Arch Linux

scizzorz

Member

Registered: 2016-12-30

Posts: 3

[SOLVED] Problems with new sound card

I just got a new sound card for Christmas and it's been a real pain in my ass to get it working. Hoping someone here can help me sort it out.

I'm running Arch Linux with PulseAudio and ALSA. When I pass `chromium`'s audio through Pulse to the sound card, it's incredibly stuttery and laggy - YouTube and Google Music barely move forwards because of how bad the audio is. At first, I assumed this was just a sample rate problem, but changing the `default-sample-rate` in `/etc/pulse/daemon.conf` or `~/.pulse/daemon.conf` did nothing. `mplayer` works with `-ao alsa:device=hw=0` but causes the same stuttering as `chromium` when I use `-ao pulse`, as well as spitting out `Audio device got stuck!` errors. Passing audio through Pulse to the builtin mobo sound works fine, however. `aplay` refuses to play audio correctly anywhere.

Just recently I discovered that if I launch a game on Wine (Heroes of the Storm), the audio plays perfectly through Pulse on both the sound card and builtin mobo. What's even more interesting is that when the Wine audio is going to the sound card, `chromium` and `mplayer -ao pulse` also work on the sound card. If I change Wine's audio to the builtin, it causes `chromium` / `mplayer` to both stutter on the sound card again. Switching Wine's audio back to the sound card fixes `chromium` / `mplayer`. `aplay` still refuses to play audio correctly anywhere.

Here's a shitload of system information. Let me know if there's other stuff I should list or try.

Thanks!

    $ pacman -Ss pulse | grep installed
    extra/libcanberra-pulse 0.30-7 [installed]
    extra/pavucontrol 3.0-4 [installed]
    extra/pulseaudio 9.0-1 [installed]
    extra/pulseaudio-alsa 2-3 [installed]
    multilib/lib32-libpulse 9.0-2 [installed]

    $ pacman -Ss alsa | grep installed
    extra/alsa-firmware 1.0.29-1 [installed]
    extra/alsa-lib 1.1.3-1 [installed]
    extra/alsa-plugins 1.1.1-1 [installed]
    extra/alsa-tools 1.1.0-2 [installed]
    extra/alsa-utils 1.1.3-1 [installed]
    extra/alsaplayer 0.99.81-8 [installed]
    extra/pulseaudio-alsa 2-3 [installed]
    extra/zita-alsa-pcmi 0.2.0-3 [installed]
    multilib/lib32-alsa-lib 1.1.2-1 [installed]
    multilib/lib32-alsa-plugins 1.1.1-1 [installed]

    $ cat .pulse/daemon.conf 
    resample-method = speex-float-1
    default-sample-format = float32le

    $ lspci
    00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 4th Gen Core Processor DRAM Controller (rev 06)
    00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core Processor PCI Express x16 Controller (rev 06)
    00:01.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core Processor PCI Express x8 Controller (rev 06)
    00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 06)
    00:03.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core Processor HD Audio Controller (rev 06)
    00:14.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 9 Series Chipset Family USB xHCI Controller
    00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation 9 Series Chipset Family ME Interface #1
    00:19.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation Ethernet Connection I217-V
    00:1a.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 9 Series Chipset Family USB EHCI Controller #2
    00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 9 Series Chipset Family HD Audio Controller
    00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 9 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 1 (rev d0)
    00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 9 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 4 (rev d0)
    00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 9 Series Chipset Family USB EHCI Controller #1
    00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 9 Series Chipset Family Z97 LPC Controller
    00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 9 Series Chipset Family SATA Controller [AHCI Mode]
    00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 9 Series Chipset Family SMBus Controller
    01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GM204 [GeForce GTX 970] (rev a1)
    01:00.1 Audio device: NVIDIA Corporation GM204 High Definition Audio Controller (rev a1)
    02:00.0 PCI bridge: Tundra Semiconductor Corp. Device 8111 (rev 02)
    03:00.0 Multimedia audio controller: Creative Labs CA0108/CA10300 [Sound Blaster Audigy Series]
    05:00.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge (rev 41)

`$ pacmd list-cards` https://gist.github.com/scizzorz/e66e2e … 2d9b3d87e3
`$ pacmd list-sinks` https://gist.github.com/scizzorz/e4f57d … 72d118a525
`$ pacmd list-sink-inputs` https://gist.github.com/scizzorz/78ea45 … 432923cd17
`$ alsa-info.sh` https://gist.github.com/scizzorz/1d70d4 … e8bd4225e1

Last edited by scizzorz (2017-01-03 23:48:42)

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 21,738

Re: [SOLVED] Problems with new sound card

Looks like the emu10k1 driver doesn't support timer based latency (or does it? have you explicitly disabled it in your default.conf with tsched=0? if so reverse that first and try that) if that is the case, you might want to follow https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pu … PulseAudio to calculate the proper fragment sizes.   If that didn't help, does adding a latency offset to the creative card (in pavucontrol's output devices tab or with

pacmd set-port-latency-offset alsa_output.pci-0000_03_00.0 analog-output;output-amplifier-on 50

help?

Last edited by V1del (2016-12-30 16:02:13)

scizzorz

Member

Registered: 2016-12-30

Posts: 3

Re: [SOLVED] Problems with new sound card

With tsched=0, audio still won't work unless Wine is being fed to the audio card. Adding a latency with `pacmd` also didn't help.

The reported fragment / buffer sizes from `pacmd list-sinks` are much lower than the examples in that Wiki article - `buffer_size = "19188"` and `fragment_size = "6396"`, so I'm not sure what to divide by in step 2.

scizzorz

Member

Registered: 2016-12-30

Posts: 3

Re: [SOLVED] Problems with new sound card

By pure random happenstance, I accidentally turned on the kernel boot option `noapic` and everything seemed to work just fine. I also clean reinstalled arch beforehand, so who knows whether it was the kernel boot flag or the clean reinstall.