Arch Linux

Afterglow

Member

Registered: 2013-09-21

Posts: 17

Pipewire bluetooth audio delay in games

Using bluetooth headphones in games create half-second latency between video and audio. I'm suing A2DP Sinc with LDAC codec.
Is it normal? There is no problem while playing youtube or other video. And obviously I don't see any problem with wired audio.

I actually don't remember if it ever worked, cause I haven't played in a while with the headphones. Maybe some kind of a bug happened?
I tried disabling suspension to no avail - https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/PipeWi … g_playback.

pacman -Qs 'pipewire'
local/gst-plugin-pipewire 1:0.3.72-1
    Multimedia graph framework - pipewire plugin
local/helvum 0.3.4-1
    GTK patchbay for PipeWire
local/lib32-libpipewire 1:0.3.72-1
    Low-latency audio/video router and processor - 32-bit - client library
local/lib32-pipewire 1:0.3.72-1
    Low-latency audio/video router and processor - 32-bit
local/libpipewire 1:0.3.72-1
    Low-latency audio/video router and processor - client library
local/libpipewire02 0.2.7-2
    Low-latency audio/video router and processor - legacy client library
local/libwireplumber 0.4.14-1
    Session / policy manager implementation for PipeWire - client library
local/pipewire 1:0.3.72-1
    Low-latency audio/video router and processor
local/pipewire-alsa 1:0.3.72-1
    Low-latency audio/video router and processor - ALSA configuration
local/pipewire-audio 1:0.3.72-1
    Low-latency audio/video router and processor - Audio support
local/pipewire-jack 1:0.3.72-1
    Low-latency audio/video router and processor - JACK support
local/pipewire-pulse 1:0.3.72-1
    Low-latency audio/video router and processor - PulseAudio replacement
local/qpwgraph 0.4.2-1 (pro-audio)
    PipeWire Graph Qt GUI Interface
local/wireplumber 0.4.14-1
    Session / policy manager implementation for PipeWire

chenxiaolong

Member

From: /home/chenxiaolong

Registered: 2010-11-03

Posts: 784

Re: Pipewire bluetooth audio delay in games

This is unfortunately normal. Every bluetooth codec currently has perceptible latency for real-time things, like games (even with the fancy codecs, like aptX Low Latency). As I understand it, this is just inherent to bluetooth audio.

The reason it's not noticeable when playing videos is due to the AVDTP 1.3 Delay Reporting feature in the bluetooth protocol. Bluez and pipewire/pulseaudio support this--during video playback, the player can use this information to delay the image to match the audio delay. With real-time things, like games, this is not possible.