I gave up with pipewire and just switched to pulseaudio. All issues gone.
this post was submitted on 06 Oct 2023
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Thanks...I might have to do just that. Everybody talked about pipewire like it's the solution to everything...but it clearly also brings bugs.
Did you switch to pipewire because you had issues with pulse or?
Nah, I switched because of bluetooth stuttering issues on PulseAudio, I think when switching to AptX. At any rate, on Pipewire BT worked flawlessly.
Do standard wired headphones that are directly connected to your PC work fine?
Siiiigh. Seems the monitor earphones plug is busted (physically broken, just found out). The one on the PC is too hidden, it's behind the TV and quite some meters away from where the actual keyboard/mouse etc are. Not a good option :(
You might be able to get an AUX extension cord for cheap at your local tech store. Would be suboptimal, but for anything better, you might need to rearrange your setup.
Have you opened up a pipewire patch bay app to see if it's routed correctly? There's also a pulse audio virtual interface for pipewire that could help.
Just for the sake of testing, I went back to PulseAudio...the problem is still here. These are Wine games. And on Windows, they work fine :(
Have you tried using proton via steam?
Yup. Still happens. Tested on Alan Wake.
At this point I would connect a usb audio device. You can get them for $10.
Thanks...I'm starting to think I'm dealing with HDMI noise on the audio. I'll try to get newer/clearer cables.
In another comment you said the head phones jack on the monitor is busted. It might be that the system thinks headphones are plugged in. Just a random guess, I don't even know if Linux can do that (windows can).
Please try some Linux native games and see if they have the same issue. If not, it would be a WINE/Proton issue and then the problem would belong to them. If it happens on Linux native games, then it's a Linux issue.
This is the primary reason I dislike WINE/Proton... ambiguity as to whether it's the WINE/Proton compatibility layer or the Linux distro itself.
Wow, got downvoted for giving practical diagnostic advice. Someone out there is a Proton fanboy who can't admit this is a valid thing to test to help finding root cause.
Which one would you advise as a proper native game to test? After the whole Bioshock Proton version running better than native, I stopped paying attention to truly native ports, and just played whichever Steam would install by default...or just Lutris my way around it.
Try anything out of the discover app. Like someone else said super tux cart. You're just looking for an audio signal to figure out if this is a wine thing or a system thing.
SuperTuxKart.
Thanks. I didn't have much time until now, but 10 minutes playing SuperTuxKart saw exactly zero audio glitches, and playing The Outer Worlds right after it, started glitching again. It really looks to be Wine/Proton issues, and I was ready to blame the HDMI cables...
If the game is from Steam, I'd hit them up for some official support. I bet they can help.
Thanks, but...I'm not so sure. I mean, I'm using the Proton compatibility layer, it's not like they did anything besides providing Windows support, then Valve adding the rest.
Understood.
So, here's my final update on this issue, and a possible solution/workaround: As the problem is due to crappy audio latency when using Wine, a way to avoid it is by giving it higher priority. If anyone has the issue, you can try using Feral's gamemode. Launch your problematic app via gamemoderun, and it will decrease stuttering very significantly. If the game is really intense on CPU or you have other stuff getting it busy, it will still stutter, but it's way less frequent on the game I'm currently playing (Outer Worlds), which is not very resource intensive. I'll let you know once I try harder games.