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#1 2009-05-03 23:23:18

keratos
Member
Registered: 2008-04-27
Posts: 138

[SOLVED] ET: Frequent bans, No sound.

Hi
Installed enemy-territory from AUR. There were several versions, I just did "yaourt -S enemy-territory"

I keep getting banned by something called PunkBuster for several reasons. "Game Integrity" was the last! Google PunkBuster revealed its a anti cheat app.

I have never plaed ET before, have no idea what is going on. Help please.

I get no sound either, but sound works fine in the desktop and tremulous.

Last edited by keratos (2009-05-09 19:12:30)

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#2 2009-05-04 06:51:58

FrozenFox
Member
From: College Station, TX
Registered: 2008-03-23
Posts: 422
Website

Re: [SOLVED] ET: Frequent bans, No sound.

Use the forum search for "et punkbuster". There's a thread marked solved with the same solution, with a slight Arch bent, as most threads from googling "enemy territory linux punkbuster' keep give. If you don't know where to find the path, pacman -Ql enemy-territory should help.

As for sound, we need to know more, as always. It might be best to change the thread title if the above fixes your original problem.

What desktop environment are you running?

OSS4 or ALSA or PulseAudio or whatnot?

Sound card? I recall something about ET using OSS and hogging the sound card for those with the misfortune of not owning a card with hardware mixing, so some people had to use a wrapper such as aoss to fix it or some weird sound config tweaks. I do not play the game, so I am not sure if it's been fixed, but I certainly remember something about that.

Last edited by FrozenFox (2009-05-04 06:58:29)

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#3 2009-05-04 07:09:36

keratos
Member
Registered: 2008-04-27
Posts: 138

Re: [SOLVED] ET: Frequent bans, No sound.

Thanks.

I did search, i couldnt see anything with "banned" although there was a "violation #20006" which I have to admit not going into. I dont usually inspect every post in every topic in every search result to see if my problem is there. This would take forever. I usually just look at the subject line, if its not there then I wont go into the topic.
Anyway, I think the post you refer to is the violation one. And it seems I need to update pb. Ok. Thanks for that.

As for the sound, can you help me more please. I am still learning linux, moreover arch, and have only got as far as this:

I am running kdemod(4.2). SystemSettings->Multimedia shows four "cards":
HDA Intel ALC268 (analog)
HDA Intel ALC268 (digital)
Esound (ESD)
HDA Intel ALC268 (IEC958 (S/PDIF) Digital Audio Output)

p.s. I can only get sound of the Analog device. The "test" button doesnt do anything with the other devices selected.

Soundchip reported by "lspci":

00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 03)

Soundmodules reported by "hwdetect --show-sound":

SOUND  : snd-mixer-oss snd-pcm-oss snd-hwdep snd-page-alloc snd-pcm snd-timer snd snd-hda-codec snd-hda-intel soundcore

modprobe.conf:

#
# /etc/modprobe.conf (for v2.6 kernels)
#
options i915 modeset=1
alias net-pf-10 off

rc.conf:

#                                                                                                                                            
# /etc/rc.conf - Main Configuration for Arch Linux                                                                                           
#                                                                                                                                            
                                                                                                                                             
# -----------------------------------------------------------------------                                                                    
# LOCALIZATION                                                                                                                               
# -----------------------------------------------------------------------                                                                    
#                                                                                                                                            
# LOCALE: available languages can be listed with the 'locale -a' command                                                                     
# HARDWARECLOCK: set to "UTC" or "localtime"                                                                                                 
# USEDIRECTISA: use direct I/O requests instead of /dev/rtc for hwclock                                                                      
# TIMEZONE: timezones are found in /usr/share/zoneinfo                                                                                       
# KEYMAP: keymaps are found in /usr/share/kbd/keymaps                                                                                        
# CONSOLEFONT: found in /usr/share/kbd/consolefonts (only needed for non-US)                                                                 
# CONSOLEMAP: found in /usr/share/kbd/consoletrans                                                                                           
# USECOLOR: use ANSI color sequences in startup messages                                                                                     
#                                                                                                                                            
LOCALE="en_GB.utf8"                                                                                                                          
HARDWARECLOCK="localtime"                                                                                                                    
USEDIRECTISA="no"                                                                                                                            
TIMEZONE="Europe/London"                                                                                                                     
KEYMAP="uk"                                                                                                                                  
CONSOLEFONT=                                                                                                                                 
CONSOLEMAP=                                                                                                                                  
USECOLOR="yes"                                                                                                                               
                                                                                                                                             
