PulseAudio performance test (Karmic?)

[Froste]

The sound engine has always impacted performance, with or without pulse. I'm using hardware mixing (sblive) without any software mixing, and starting the game without any sound increases performance by a lot. But of course you miss out on footsteps and buff sounds.

[ieti]

The problem is that for Linux we have OpenAL Soft which is software implementation of OpenAL. It started from simple OpenAL implementation opened by Creative some time ago. It lacks using hardware features of Creative cards.

Windows and MAC OpenAL versions provided by Creative utilize Creative sound hardware and do not put maybe so much load to CPU.

[RicX]

Originally Posted by surak

I've been noticing some nasty problems in with openal+pulseaudio in Karmic. (game freezes, and i can hear the music badly distorted). Anyone else having similar issues?

Surak, do we have any NGD white-smoke about this? (I still affected, playing with sound deactivated to avoid logout freeze, still you miss alot that way).


RicX

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Also with new technology client I crash -game suddenly close- every 5-10min......grrr. Anyone else?

[Ertial]

This version of OpenAL soft just got uploaded to Lucid:
https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source...2-1/+changelog

It should fix at least two PulseAudio bugs.

[onemyndseye]

Upgrading to the latest pulse solved alot of sound issues for me (including logout freeze):

http://www.webupd8.org/2009/11/upgra...n-0921-in.html

Note that the howto says to do ` apt-get upgrade ` however a ` apt-get dist-upgrade ` is needed


Also doing ALSA probably not a bad idea:
http://www.webupd8.org/2009/11/ubunt...1021-from.html

[Ertial]

A new version of PulseAudio has just been uploaded to Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx Alpha 2. After a few new versions of OpenAL this should fix the issues with OpenAL on the PulseAudio side.

Performance should increase now OpenAL tries first to use its PulseAudio driver -- instead of the ALSA driver, which ends up using the PulseAudio ALSA emulation -- and the bug reporting that OpenAL isn't supported by PulseAudio was one of the many -- really a lot, 20 or more -- bugs that were being fixed by this latest upload of PulseAudio.

Sound should now be better than ever!

[Kyrottimus]

Originally Posted by surak

I've been noticing some nasty problems in with openal+pulseaudio in Karmic. (game freezes, and i can hear the music badly distorted). Anyone else having similar issues?

+1

I tried out the game on LinuxMint8, and since Mint8 basically installs itself and forces PulseAudio, I was getting terrible crashes in game and the audio-quality was garbage. I tried to install all the ALSA and OSS libraries I could to it but PulseAudio kept forcing itself, so I uninstalled it which made Mint unhappy.

Moral of the story, I went back to 8.04 64 bit LTS, am using OSS and getting best FPS AND Sound quality combinations.

IMO: PulseAudio = Crap

[Ertial]

Originally Posted by Kyrottimus

IMO: PulseAudio = Crap

People say this too often, but it's not true. You can't blame PulseAudio for being badly distributed by the distributions, they can't write other's configuration files.

Furthermore it takes time for things to start running smooth. Other systems and frameworks -- like OpenAL -- need to add support and only when many users use it you'll find many bugs.
If you want stability and reliability, then stick to the LTS'es, that's what they're for.

[Ygarl]

Hmmm no matter what I tried (brand new Ubuntu 32-bit Karmic, updated Pulse as per above) I still get jittery sounds - on a large percentage of unrelated sound programs such as Aqualung.

The cause is multiple. The solution is simple: Synaptic, search for "pulse". Uninstall the whole Pulseaudio setup down to the lvl which doesn't actually uninstall any useful programs.

Restart X or reboot.

All my sound probs work flawlessly including running Aqualung for my tunes at the same time as RO.

So - Cause: unimportant.
Effect: Pulseaudio on Ubuntu (for whatever reason) is absolutely diabolical.
Solution: eradication of Pulse.

Sorted.

[Ertial]

Originally Posted by Ygarl

Hmmm no matter what I tried (brand new Ubuntu 32-bit Karmic, updated Pulse as per above) I still get jittery sounds - on a large percentage of unrelated sound programs such as Aqualung.

The cause is multiple. The solution is simple: Synaptic, search for "pulse". Uninstall the whole Pulseaudio setup down to the lvl which doesn't actually uninstall any useful programs.

Restart X or reboot.

All my sound probs work flawlessly including running Aqualung for my tunes at the same time as RO.

So - Cause: unimportant.
Effect: Pulseaudio on Ubuntu (for whatever reason) is absolutely diabolical.
Solution: eradication of Pulse.

Sorted.

I was referring to updates of PulseAudio and OpenAL Soft in Lucid, not Karmic.