second late at 16 ms).

I've fiddled around a lot. HLE, both LLE modes, all audio backend methods... I don't know if I've tried every possible combination, but I've tried a lot of stuff.

The only way I've found that makes sound "perfect" is to set the frame limit to Audio. That however, independently of LLE or HLE, drops emulation speed to around 50 % and makes sound a good 3 seconds late (Mario can jump and land twice before I hear the first jump's shout). This doesn't really make sense, does it? I mean, HLE should be faster than LLE, or something, shouldn't it?

I think I've said everything regarding my sound problem. I hope you can help. Don't hesitate to ask me if you need further details.

[Shonumi]

Use the latest revision: 3.5-367 is old and you probably got it from our old site. You can download the latest builds here: http://dolphin-emu.org/download/

Set the audio backend to OpenAL and increase the latency if you still get bad audio. Also, try setting your framelimit to 60 (50 for PAL) and try it with Limit by FPS. Also, are you able to run this game consistently at fullspeed? In the latest revisions, you need to get fullspeed to get decent audio, in both HLE and LLE audio. As a last resort, see if switching between DSound and XAudio2 helps.

[pauldacheez]

Obligatory notice that I'm *really* tired of giving out: 3.5-367 is an old build that you got from an unofficial site. There are newer builds on the official site: http://dolphin-emu.org/download/

HLE (on a build newer than 3.5-1154) with the XAudio2 backend is usually flawless for everyone in every situation. OpenAL tends to either crackle or have a metric fuckton of latency for absolutely no good reason, so don't use it if you're running the game at full speed.

[Azma]

Sigh, I'm sorry. I went to the (official) download page and saw 3.5 Looked at mine and saw 3.5. I figured I had downloaded it from there and here we are.

I'll try the newer version right away. Thanks. I'll give you news soon.

Also, not that I'm trying to say "it wasn't my fault after all" or anything, but since it sounds like I'm not the only one who encounters this kind of problem, I would like to suggest the following things that would reduce the occurrence of such errors:

-Write the revision number on the download page, so that people can check whether they have the latest version in a simpler way than downloading the latest one, extracting it and launching it (because it's not in the file name either); and/or

-try to make it so that there is no other page that gives out outdated version and doesn't quite look "unofficial" (on top of showing above the official site in Google searches). I know you might not have any direct power on this, but I dunno, writing the site owner, or something, might do; and/or

-Add something in the emulator that warns the user that their version is outdated. (Or if there is such a thing, I haven't found it); and/or

-If possible, try to improve the site's search engine optimization so that it has a better chance of showing up first when searching for "dolphin emulator". Dunno if it's possible, considering that the other one's domain is "dolphin-emulator"...

[color=#009999]Edit: Eeeh... Sorry, this is sort of off-topic, but when I saw your answers, I was in the middle of the Pit of 100 Trials, where you can't save at all, so I just did a save state... which can't be loaded in the latest version. So I'll re-downgrade until I can save in-game properly. It might be longer for me to come back with feedback.[/color]

[MayImilae]

Write the revision number on the download page

http://dolphin-emu.org/download/ Scroll down.

try to make it so that there is no other page that gives out outdated version and doesn't quite look "unofficial"

We would if we could.

Add something in the emulator that warns the user that their version is outdated

As I recall, one was put in at one point. Mamario may have worked around it though. Regardless, Dolphin cannot control what other people do with builds they compile themselves. That's just how open source is.

If possible, try to improve the site's search engine optimization so that it has a better chance of showing up first when searching for "dolphin emulator"

Did that too. The problem is that people don't actually LOOK at the google results: they just click the first result. As long as that takes place, it will continue to funnel pageviews to their site and continue to prop up it's number one status, which repeats the cycle. There isn't really anything that can be done except for waiting for the cycle to wind down.

[Azma]

All right for everything but this:

Write the revision number on the download page

http://dolphin-emu.org/download/ Scroll down.

I looked at those, and saw "Development versions". What I understood by that was "Not production versions", as in "beta", or "has nothing to do with what you're looking for". Call me retarded, but I'm afraid many others would have the same reasoning.

Also (you can ignore this part if I'm going too far in the off-topic) is it possible that by updating and going back (essentially re-extracting and replacing everything in my folder) I've made it impossible to load my save state at all? I know it has happened in the past when trying to load a state with some sound settings while it was saved with others, but right now I can't seem to find the right combination at all. Dolphin just crashes and crashes when I try to load it. Am I doing something wrong, or have I just not gotten the right combination yet? Alternatively, is there a way, any way, to convert old save states for use with the newer version of Dolphin?

[pauldacheez]

Save states break between builds; this is normal. Save states are inherently broken in Dolphin anyway, use them sparingly and never rely on them.

Development builds have deviated enough from 3.5 that they're recommended for everyday use, especially with the massive improvements to DSP HLE. 3.5's old! :P

[Azma]

Well, then. It looks like the problem has been solved. Thanks for your help, and sorry again !

The only thing is that now, the sound is really unequal (some things are oddly loud and others, oddly quiet) and the music sometimes just doesn't show up, but that might not be the emulator's fault.

[color=#006666]Edit: After trying it longer, I really think there's still a problem with sound emulation. In the battle against Macho Gonzales (a boss in Paper Mario), for a long time there was no music. And then, after his HP ran low and he said it wasn't over yet, and blah blah, some "music" started. A very loud loop of around two seconds that basically sounds like nothing but a large motor running. Any ideas? :/ With the old version, the sound was of bad quality, but at least it always played the right sounds, however late or skippy...

Oh, and as I was writing this message, the loop suddenly stopped, even though the game had been left at the same point for a while.

Re-edit: After the battle, the real sound played. It was indeed a machine sound, not music. However it was just a short piece of it looped, so it sounded horrible. Actually no music ever played in that battle. It happens often; battles without music, or with only the victory music, or with music but no victory music. This one had neither.

And one more edit: It appears that two songs playing at once is also a possibility. I'm in the Rogueport sewers at the moment, and the area's music keeps playing even during fights, and adds to the battle and victory themes.
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[LordVador]

It's strange because with LLE I've never got any issue in this game (even with my old 760)

[Azma]

HLE (on a build newer than 3.5-1154) with the XAudio2 backend is usually flawless for everyone in every situation.

I've been trying HLE according to this. I'll try LLE and come back with news.

[color=#006666]Edit: The LLE recompiler has choppy audio, just like before I updated my emulator, with both audio backends. I'll try the other LLE.

Re-edit: Nope, no matter what, LLE is choppy and slows down emulation, previously at 100 % (most of the time), to 70 %. And my processor still doesn't look like it's being taxed.

I also tried HLE with DSound. While the sound itself is okay, it's occasionally (every 3-6 seconds) overlapped by a quarter of a second's worth of machine-like loud noise.

By the way, in all tests, I've been using 48 000 Hz.

So, summary: Right now the only quality sound is obtained with HLE and XAudio2, even though it sometimes forgets to play BGMs, sometimes loops sounds in an awkward way, and almost always gets the volumes completely wrong. (I jump sometimes when I switch areas or enter battle and then the volume is suddenly super loud. I bet my neighbours jump too. >_>)
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