# -----------------------------------------------------------------------                                                                    
# HARDWARE                                                                                                                                   
# -----------------------------------------------------------------------                                                                    
#                                                                                                                                            
# MOD_AUTOLOAD: Allow autoloading of modules at boot and when needed                                                                         
# MOD_BLACKLIST: Prevent udev from loading these modules                                                                                     
# MODULES: Modules to load at boot-up. Prefix with a ! to blacklist.                                                                         
#                                                                                                                                            
# NOTE: Use of 'MOD_BLACKLIST' is deprecated. Please use ! in the MODULES array.                                                             
#                                                                                                                                            
MOD_AUTOLOAD="yes"                                                                                                                           
#MOD_BLACKLIST=() #deprecated                                                                                                                
#MODULES=(mii r8169 snd-mixer-oss snd-pcm-oss snd-hwdep snd-page-alloc snd-pcm snd-timer snd snd-hda-intel soundcore)                        
                                                                                                                                             
# Scan for LVM volume groups at startup, required if you use LVM                                                                             
USELVM="no"                                                                                                                                  
                                                                                                                                             
# -----------------------------------------------------------------------                                                                    
# NETWORKING                                                                                                                                 
# -----------------------------------------------------------------------                                                                    
#                                                                                                                                            
# HOSTNAME: Hostname of machine. Should also be put in /etc/hosts                                                                            
#
HOSTNAME="daz"

# Use 'ifconfig -a' or 'ls /sys/class/net/' to see all available interfaces.
#
# Interfaces to start at boot-up (in this order)
# Declare each interface then list in INTERFACES
#   - prefix an entry in INTERFACES with a ! to disable it
#   - no hyphens in your interface names - Bash doesn't like it
#
#eth0="dhcp"
# Wireless: See network profiles below
#
#eth0="dhcp"
#INTERFACES=(eth0)
wlan0="wlan0 192.168.0.10 netmask 255.255.255.0"

# Routes to start at boot-up (in this order)
# Declare each route then list in ROUTES
#   - prefix an entry in ROUTES with a ! to disable it
#
gateway="default gw 192.168.0.1"
ROUTES=(!gateway)

# Enable these network profiles at boot-up.  These are only useful
# if you happen to need multiple network configurations (ie, laptop users)
#   - set to 'menu' to present a menu during boot-up (dialog package required)
#   - prefix an entry with a ! to disable it
#
# Network profiles are found in /etc/network.d
#
# This now requires the netcfg package
#
#NETWORKS=(main)

# -----------------------------------------------------------------------
# DAEMONS
# -----------------------------------------------------------------------
#
# Daemons to start at boot-up (in this order)
#   - prefix a daemon with a ! to disable it
#   - prefix a daemon with a @ to start it up in the background
#
DAEMONS=(preload hal @cpufreq @networkmanager @kdm)

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#4 2009-05-04 15:48:23

FrozenFox
Member
From: College Station, TX
Registered: 2008-03-23
Posts: 422
Website

Re: [SOLVED] ET: Frequent bans, No sound.

I don't inspect all of such things either; all of that 'effort' took me no more than about a minute. tongue A decent tip is to look for threads marked 'solved' first after searching your keywords, assuming they appear to -possibly- be related, and start from the top (most recent threads).

My apologies if I give/gave off a harsh tone, I assure you it was not intentional. Arch is simply (as stated frequently on official docs and such) intended to be for "competent linux users" especially, or as pointed out in another thread, in some cases, those with the right attitude (patience, searching before asking, persistence, willingness to learn, etc). A lot of work is put into the wiki and answering questions, and people here (including myself) do not like for that to be overlooked as a source of information (to avoid repeat questions), which frequently occurs smile.

