Audio crackling and static in a few games

orbea commented

2024-11-16 09:55:49 -06:00

(Migrated from github.com)

OS: Gentoo
Linux: 6.12-rc7
Proton: experimental

Using alsa with HDMI audio in a few games such as Tales of Symphonia and Ys VIII: Lacrimose of DANA there will be constant crackling or static noise after a few minutes of playing. When starting the game everything will work correctly, but after a consistent amount of time the audio will break, in at Ys VIII muting the BGM in the settings will make it go away, but it will return when increasing the volume again.

Other games in the series such as Tales of Arise, Tales of Vesperia, Ys Origin and Ys X: Nordics are unaffected as are all other games I have played.

I tried older kernels going back to 5.15.x, Proton GE and older proton versions available in Steam without finding any good versions. Is this a FAudio issue? Alsa issue? Kernel issue? Game bug? A friend who does audio programming suggested that it sounds like an audio buffer is draining too fast. Is there anything that can be done to narrow this down or resolve this issue?

OS: `Gentoo` Linux: `6.12-rc7` Proton: `experimental` Using alsa with HDMI audio in a few games such as `Tales of Symphonia` and `Ys VIII: Lacrimose of DANA` there will be constant crackling or static noise after a few minutes of playing. When starting the game everything will work correctly, but after a consistent amount of time the audio will break, in at Ys VIII muting the BGM in the settings will make it go away, but it will return when increasing the volume again. Other games in the series such as `Tales of Arise`, `Tales of Vesperia`, `Ys Origin` and `Ys X: Nordics` are unaffected as are all other games I have played. I tried older kernels going back to `5.15.x`, Proton GE and older proton versions available in Steam without finding any good versions. Is this a FAudio issue? Alsa issue? Kernel issue? Game bug? A friend who does audio programming suggested that it sounds like an audio buffer is draining too fast. Is there anything that can be done to narrow this down or resolve this issue?

flibitijibibo commented

2024-11-16 10:00:43 -06:00

(Migrated from github.com)

The best way to report these sorts of things is to go down the list in order:

Proton first, downstream of Wine and has a WMA decoder
Wine next, contains Win32 branch of FAudio
FAudio if all else fails

Most bugs unique to Proton applications have to do with WMA support since decoding those is still kind of flaky; we don't decode it in upstream FAudio due to patent concerns. If it's ALSA that'll be something in Wine's ALSA driver since the Wine config uses WASAPI instead of SDL.

The best way to report these sorts of things is to go down the list in order: - Proton first, downstream of Wine and has a WMA decoder - Wine next, contains Win32 branch of FAudio - FAudio if all else fails Most bugs unique to Proton applications have to do with WMA support since decoding those is still kind of flaky; we don't decode it in upstream FAudio due to patent concerns. If it's ALSA that'll be something in Wine's ALSA driver since the Wine config uses WASAPI instead of SDL.

orbea commented

2024-11-16 10:16:09 -06:00

(Migrated from github.com)

I neglected to mention that I did report it to proton without replies (Although did so only recently for Ys VIII).

https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/822#issuecomment-2326999328
https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/3820#issuecomment-2477846139

I will try making a wine issue too, but I'll try testing the GOG version of Ys VIII before I attempt that using vanilla wine and wine-staging if necessary.

I neglected to mention that I did report it to proton without replies (Although did so only recently for Ys VIII). https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/822#issuecomment-2326999328 https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/3820#issuecomment-2477846139 I will try making a wine issue too, but I'll try testing the GOG version of Ys VIII before I attempt that using vanilla wine and wine-staging if necessary.

orbea commented

2024-11-16 21:45:08 -06:00

(Migrated from github.com)

I tested the GOG version using wine 9.21 and was unable to reproduce the issue so I am not sure its appropriate to make an issue for the wine tracker.

So if I understand correctly this implies proton or something about the combination of proton and FAudio? Is there a better way to bring attention to the issue on the proton tracker?

I tested the GOG version using wine 9.21 and was unable to reproduce the issue so I am not sure its appropriate to make an issue for the wine tracker. So if I understand correctly this implies proton or something about the combination of proton and FAudio? Is there a better way to bring attention to the issue on the proton tracker?

flibitijibibo commented

2024-11-16 22:01:25 -06:00

(Migrated from github.com)

That all sounds right - I don't really know any way to bring attention to specific things, if I knew any method I'd probably be using them for native games instead!

orbea commented

2024-11-17 09:25:03 -06:00

(Migrated from github.com)

Thanks for the replies, hopefully this can be addressed eventually.

orbea commented

2024-11-20 09:32:50 -06:00

(Migrated from github.com)

As detailed in these two comments.

https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/3820#issuecomment-2487608381
https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/3820#issuecomment-2488881708

Running the Steam version of Ys VIII outside of Steam with wine-9.21 and wine-proton-9.0.3 built from the Gentoo repos avoids the audio issue while running the game with the same Proton version selected in Steam will reproduce the audio issue. Perhaps the problem is in neither Proton or FAudio, but in another part of the Steam ecosystem? Unless I am getting something wrong perhaps this issue should be closed?

As detailed in these two comments. https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/3820#issuecomment-2487608381 https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/3820#issuecomment-2488881708 Running the Steam version of `Ys VIII` outside of Steam with `wine-9.21` and `wine-proton-9.0.3` built from the Gentoo repos avoids the audio issue while running the game with the same Proton version selected in Steam will reproduce the audio issue. Perhaps the problem is in neither Proton or FAudio, but in another part of the Steam ecosystem? Unless I am getting something wrong perhaps this issue should be closed?

flibitijibibo commented

2024-11-20 09:46:47 -06:00

(Migrated from github.com)

That's plausible; system Wine most likely uses ffmpeg via GStreamer while Proton uses protonmediaconverter via GStreamer, again due to annoying patent issues.

orbea commented

2024-11-20 10:15:16 -06:00

(Migrated from github.com)

Yes, I have ffmpeg enabled in Gentoo's media-plugins/gst-plugins-meta package, so that makes sense that the issue could be in protonmediaconverter.

Yes, I have ffmpeg enabled in Gentoo's `media-plugins/gst-plugins-meta` package, so that makes sense that the issue could be in protonmediaconverter.

midzer commented

2025-06-25 17:10:51 -05:00

(Migrated from github.com)

Probably related issue https://github.com/TerryCavanagh/VVVVVV/issues/970

mirh commented

2025-12-31 05:56:18 -06:00

(Migrated from github.com)

Does it still happen if you use the xact trick?

Does it still [happen](https://github.com/FNA-XNA/FAudio/issues/311) if you use the `xact` trick?

gabriele2000 commented

2026-01-01 17:33:45 -06:00

(Migrated from github.com)

Yes, I have ffmpeg enabled in Gentoo's media-plugins/gst-plugins-meta package, so that makes sense that the issue could be in protonmediaconverter.

Whoah, thank you, fellow gentoo user here: finally I can have more optimization by linking ffmpeg to gstreamer.
Will this fix Proton-GE used in a flatpak environment for example?

> Yes, I have ffmpeg enabled in Gentoo's `media-plugins/gst-plugins-meta` package, so that makes sense that the issue could be in protonmediaconverter. Whoah, thank you, fellow gentoo user here: finally I can have more optimization by linking ffmpeg to gstreamer. Will this fix Proton-GE used in a flatpak environment for example?

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Audio crackling and static in a few games #367