[SOLVED] Audio works with some apps but not others ?

lalebarde · Last edited by lalebarde on Wed Mar 31, 2010 8:31 pm; edited 1 time in total

Hi all,
I have a brand new PC just installed. I have audio working fine with amarok, but not with games. I tried both front and headphones, checked with alsamixer. I could not imagine that was possible.
Some games like bzflag tells me sound is not available in their config !
Of course, I am in the game group.

Some info :

PaulBredbury · Watchman Joined: 14 Jul 2005 Posts: 7310

Which of those 2 audio devices do you want to use - USB or HDA-Intel?

You do not say what, if anything, you've changed in the amarok config.

It's the games group - plural.

lalebarde · Posted: Sat Mar 20, 2010 10:54 am Post subject:

Hi PaulBredbury,
0 [U0x46d0x8d7 ]: USB-Audio - USB Device 0x46d:0x8d7
USB Device 0x46d:0x8d7 at usb-0000:00:1a.0-1.3, full speed
is a web cam. It is recognized as audio because of the microphone.

I did not change anything in the amarok configuration. Though it looks instructive :
Audio Output
HDA Intel (HDA Generic)
This will try the following devices and use the first that works :
1. ALSA:x-phonon:CARD=0,DEV=0
2. ALSA:plughw:CARD=0,DEV=0
3. OSS:/dev/dsp
4. OSS:/dev/audio
HDA Intel, Intel HDMI (HDMI Audio Output)
This will try the following devices and use the first that works :
1. ALSA:hdmi:CARD=Intel,DEV=0
Jack Audio Connection Kit

The xfce4-mixer give me two options :
HDA Intel (Alsa mixer)
USB Device 0x46d:0x8d7 (Alsa mixer)

The alsamixer :
0 HDA Intel
Card: HDA Intel Chip: Intel G45 DEVIBX
1 USB Device 0x46d:0x8d7

It looks like Amarok knows how to fine tune the configuration. But I have no clue what to do.

lalebarde · Posted: Thu Mar 25, 2010 7:38 pm Post subject:

sound works with sauerbraten for example, but no other game (tremulous, xmoto).

scan2006 · n00b Joined: 20 Jan 2008 Posts: 48

I know that some games/apps have problem's with hardware mixing, so make sure you are not running something like amarok in the background. This was a real problem with running teamspeak and urban-terror at the same time for people that didn't have a sound card that supported hardware mixing (which was is most on-board sound cards) if you started teamspeak up first it would have sound and urban terror wouldn't.

PaulBredbury · Watchman Joined: 14 Jul 2005 Posts: 7310

scan2006, just google it. The problem is that ALSA's emulation of OSS bypasses dmix.

The Teamspeak devs must be total morons to have ignored ALSA. So use mumble instead of Teamspeak, and save yourself some annoyance.

scan2006 · n00b Joined: 20 Jan 2008 Posts: 48

oh I do use mumble but there is a lot of apps that seem to have the same problems when running games. But mumble is so much nicer though and is quicker in response. Btw I have a sound blaster audigy and it supports hardware mixing so I never have had a problem.

PaulBredbury · Watchman Joined: 14 Jul 2005 Posts: 7310

Run this while you have a sound problem, then we actually get some useful facts:

fuser -v /dev/snd/* /dev/dsp*

/dev/snd is good (ALSA), /dev/dsp is bad (OSS).

lalebarde · Posted: Sat Mar 27, 2010 10:29 am Post subject:

If I run Amarok, then Sauerbraten, I can hear Amarok, but not Sauerbraten. I get :

lalebarde · Posted: Sun Mar 28, 2010 5:44 pm Post subject:

I disconnected the webcam and rebooted. My sound card is now n°0 instead of n°1, but that changes nothing.

PaulBredbury · Watchman Joined: 14 Jul 2005 Posts: 7310

lalebarde · Posted: Sun Mar 28, 2010 10:26 pm Post subject:

Sure, but at least, sauerbraten works. My main concern is whatever I use Sauerbraten or not, quite all apps don't have sound working. I have not tested everything, but only Amarok and Sauerbraten have the sound working.

The other apps I listed don't. I can add the mozilla flash plugin, VLC, MPlayer, Kino, rosegarden in the list of apps for which sound does not work. And audacity in the ones that work.

PaulBredbury · Watchman Joined: 14 Jul 2005 Posts: 7310

For flash, see thread.

For mplayer:
In ~/.mplayer/config
ao=alsa

In ~/.mplayer/gui.conf
ao_driver = "alsa"

If mplayer (or any other app) is defaulting to OSS on Linux, then mplayer is stupid, and that default should be changed to ALSA.

Get the gist? STOP USING OSS. Use ALSA. Is that clear?

lalebarde · Posted: Mon Mar 29, 2010 10:01 pm Post subject:

Thanks very much PaulBredbury

.

After reading all your links,
For flash, uninstall and remerge works.
For the rest, Jackctrl makes everything work.

PaulBredbury · Watchman Joined: 14 Jul 2005 Posts: 7310

lalebarde · Posted: Tue Mar 30, 2010 10:45 pm Post subject:

No, I did not remove libflashsupport.

lalebarde · Posted: Tue Mar 30, 2010 11:19 pm Post subject:

After reboot, I lost sound again.
It seems that qjackctrl is broken. It freezes (buttons are inactive). There are no message when runned under a terminal. After unmerge and remerge, the interface is now blank (only the frame and gray inside).

lalebarde · Posted: Tue Mar 30, 2010 11:40 pm Post subject:

OK, it was just a conflict with my webcam. I have sound without running qjackctrl !
I still don't know the origin of the conflict.