Your rc.conf shows that (unless you're doing it manually, /etc/rc.d/alsa start) you are not running ALSA. Please "pacman -Sy alsa-utils" and add "alsa" to the DAEMONS list at the end of rc.conf, before kdm. Your user also may also need to be in the audio group. I think you can do so via "gpasswd -a userNameHere audio". You will probably need to reboot after doing all of such (purists would nag at me for saying "you never have to reboot in linux except for kernel upgrades!", but its really easier than doing a bunch of commands to accomplish the same task). After getting back into the system, you may (probably will) need to adjust your sound settings via a mixer program. You can do it in konsole using 'alsamixer' for best results (imo) or KDE4's kmix could do the trick. For other problems with alsa config or if the sound is not saving, see http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beg … igure_ALSA . The alsa-oss mentioned there is one of the wrappers I referred to in my previous post, 'aoss'. If installing/running ALSA still doesn't help, you may need to use that.

As for only getting sound off the analog device, no worries. I can't get sound off 'test'ing most of the things that show up in kde4's phonon area either; I do not believe you are supposed to. As long as what you need works properly, it's nothing to worry about.

Last edited by FrozenFox (2009-05-04 15:57:12)

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#5 2009-05-04 16:52:20

keratos
Member
Registered: 2008-04-27
Posts: 138

Re: [SOLVED] ET: Frequent bans, No sound.

To clarify the sound works fine provided I use the analog device. Not sure why all the others appear because they do not seem to yield any sound - although the prospect of using analog when there is a digital card, is dissapointing.

I'm not running alsa. So how is the sound working then. I did read the sound wiki http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/ALSA_Setup ( see i do/did search :-) ) but my sound was already working. I thought sound required alsa. Obviously not. I'm keen to understand why this is so.

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#6 2009-05-06 23:56:35

FrozenFox
Member
From: College Station, TX
Registered: 2008-03-23
Posts: 422
Website

Re: [SOLVED] ET: Frequent bans, No sound.

I think the confusion of not being able to use 'digital' is a matter of misunderstanding the terminology and the capabilities of your hardware setup. However, I will honestly admit that I do not know.

In any case, to answer your other question/confusion that I do know more about, let me start with an explanation and follow with something that may have things make more sense to you now and in the future..

Some sound cards support hardware mixing (the ability for multiple sound sources to use the sound card at once without software interference by handling it on the sound card hardware), some do not. ALSA is designed to allow the hardware to do the mixing if it can (for the best possible audio), otherwise it will go ahead and software mix using its mixer, "dmix". I don't think most cards have such a feature, but a good chunk of Creative cards do.

At the moment, I think most people consider ALSA to be the "standard" sound system for Linux (slowly giving way to PulseAudio support), but things are honestly a little crazy in the sound area. Lots of people (end users and developers alike) use their own different sound systems for varying reasons, from lack of driver support to poor audio quality (usually dmix's problem as far as ALSA goes) or finding desired features in a different sound system. The Linux Kernel comes with OSS (Open Sound System), another sound system that does not support software mixing that I am aware of. That is why you were able to still hear sound without ALSA installed, most likely, and also perhaps why you couldn't get sound in ET (sound mixing non-existent or ET needs alsa). Furthermore, bear with me here, this may seem confusing at first -- note that OSS in the kernel is not the same as OSSv4, another previously commercial project of similar roots that is now free and open again, with full support for software audio mixing that some argue is far superior to ALSA's dmix. Partly to deal with this problem of everyone going their own way creating all manner of sound system chaos (including OSS apps hogging the sound card or not having access to it), PulseAudio was created as a sort of communicator and mixer (with many nifty features thrown in like networked audio capabilities and per-app volume control for those that lack their own volume sliders or do it poorly). The details of how it attempted to do this are beyond my understanding (or at least patience/interest to understand), but you can look that up if you are interested. Anyway, its success in "solving" this issue is debateable. Most people on these forums that I've seen do not like it very much, saying it was a good idea but causes more problems than it fixes. Others are extremely happy with it solving all their problems. Shrug.

