Linux sound issue / minor dropouts

[plasticman]

Hi.

 

I'm sorry to post, since it's almost off topic. When running TDM on Linux (Ubuntu 9.04) I will occasionally get little cracks and dropouts in sound playback. Seems to be related to the number of sounds beeing played simultaniously -- like on the menu screen I can hear the title music, but when hovering over the menu cracks may occur due to the additional sound played.

 

I start the mod from a terminal and get the following error message (lots of them) when it happens:

 

snd_pcm_writei 4096 frames failed: Broken pipe
preparing audio device for output

Digging through the omniscient internet brought up a few things. It happens on linux with id Tech 4 based games usually when people use ALSA and the same soundhardware like me (soundblaster live 5.1 player). The Doom Linux FAQ suggests switching from ALSA to OSS.

 

[i remember I had a similar problem with playback in Audacious (a Winamp substitute), turning to oss-emulation solved it.]

 

So my only question for now is: how do I run TDM and tell Doom to use oss? I tried passing the "+set s_driver oss"-argument with the tdmlauncher, what didn't seem to do anything.

 

[Mortem Desino]

There is a file under doom3/darkmod called dmargs.txt that you can put those "set convar value" launch arguments.

[Crispy]

Try putting +set s_driver oss into dmargs.txt

 

Edit: Damnit MD.

[plasticman]

Thanksalot.

 

"+set driver oss " makes things much better for me.

 

There are still some clicks but very few. Guess I should consider getting my hands dirty and fix it from the ALSA side. Or just try another soundcard.

 

Thank you anyway.

[LeatherMan]

Thanksalot.

 

"+set driver oss " makes things much better for me.

 

There are still some clicks but very few. Guess I should consider getting my hands dirty and fix it from the ALSA side. Or just try another soundcard.

 

Thank you anyway.

 

I can't help but think that is either an Ubuntu issue or pulseaudio issue. I have both Azalia onboard and an SBLive card, but have no problems with sound in TDM.

 

I had issues with Ubuntu and my onboard Azalia sound chip, so I went back to using Mandriva to fix it. Basically, I could not get the Azalia chip working with Ubuntu after 8.04 (32 or 64bit), period, yet no other non-Ubuntu distro had that issue (Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, and Mint all had the same problem). IIRC, I'd also disabled Pulseaudio because it won't work with Savage 2. 

 

 

So, I have the same sound card, using ALSA, and have no sound issues, but am not using Ubuntu or Pulseaudio.