Linux Sound Problems

Para45 · Post by **Para45** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 5:01 am

Hello all,
I'm running Fedora Core 3 with kernel 2.6.10-1.770_FC3 on the following system:
AMD 1.4 Athlon
1 gb DDR Ram
64 mb nVidia AGP -- latest nVidia driver 7167
Creative Soundblaster PCI (shows up as: "Ensoniq 5880 AudioPCI")
80 gb Maxtor HD
This system runs great and has had various version of linux on it with no problems. Both sound and graphics are excellent.

Okay, here's the problem, before the update to the latest version of BZFlag <Current version is: BZFlag client 2.0.0.20050128-STABLE-linux-gnu-SDL>, the sound was working fine and video was fast and clean. Now with this new version, the sound is a series of "short stutters" instead of nice clean sound as before. Video is still fine

I tried some different setting in the options with no luck. I don't remember having to set anything before. I also tried running it as "root" from a terminal. Game comes up with normal sound (?) and now has low res video which is unacceptable. Is anyone else having sound problems in Linux, specifically Fedora Core 3? If you have and have it fixed, how did you do it?

Thanks!
Allen
--editied shortly after original post to include new kernel version and nvidia update--

1veedo · Post by **1veedo** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 9:48 pm

Hm... I nkow I had some problems w/ BZFlag on FC3 but found that runnign it as root

fixes this. I'm relatively new to Linux, or I would have tried to fix this. As far as I can tell, there are no security risks w/ BZFlag?

the enemy · Post by **the enemy** » Sun Mar 20, 2005 10:17 pm

I can't offer suggestions except to say that I have bzflag with fine sound on FC3.

Running as root is not a good idea, but it's your choice.

grc · Post by **grc** » Mon Mar 21, 2005 2:06 am

I had same problem - I fixed it in my case by turning off KDE sounds from control panel. There seem to be issues with sharing sound device/.

g/

1veedo · Post by **1veedo** » Mon Mar 21, 2005 2:56 am

Yeah. I tried playing my music in the background only to find out that
a) it sounds wierd
and b) bzflag doesnt make any sounds.

However, my theory is that it only has to start w/ no sounds in the background. If it's up and running BEFORE there's background noise, then everything works just fine. IM still makes noise behind it and bzflag runs just fine. I'm thinking abotu setting some time of dellay to start playing, or wright a script to start xmms after 5 seconds or something.

I'll let everybody know when I actaully do this..right now I'm reconfiguring a whole bunch of stuff and its last on my list

Para45 · Post by **Para45** » Tue Mar 22, 2005 3:57 am

I have my KDE sound system set to give up access to the sound card after being idle for 5 seconds. I am not running anything else while running BZFlag. Just seems odd that this would happen after I upgraded it to the latest. Before the upgrade, there were no problems with the audio side.

grc · Post by **grc** » Wed Mar 23, 2005 1:48 am

Ya - me too. Did you try turning it off like I suggested? Go ahead ... ya never know.

g/

Para45 · Post by **Para45** » Wed Mar 23, 2005 9:48 pm

Okay....turned off the KDE sound system and the game sounds returned to normal. Now, when I re-enable the KDE sound system, my KDE sounds no longer play. Any idea on that one? I have checked and rechecked everything but can't find anything out of whack. On system startup, when KDE is starting, the start-up sound would play, but not anymore. I just don't see how that could have killed the KDE sounds. I can't even play the KDE sounds from the control center/sound section anymore.

Teppic · Post by **Teppic** » Wed Mar 23, 2005 10:53 pm

I had this problem, if you compile for i586 it seems ok as long as nothing is using /dev/dsp (notun xmms amarok etc.)

1veedo · Post by **1veedo** » Wed Mar 23, 2005 11:07 pm

Sometimes the sound is "stored" when other things are playing. Depending on the program. When I run XMMS, all my "log in, log out, sent message, recieved" etc just all go bling bling bling for an hour!

I read someware that if the "buffer" (I think) is too big, it'll just stop playing because new sounds are added to the end of this already too large quene of output. There's a command to clear it, but I have no idea what it is.

Para45 · Post by **Para45** » Wed Mar 23, 2005 11:41 pm

Okay...I found a workaround for getting my KDE system sounds back. In the Control Center > Sound & Multimedia > System Notifications I changed the player settings from the default to "use external player" and added this path: /usr/bin/play. Now it's working, but I still can't grasp why it stopped working just because I turned off the KDE sound system to play the darn game.

1veedo · Post by **1veedo** » Thu Mar 24, 2005 1:25 am

When you turned it off, I bet it used the same config file that you altered w/ your GUI manager.

Para45 · Post by **Para45** » Thu Mar 24, 2005 5:12 am

Sorry to be ignorant, but how do you mean?

1veedo · Post by **1veedo** » Thu Mar 24, 2005 11:06 pm

In Linux, everything is controlled by these configuration files. The OS, services, kernel, application, etc reads these files to determine how to behave. Most of these files are stored in /etc. For example, /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf is the configuration file for how the web server should act. FTP reads etc/vsftpd/vsftpd.conf. And samba uses /etc/samba/smb.conf.

I'm guessing that your GUI manager (Sound & Multimedia > System Notification) altered the same file that you initially altered to turn the sound off.

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Linux Sound Problems

Linux Sound Problems

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