In any case, if you consider the idea that ALSA can wrap around OSS programs in some cases to stop them from hogging the sound, then throw in PulseAudio, you have a very interesting picture: a wrapper wrapping another wrapper so that a "primitive" sound system won't NOM NOM NOM your sound.

So.. yes. To sum this all up: basically, linux sound is a little bit of a mess. OSS in the linux kernel probably played your sound, and is also probably limiting you where ALSA might help to get what you want working properly. Install alsa as per the wiki and see if it helps, since you don't seem to have said whether it does or not in your post, only that you've read about it. Then post back with your results.

Also, see http://www.linux.com/articles/113775 for a little understanding of the issues and players at hand if you want. HOWEVER, note that it was made in 2004, long before the prime of PulseAudio and KDE4's Phonon (KDE3's Arts as mentioned there in the article no longer exists, being "replaced" by Phonon); but much of it still applies.

Last edited by FrozenFox (2009-05-07 00:12:26)

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#7 2009-05-07 21:02:34

keratos
Member
Registered: 2008-04-27
Posts: 138

Re: [SOLVED] ET: Frequent bans, No sound.

wow buddy! that was a throrough explanation. Thanks. However, I am more confused now. I simply do not understand the relationship between :

OSS
ALSA
Pulse
Phonon
Arts
KDE sound system
Esound

A simple functional/system diagram and synopsis would be great.

I am guessing all of these reside at specific layers and there is [some] relationships between them

Who/Where can I do?

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#8 2009-05-08 05:40:48

FrozenFox
Member
From: College Station, TX
Registered: 2008-03-23
Posts: 422
Website

Re: [SOLVED] ET: Frequent bans, No sound.

To be honest, I do not know the details of all of the above, but essentially they are all just different ways of implementing (or wrapping together existing implementations of such) sound. You may get a much better understanding from Wikipedia than I could provide.

I will try though, but take my explanations with a grain of salt, as my understanding is not perfect/crystal clear either smile

3 "base" systems which all do the same thing, but people use one over another for different reasons (programmers and normal users alike):

OSS:
           * Open Sound System
           * Basic sound system, send audio to or from the sound card.
           * Probably only exists because of OSSv4 being renewed and for compatibility's sake.
ALSA:
           * Advanced Linux Sound Architecture
           * Basic sound system, send audio to or from the sound card.
           * Extra sound card compatibility and identification.
           * Software mixing, but bad quality for some.
           * Other advanced features not present in OSS.
OSSv4:
           * Basic sound system, send audio to or from the sound card.
           * Software mixing, with vastly superior quality for some.
           * Per-application volume control.
           * Support(s/ed) some stuff ALSA doesn't/didn't, like X-Fi before Creative released their drivers.
           * Used to have licensing issues (might still?) for the linux kernel, causing the birth of the kernel's "OSS"
              ... but was recently made public FLOSS again from what I understand.

Everything else, which mostly seems to exist to try to solve the mess above, fill in gaps, and add features:

Esound:
           * Gnome's sound system, gave way to PulseAudio.
           * Like OSS, probably still exists solely for compatibility's sake.
           * Makes sound systems easier to handle for programmers, less problematic for users.
           * As per the above: tries to fix holes in software mixing other implementations miss.
           * Doesn't rely on QT.
Pulse:
           * High priority of wrapping all other sound systems together under one API. Arguable success.
           * Networked audio support, re-routing sound.
           * Per-app volume controls.
           * Doesn't rely on QT.
           * Fixes for software mixing problems of programs hogging sound card use, with or without dmix.
Arts:
           * KDE's old sound system.
           * KDE3 only. Does not exist any more, gave way to Phonon.
           * Tried to wrap a bunch of other sound systems together.
           * Tried to allow for coding of one API, which let the user choose what sound system they wanted.
Phonon:
           * KDE's new sound system.
           * KDE4 only. Replaced Arts.
           * Works on other OS's. Windows, OSX, etc.
           * Allows for new advanced features, like hardware detection stuff to allow for,
              say, USB/Bluetooth stuff to work properly without a fuss through a common config program.
           * Supports a load of back-ends and sound systems.
           * Allows quick switching to other sound systems.
           * Allows for per-application-STYLE volume control. IE, "video volume" vs "music volume" vs "game volume".
           * Some people don't like it because it needs QT to run, who complain about bloat & desktop dependency.
           * I have the best idea of what this and Pulse do vs the others wink


