Hard Light Productions Forums

General FreeSpace => FreeSpace & FreeSpace Open Support => Topic started by: Havner on December 01, 2007, 09:25:51 am

Title: LINUX: Minor (but sometimes annoying) sound statics.
Post by: Havner on December 01, 2007, 09:25:51 am

I'm experiencing minor sound statics. They seem to exist when playing looped samples like afterburner or engine sounds. Anyone having some experience with Linux sound programming? Details of this issue are covered here:

http://scp.indiegames.us/mantis/bug_view_page.php?bug_id=1532
http://vega.livecd.pl/~havner/fso/windows.wav
http://vega.livecd.pl/~havner/fso/linux.wav

Please read these informations carefully before commenting here as I'm 99% sure they aren't caused by system configuration.
I'm not talking about generally crackling sound. In general it's fine.

If you're using Linux version, and even if your sound plays fine (like I wrote above, in general its fine for me as well) please take few minutes to test this. It may not be obvious when you don't know what to look for.
Id be really happy to someone at least confirm he's experiencing the same.

Title: Re: LINUX: Minor (but sometimes annoting) sound statics.
Post by: castor on December 01, 2007, 10:16:01 am

Its there alright. Somehow I've just learned to ignore it :)

Title: Re: LINUX: Minor (but sometimes annoting) sound statics.
Post by: Havner on December 01, 2007, 10:22:59 am

Quote from: castor on December 01, 2007, 10:16:01 am

Its there alright. Somehow I've just learned to ignore it :)

I can't ignore it  :(
I'd rather spent some time to identify the cause of it so someone can fix it.

Title: Re: LINUX: Minor (but sometimes annoying) sound statics.
Post by: sain on December 03, 2007, 04:15:33 am

I've had this issue even with the original game on windows... I always thought it was normal :)

Title: Re: LINUX: Minor (but sometimes annoying) sound statics.
Post by: ni1s on December 10, 2007, 02:17:12 pm

I started using a .23 kernel and this went away. So I'm gussing this was related to ALSA.

Title: Re: LINUX: Minor (but sometimes annoying) sound statics.
Post by: Havner on December 10, 2007, 04:34:48 pm

Quote from: ni1s on December 10, 2007, 02:17:12 pm

I started using a .23 kernel and this went away. So I'm gussing this was related to ALSA.

In my case its much worse on .23. I have the same only when using hw:0,0.

Cant use default or any other higher level (like surround*) cause I get much more statics then before.
And again its only on fs2_open.

EDIT: ok, not only. So it seems that in contradiction they broke alsa in .23 for me. But still on hw:0,0 (where it behaves properly) I still have the issue described above.

BTW: ni1s what is your soundcard (what alsa driver you use)?

EDIT2: Upgrading alsa-lib to 1.0.15 along with kernel somewhat helped. I can use my custom 'default' device again and its not worse then it was on .22. Though the main issue described in this thread is still present :-(

Title: Re: LINUX: Minor (but sometimes annoying) sound statics.
Post by: Havner on February 06, 2008, 09:34:33 am

After very long time Linux OpenAL was given some love.

http://kcat.strangesoft.net/openal.html

If anyone has some problems with OpenAL I'd suggest to test this version. It fixed the original issue I was reporting in this thread.