Refresh rate switch disables sound

[Shadowfire]

Running Winuae 4.4.0 64-bit
Intel I3-10100 integrated graphics (UHD-630)
Attached to a 720p TV which has an internal 1080p -> 720p scaler (which combined with the UHD-630 wanting to scale everything to 1080p, then the TV downscaling, is causing its own set of issues, but that isn't WinUAE's problem)

I am building up a new machine for Amiga emulation and am trying to sort out some issues.
I am using the attached configuration file (booting Turrican II off of floppies) to check out the lagless Vsync options, but there seems to be some sort of problem with switching the display modes causing sound to get turned off.

If I set my windows desktop to 50hz, and run using the attached config file (which specifies full screen refresh @ 50hz), I get sound.
If I exit out of winuae, set the desktop to 60hz, and run the attached config file, sound is automatically switched to (emulated but disabled) once emulation starts (and if I attempt to re-enable it, it is disabled as soon as I resume it). It seems that the switching of display modes in full-screen mode is disabling sound. I can see no message why this is happening.

[Toni Wilen]

Probably same as this: http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=93272 ?

[Shadowfire]

After going thru that thread, I decided of course to poke around some more.
The motherboard has onboard audio, but I don't have any speakers plugged into it (using the TV speakers).
The onboard audio is "smart" and doesn't enumerate up if there are no speakers attached.
If I plug in some speakers and choose the onboard Realtek audio, sound is still there after changing screen refresh rates.

I decided to disable the onboard audio in the bios, but this still resulted in a loss of sound. (My winuae.log is attached.)

It would seem that the Intel graphics driver shuts down the audio driver when reconfiguring the screen. WinUAE goes to reopen it, and it fails.

Pressing F12 switches back to the desktop and forces a screen mode change, then going back in (after changing the emulation back to enabled) cause the same switchover and loss of audio. I can see the device in audio management after pressing F12.

I started an mp3 with the windows music app, and the player app stop and complains "Lost the audio device" when I switch modes (see attached pic).

Playing a midi file with Media Player results in a cutoff of sound, then the playback resuming about a second later, so Media Player is more robust about dealing with a lost audio device.

I checked the same config out on my primary machine, which has a Geforce 1080 video card (also driving a TV thru HDMI with sound), and it does not have this issue.

That being said, this seems like an Intel driver thing. I will put in a bug report, but who knows if this will ever get fixed. The device definitely comes back but not immediately.

[Shadowfire]

reference:
https://community.intel.com/t5/Graph...t/false#M93500

Not holding my breath on Intel to fix this one. Just dumped another $50 on a used Geforce GT740 for the machine.

This is why I ditched ATI back in the day. Driver problems. Even when they have the performance crown, I'd rather have all of my programs work, than some not work and some work a little faster.

[Shadowfire]

Hi Shadowfire,
Xxxxx_x_Xxxxx (Moderator) posted a new reply in Graphics on 01-21-2021 09:30 AM:

Re:UHD-630 audio cuts out with full screen refresh rate change (WinUAE)
Hello Shadowfire,

Thank you very much for the response and reports.

After reviewing the information we noticed that the issue is just with emulators; emulators may implicate copyright violations, and for that reason, Intel does not provide support for those, and our best recommendation is to check directly with the emulator developers so they can provide you with assistance.

Best regards,
Xxxxx X.
Intel Customer Support Technician
-----------------------------------------------
Translation: Yeah, so buy someone else's products, we don't care if we have bugs in our drivers.

[Toni Wilen]

"Emulator developer has also reviewed the information and recommends to not use Intel GPUs. They are garbage."

EDIT: seriously, I am almost certain it "only happens" with emulators because no one else wants to use 50Hz..

[Shadowfire]

The sad thing is, the drivers will never get any better if their community moderators are tossing out valid issues and not forwarding them to someone who can fix them... because emulators. Back to nvidia, who actually fixed their Shield portable drivers when emulator problems were pointed out. It helped that they also had a forum where the moderators weren't the untrained/uneducated judge, jury, and executioner of support requests.

It has been a *very* long time since I've seen a PC game that allows you to change the refresh rate. Which is probably why their forums aren't flooded with complains about this - so few games do it, since they pretty much all run at the desktop refresh rate (and everyone is setting that to the highest refresh rate their monitor will support).