Hello everyone, I was hoping that I wouldn't have to go someplace to seek help over this, but I am running out of methods to fix the weird issue I am having, this is going to get lengthy so prepare yourself. I was gifted a New Nintendo 3DS XL with an Optimize capture card installed recently, after installing the appropriate driver and utilizing the respective software for the specified capture card, everything from a visual perspective seems to work fine, I didn't have to calibrate the colors or anything of the sorts. By default you won't hear any digital audio through the capture software, but that's not to say there isn't an option to enable audio, which by this point you already know what I did next.
Now for the issues:
What I have tried so far:
Things I have considered to be the potential problem:
Can anyone else with an Optimize capture card for their New Nintendo 3DS XL system chip in and test some games out, confirm the issues I am dealing with, using the default capture software audio settings, etc. Minecraft seems to be the worst one of the bunch with the game music, so maybe test with that and see if results appear to be the same. It would help ease my mind at least if I knew this wasn't a capture card issue but something else, because the chances of two or more people having/experiencing the same issue usually yields outside source related issues that we can relate to try and fix. Sorry if this is all over the place, I just want this to work the way it should, it already does half the job really well, I just need the other half of it working properly if it all possible.
Now for the issues:
- Popping can be heard from time to time, it can be heard when sitting in the home menu for a bit, but also occurs in 3DS games, however this doesn't seem to occur when playing NDS games.
- 3DS games seem to have crackling or slight buzzing sounds when the audio becomes louder (game varies). Minecraft for example, whenever the game music plays, you'll hear crackling or slight buzzing whenever the audio gets more dramatic/louder, but backs off when the audio gets quieter.
What I have tried so far:
- The Optimize capture card relies on a micro USB connection, which means I am dealing with a USB 2.0 cable. I've tried numerous ports on my machine, both in the front IO and the board IO in the back, the results are the same regardless of using USB 2.0 or USB 3.0 ports. I don't have converters so I couldn't test the connection in the USB-C port, I can't use the USB 3.1 Type-A port (Red) since it doesn't seem to be intended for general connections, for context on the motherboard I have, I use a Z270X-Gaming 7 motherboard. The good news is I get a stable 264Mbps connection when the capture card is connected to my system regardless of the other ports I use according to the capture software, so that seems to be fine there.
- I messed with some of the digital audio settings in the capture software. XAudio 2.8 seems to make the audio pop and crackle worse than it's probably supposed to, I don't know much about this option, though I know many other pieces of software, emulators for example, seem to have a version of XAudio, no idea what to expect when using it though, aside from this instance. Changing the default buffer settings doesn't seem to make a difference either.
- I installed the latest drivers for my system, downgrading drivers seems to be difficult since there aren't sources to make that job easy, but uninstalling and letting Windows source out default drivers didn't seem to change the results (restored the latest drivers after testing).
- I quite literally did a clean install of Windows 10 Pro, mostly because I needed it after four years stacking up against the operating system and breaking stuff. Squeaky clean install on my end, so the operating system can't possibly be the issue (then again we are talking about Microsoft here).
- I tried out the ASIO4ALL driver with the offline settings GUI enabled thinking maybe that could offer a fix of some sort, unfortunately that did nothing for me when messing with the options.
- I tried messing about with my sound system settings with the dedicated Sound Blaster software, that didn't seem to give me much benefit, I even went as far as to disable all the special settings and essentially give myself stock sound (similarly to what you would get connecting a generic USB headset), that didn't seem to work either, and in fact made it worse because now the sound in general was way too quiet to hear with the same exact volume settings before the option changes (I fixed the settings afterwards back to the default so nothing would break).
- I unplugged many of my USB devices and even tried disconnecting the microphone from the machine, essentially leaving the capture card being the only thing connected, that didn't change anything at all, a note to make though is this didn't change the 264Mbps USB connection, which further proves that my system can handle it even with the various devices connected at once.
- I tried a different computer that I have, this one not having a dedicated sound card of sorts to work with, and the results don't seem to change.
- I tried a different branded set of headphones entirely thinking maybe the two I have on me are just problematic in some manner, this didn't seem to change the results.
- I did a ton of Google searching and even took a shot in the dark with YouTube videos, neither solutions seem to provide any solid related cases or videos explaining anything of the same issues. I did stumble on ONE video related to the Optimize capture card audio settings, but the issue from that was due to that individual's connection setup, and they were using a much older build of the capture software, and according to the version of the software (v6.60), they were using a much older variant catered to the capture card for the original Nintendo 3DS (the latest version currently being v7.01r6).
- I found out that my microphone port is also a line-in port, I managed to get the audio to work correctly when using the audio jack of the New Nintendo 3DS system, the only downside is it's extremely quiet in comparison to the digital audio handling that the capture software does, that's without changing the master volume mind you, I have no idea how to change the line-in volume without changing the master volume to make it just as loud.
Things I have considered to be the potential problem:
- The capture software audio feature has "beta" next to it, which means there's the probability chance that the problem is the capture software itself and not anything on my end. As of this time of typing I'm using v2.11 of the New Nintendo 3DS Optimize capture software, which according to the date modification of the software, was messed with or compiled on September 8, 2022, so clearly they still support the software in some way, updates are just slow.
- Maybe the micro USB 2.0 cable that came with my capture system is a problem in some way. I will have to buy another micro USB cord to really know for certain, I don't have another one on hand currently.
- My current audio setup just needs to be tweaked some more in ways I am not thinking of, given I am not an audio expert, I'm sure I am missing some details here.
- Something could potentially be wrong with my capture card, but provided the popping and crackling/buzzing doesn't occur until things get louder, I have no clue. I really, REALLY, hope nothing is actually wrong with it, because these things aren't cheap, I can't afford one of these personally, so the fact relatives gifted me one of these, I am having some serious hope right now.
Can anyone else with an Optimize capture card for their New Nintendo 3DS XL system chip in and test some games out, confirm the issues I am dealing with, using the default capture software audio settings, etc. Minecraft seems to be the worst one of the bunch with the game music, so maybe test with that and see if results appear to be the same. It would help ease my mind at least if I knew this wasn't a capture card issue but something else, because the chances of two or more people having/experiencing the same issue usually yields outside source related issues that we can relate to try and fix. Sorry if this is all over the place, I just want this to work the way it should, it already does half the job really well, I just need the other half of it working properly if it all possible.
Last edited by DeadSkullzJr,