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Infernal_pizza

Member

Registered: 2023-08-05

Posts: 10

DisplayPort audio delay when changing sink input

I use DisplayPort audio as my main output, and for some reason there is a slight delay between the sink input being started and me actually hearing anything. I get an audible pop after a couple of seconds and then the audio starts. I’ve managed to sort of fix it by disabling suspend on idle, so now once I've started an audio stream I can pause it for as long as I like and resume without issue.

However if I play audio from a different app then I get the startup delay and pop once again. That app will then behave as expected but if I switch back to the first I get the delay and pop again. If I start playing audio from the second app while the first one is still playing there is no pop and the new audio stream starts straight away.

I've tried with both Pulseaudio and Pipewire and its the same on both. Not sure if its relevant but I have an Nvidia GPU with a G-sync monitor and the audio didn't work at all until I installed the Nvidia drivers. I've never had this issue with any other device on this monitor, including this same PC but on Windows. So while I'm sure its partly a hardware issue (other audio outputs are fine), I'm pretty sure there should be some way to fix this. But I'm completely out of ideas at this point.

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 23,774

Re: DisplayPort audio delay when changing sink input

Try /etc/modprobe.d/disableHdaPowersave.conf

 options snd-hda-intel power_save=0

and rebooting

Infernal_pizza

Member

Registered: 2023-08-05

Posts: 10

Re: DisplayPort audio delay when changing sink input

Thats not made any difference unfortunately. I checked the driver with pacmd info and its definitely snd_hda_intel. I even tried using _ instead of - in the .conf file but it still made no difference

Infernal_pizza

Member

Registered: 2023-08-05

Posts: 10

Re: DisplayPort audio delay when changing sink input

Do you think there's anything wrong with adding load-module module-sine frequency=1 to /etc/pulse/default.pa? This plays an inaudible sound constantly which seems to solve the issue. It seems like a very janky fix but I can't see any reason why I shouldn't do that?

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 23,774

Re: DisplayPort audio delay when changing sink input

You can do that, or for pulse disabling/removing load-module suspend-on-idle from that same file should also never suspend the sink.

Infernal_pizza

Member

Registered: 2023-08-05

Posts: 10

Re: DisplayPort audio delay when changing sink input

I already have that set but it only seems to work for a single sink input. The status of the sink never changes to suspended, but if I change the input to a different app it still pauses. If there’s a constant input it seems to be fine.