So basically, a very poorly executed diagram that you should take lightly:

                 --------------------------------------
                 |                                                  |
                 |     /------OSSv4--------------\      |
                 |   /                                        \     |
SoundCard--|--*---------OSS----------------*--|---Program
                 |   \                                        /    |
                 |     \-------ALSA--------------/      |
                 |                                                  |
                 --------------------------------------
                                            |
                       Phonon (KDE4) or PulseAudio (Gnome)
                      [Or any of the other outdated systems]
              [Each with different pros/cons/dependencies/features]
               [Envelop sound systems, sit between card + program]

In any case, you still have not said whether or not you've installed ALSA to test your problem before this went off-topic.

Last edited by FrozenFox (2009-05-08 23:24:40)

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#9 2009-05-08 13:15:33

keratos
Member
Registered: 2008-04-27
Posts: 138

Re: [SOLVED] ET: Frequent bans, No sound.

Thanks buddy. I dont consider the current discussion to be off-topic. Indeed, it is helping me to learn and educates me so that I can effecitvely diagnose the problem.

ALSA has never been installed.

So, my setup is AC97card->OSS->Phonon->Application

Having understood the sound stack (thanks to your diagram and notes) I set about examining various config files. Noted that the selected channel for S/W mixing was not allowing Phonon to function correctly. Problem now fixed and sound is a-OK ! Thank you ever so much :-)

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#10 2009-05-08 16:41:53

lukrop
Member
From: /at/vienna
Registered: 2008-01-30
Posts: 27
Website

Re: [SOLVED] ET: Frequent bans, No sound.

To get ET sound working you need this package.

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#11 2009-05-08 18:24:15

Exitium
Member
From: Helsinki, Finland
Registered: 2008-08-20
Posts: 202

Re: [SOLVED] ET: Frequent bans, No sound.

Update Punkbuster

http://www.evenbalance.com/index.php?page=dl-et.php

Native Linux-client exists.

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#12 2009-05-08 21:44:38

keratos
Member
Registered: 2008-04-27
Posts: 138

Re: [SOLVED] ET: Frequent bans, No sound.

Exitium wrote:

Update Punkbuster

http://www.evenbalance.com/index.php?page=dl-et.php

Native Linux-client exists.

fixed! thank you. L-)

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#13 2009-05-09 06:17:11

FrozenFox
Member
From: College Station, TX
Registered: 2008-03-23
Posts: 422
Website

Re: [SOLVED] ET: Frequent bans, No sound.

You are welcome. Glad to hear we were of some help.

If you don't mind, please edit the original post, mark [SOLVED], and perhaps change the title to include sound problems smile

May I suggest:

[SOLVED] ET: Frequent bans, No sound

Last edited by FrozenFox (2009-05-09 06:17:54)

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#14 2009-05-09 19:12:45

keratos
Member
Registered: 2008-04-27
Posts: 138

Re: [SOLVED] ET: Frequent bans, No sound.

done!

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#15 2009-05-09 22:48:39

arew264
Member
From: Friendswood, Texas, US
Registered: 2006-07-01
Posts: 394
Website

Re: [SOLVED] ET: Frequent bans, No sound.

Just for future reference, ET uses OSS sound exclusively (it's old, and ALSA probably wasn't as popular when it was released). If you google it, you can find solutions to give it direct access to the OSS system (via mmap) that isn't normally given to applications. Because it uses OSS, it takes exclusive control of the sound card.
The package lukrop linked to preloads a library that replaces the standard ET sound functions with versions that use SDL (Simple Directmedia Layer), which defaults to using ALSA. SDL has pretty much become the standard method for video game sound on Linux, and it supports OSS, ALSA, and PulseAudio.
That library preloading trick is basically the equivalent of forced DLL injection on Windows, but Punkbuster either can't detect it or purposefully ignores it, and the gaming continues with much better sound support.

Last edited by arew264 (2009-05-09 22:49:06)

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