WASAPI Driver Audio Pops, Hitches and Frame Drops in Certain Cores

Description

WASAPI causes frame drops, audio pops and hitches in certain cores that don't have an issue with xaudio. Also, if I mess with the WASAPI Shared Buffer Length setting, anything other than Auto or Off will cause content running in RetroArch to make a horrible buzzing noise, slow down to a crawl and become unresponsive. I'm lucky if I can get back into the UI to set it back to one of the safe options before it crashes. Turning on Exclusive mode just mutes the audio entirely. Don't notice any change with Float Format on or off.

BSNES with Yoshi's Island in level 1-1 is an easy one to play and hear it start popping and hitching. Then see it's dropping more frames compared to how smooth it is with xaudio. Mesen with Mega Man 3 is similar, but not as bad. Cores like MelonDS DS and SwanStation don't seem to have those issues though. Maybe it's something about accuracy focused cores that use interpreters?

My other audio settings are defaults, except Resampler Quality set to Highest. Setting it to Normal didn't seem to help anything.

Version/Commit

• RetroArch: 3bf5b518bbfb36f833b4ce6e252e71d97ebf6a1b

Environment information

• OS: Windows 11 22H2
• CPU: 13600k
• GPU: GTX 4080

No source file or test is named in the report. Start by reproducing the issue with BSNES and Yoshi's Island or Mesen and Mega Man 3, comparing WASAPI with xaudio and the listed buffer, exclusive-mode, float-format, and resampler settings. Done means the affected cores no longer produce pops, hitches, buzzing, unresponsiveness, or extra frame drops under WASAPI.