[x86-64 - legacy] No HDMI sound with Nvidia ION

timemaster · April 12, 2025 at 2:28 PM

Hi, so I've tried to update my old installation of LibreElec 5 to the latest LibreELEC-Generic-legacy.x86_64-12.0.2, and then tried downgrading to LibreELEC-Generic-legacy.x86_64-11.0.6, but can't get HDMI sound working with Nvidia ION GPU on both

With an ancient version of LE5, all was fine. I found a few threads here and on GitHub, but all was without any suggestions or workaround.

One thread on Nvidia website was saying that they've found the root cause and it is fixed in the next release, which is a long time ago, but again with no details.

Is there anything I can try? Do someone else have a similar experience?

The mainboard is this one https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/asus-at3n7a-i

with Nvidia MCP7A-ION (Nvidia ION) chipset, this is audio chipset: VIA VT1708S (Vinyl HD High Definition Audio), but I think the problem is with the Nvidia driver or so

**chewitt** · April 12, 2025 at 4:20 PM

I've seen a handful of reports of no audio with Atom/ION devices in the last two years, but I was never able to replicate them with an Xtreamer Ultra2 board (the only ION thing I have) and in LE12 we're using the latest/laste nVidia driver available; which is dropped from the LE13 codebase as it no longer compiled against the latest xorg release; so whatever that (unknown) nVidia forum post was talking about has long been included in drivers.

Does the BIOS have any audio options? .. perhaps a switch for AC97/HD-Audio? - If yes what happens if you change them? Have you also experimented with all the available audio devices listed in Kodi?

timemaster · April 12, 2025 at 6:30 PM

What is strange, the system looks ok. I mean, I see all the output, can select HDMI output. There are no errors in dmesg, and so on. Only, there is no sound If I again find this nvidia thread, I will post it here. It was an official nvidia developers forum.. I agree, the fix should be there.

Quote from chewitt

Does the BIOS have any audio options? .. perhaps a switch for AC97/HD-Audio? - If yes what happens if you change them? Have you also experimented with all the available audio devices listed in Kodi?

Yes, I experimented with everything I found. There is exactly this option AC97/HD-Audio in bios, tried them both and see no change in Kodi - the audio devices look the same, and no sound when I select HDMI. Is there any preference here? BIOS suggest to use HD-Audio.

I also tried playing sound from console, using speaker-test, or aplay. Also tried to load pulseaudio sink for HDMI output on the card. Nothing helped. There is not even any error, speaker-test seems like it's playing..

I understand there isn't much we can try this way, so was looking mainly for some basic steps to get closer in such situation.

On your ION board, all works fine from the beginning?

**chewitt** · April 12, 2025 at 7:17 PM

It worked with an LE12 release image when I last tested it about a year ago. In semi-recent experiments with nouveau there was also a sound bug, but the solution for that was a patch in mesa, so that wouldn't be applicable to something using the nVidia driver (as a different driver). On that note, this is an LE13 image with nouveau from January that you're welcome to experiment with:

https://chewitt.libreelec.tv/testing/LibreELEC-Nouveau-Legacy.x86_64-12.80.1.img.gz

It's 100% unsupported, and I'm not sure we'll support nouveau with LE13 as while it boots/runs, the older nVidia GPUs are not really tested and maintained well and I've seen some issues in test.

timemaster · April 13, 2025 at 7:42 AM

Thank you, this one is working fine

I thought this board was unsupported — even OpenELEC had two versions for "old" and "new" NVIDIA GPUs, if I remember correctly, and that was a long time ago. However, everything works fine on the official build, except for HDMI audio. Analog still works, so it might not be a problem for everyone.

**chewitt** · April 13, 2025 at 12:36 PM

I'm interested in feedback on the Nouveau image once you've spent more time using it.

timemaster · April 19, 2025 at 9:02 PM

Ok, I’ve done some testing. The device is mainly for simple emulation and for kids, so NES emulation works just fine if you're curious

HDMI audio is also working well, like I mentioned earlier.

What doesn't seem to work is hardware video acceleration. No matter what video I play, it’s not smooth.

The interface runs fine, though, so it seems like the video codecs aren’t working properly. 2D acceleration looks fine.

Also, and this goes for Generic-Legacy too, the splash screen is broken. It shows the same “damage” on every boot (at least I think so), and it's been like that since at least LE11, picture attached.

**chewitt** · April 20, 2025 at 2:50 AM

Quote from timemaster

The splash screen is broken. It shows the same “damage” on every boot, and it's been like that since at least LE11

That's the Kodi Omega (21) splash screen. The glitches are intentional and part of the splash. Kodi Piers (22) moves back to a more normal one.

If you are using "adjust refresh" in Kodi config so it switches mode to match the media being played can you disable that and force all media to 1080@60. If you are not using that, please enable that and define 1080@60/59.94/50/24/23.976 modes and allow mode doubling. Do the changes make any improvement?

**Da Flex** · April 20, 2025 at 4:28 PM

That's why I thought the artist was on d_r_u_g_s.

timemaster · April 21, 2025 at 4:52 PM

Quote from chewitt

That's the Kodi Omega (21) splash screen. The glitches are intentional and part of the splash. Kodi Piers (22) moves back to a more normal one.

Hehe I thought so, but then I saw another screenshot of someone else and looked broken in a different way (just a bit), so I thought, ok, the logo is supposed to be like that, but maybe the black/blue not

Quote from chewitt

If you are using "adjust refresh" in Kodi config so it switches mode to match the media being played can you disable that and force all media to 1080@60. If you are not using that, please enable that and define 1080@60/59.94/50/24/23.976 modes and allow mode doubling. Do the changes make any improvement?

That was it! The match screen refresh rate was disabled. When I enabled it, it's fine on 1080p 60Hz (59.94 is also okay) and H264. H265 is still laggy, but it is expected, I think. There were no H265 HD decoders back then.

timemaster · April 21, 2025 at 4:52 PM

Quote from Da Flex

That's why I thought the artist was on d_r_u_g_s.

**chewitt** · April 21, 2025 at 5:20 PM

Quote from timemaster

H265 is still laggy, but it is expected, I think. There were no H265 HD decoders back then.

Nouveau does not support HEVC decode, only H264 and perhaps MPEG1/2/4, so media will be software decoded.

timemaster · April 23, 2025 at 9:29 PM

yup..

well no other issues so far, anything specific I should check?

**chewitt** · April 24, 2025 at 5:42 AM

No, I'm just interested in the occasional trip report over the next couple of weeks. It's normal to see a user initially pleased and excited with something that appears to work, and it takes a while for little niggles to surface and be noticed.