Audio settings

Configuring audio has become tricky on devices with more than one audio card. Some boards such has Cubieboard2, Banana Pi, Cuboxi, or Hummingboard have two or three audio cards. For example, on Cubieboard2, the first card hw:0,0 will output through jack, while the second card hw:0,1 will output through HDMI.

Generic PCs can have even more.

Lakka can use only one of these cards at a time. So if you get no sound, it means you need to switch to another card.

Switching audio device from the GUI

In recent versions of Lakka, you can go to the Audio Settings and switch the Audio Device using the left and right keys. You need to restart RetroArch for this change to take effect. Press Start to reset it.

Switching audio device manually

Listing your audio cards

To list those cards, you have use the command line interface and type one of these commands:

aplay -L

You will get this kind of output:

null
    Discard all samples (playback) or generate zero samples (capture)
pulse
    PulseAudio Sound Server
default
    Default ALSA Output (currently PulseAudio Sound Server)
sysdefault:CARD=PCH
    HDA Intel PCH, CS4206 Analog
    Default Audio Device
front:CARD=PCH,DEV=0
    HDA Intel PCH, CS4206 Analog
    Front speakers
surround21:CARD=PCH,DEV=0
    HDA Intel PCH, CS4206 Analog
    2.1 Surround output to Front and Subwoofer speakers
surround40:CARD=PCH,DEV=0
    HDA Intel PCH, CS4206 Analog
    4.0 Surround output to Front and Rear speakers
surround41:CARD=PCH,DEV=0
    HDA Intel PCH, CS4206 Analog
    4.1 Surround output to Front, Rear and Subwoofer speakers
surround50:CARD=PCH,DEV=0
    HDA Intel PCH, CS4206 Analog
    5.0 Surround output to Front, Center and Rear speakers
surround51:CARD=PCH,DEV=0
    HDA Intel PCH, CS4206 Analog
    5.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Rear and Subwoofer speakers
surround71:CARD=PCH,DEV=0
    HDA Intel PCH, CS4206 Analog
    7.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Side, Rear and Woofer speakers
hdmi:CARD=PCH,DEV=0
    HDA Intel PCH, HDMI 0
    HDMI Audio Output
hdmi:CARD=PCH,DEV=1
    HDA Intel PCH, HDMI 1
    HDMI Audio Output
hdmi:CARD=PCH,DEV=2
    HDA Intel PCH, HDMI 2
    HDMI Audio Output

Setting audio_device

The config key for the audio device is audio_device. For example:

audio_device = "hdmi:CARD=PCH,DEV=0"

But please bear in mind that you need to stop retroarch before editing the configuration file.

Audio Output Rate

The default rate, 48KHz, should be OK in most case. If you hear audio crackling or if games are slow like 55fps, you may need to use 44.1KHz instead.