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SOUND ISSUES WITH 1.22.11
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Keitholeous
Joined: 2009-03-20 08:14:47 Posts: 1
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I've noticed sound issues with Cool Viewer 1.22.11. For the first time with a Cool Viewer, I have a white voice dot above my avatar, and I can hear other avie when then speak. I can also see the green boxes in the voice set-up option become "illuminated," as if voice is going to work for me, but it never does. The problem I have is that sooner or later the sound on Second Life locks up, and begins to "stutter," making a sound like "der-der-der-der-der," and so forth. It's no point logging out of Second Life (and often you cannot kill the program, as it will not close), as the sound issue is present on the computer when you do, so you have to reboot the PC. I've tried selecting different sound combinations, ALSA, OSS, etc, but nothing seems to help, and the best I could achieve was around twenty minutes of use before the sound locked up again. At the moment I have gone hack to using Cool Viewer 1.21.6. Has anybody else noticed this, and can they suggest any possible work arounds/fixes? I can supply hardware details if necessary. My OS is Ubuntu 8.10.
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2009-03-20 08:33:01 |
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Lance Corrimal
Joined: 2009-03-18 09:32:02 Posts: 246
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i think the voice not working and the stuttering sounds are two sides of one, maybe two related problems.
i had similar sound issues on my computer, and (at least partially) fixed them by getting rid of as much of pulseaudio as possible. what remains is the occasional stuttering, which usually gets worse and worse until i crash, and is a known bug in the last few client releases. the stuttering seems to be related to the number of different sounds that "you" can hear, it's worse at my home at the end of the garden that has more different "nature & ambient sounds" prims scattered around.
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2009-03-20 08:48:53 |
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Henri Beauchamp
Joined: 2009-03-17 18:42:51 Posts: 6030
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These issues are not specific to the Cool SL Viewer, and you will find several reports of such problems on the JIRA. You can do two things to cure them: - Use Fmod and not OpenAL, by making sure to uncomment the "export LL_BAD_OPENAL_DRIVER=x" line in the "secondlife" wrapper script, i.e. it should read:
OpenAL support has been introduced in v1.22, but it alas does not work properly on many systems.
- Use the OSS v4.1 sound drivers instead of ALSA, and get rid of all the sound daemons (pulseaudio, esd, jackit, arts...). OSS got a built-in transparent software mixer, which makes all the stupid and buggy sound daemons redundant (no more worry about what software supports or needs which sound daemon, about the conflicts between those daemons, and no more delay in the played sound because of the daemons). Since I changed for OSS v4.1, all my sound issues under Linux (and they were many) vanished.
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2009-03-20 10:23:36 |
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Lance Corrimal
Joined: 2009-03-18 09:32:02 Posts: 246
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on the other hand, on four computers that i'm sort of "administrating", openAL results in way better sound quality in SL than fmod, so any statements about which sound system is the right one for SL should come with the biggest YMMV in history 
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2009-03-20 11:39:58 |
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Henri Beauchamp
Joined: 2009-03-17 18:42:51 Posts: 6030
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What is "YMMV" ???? Fact is, that on all the computers I run at home (and they are currently 5, 3 of which with OSS, 2 still with ALSA), OpenAL gives equivalent or lower quality sounds than Fmod, but some sounds fail to play (UI sounds seem affected most) with OpenAL after a while. But like I said, this is not a Cool SL Viewer specific issue (please, see the rules for this forum), and many such issues have been reported on the JIRA already (examples: VWR-11875, VWR-11203, VWR-11947). Please, do the bug report on the JIRA (or vote for a matching, existing report over there). In the mean time, by using Fmod you will at least get the same results as the ones you got with the v1.21.6 viewer, and this is why I made using Fmod the default again in the latest release of the Cool SL Viewer v1.22.11.0: if you change this default and decide to take the risk to use OpenAL, then don't come back here complaining it does not work...
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2009-03-20 13:34:13 |
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Lance Corrimal
Joined: 2009-03-18 09:32:02 Posts: 246
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 |  |  |  | Henri Beauchamp wrote: What is "YMMV" ???? Fact is, that on all the computers I run at home (and they are currently 5, 3 of which with OSS, 2 still with ALSA), OpenAL gives equivalent or lower quality sounds than Fmod, but some sounds fail to play (UI sounds seem affected most) with OpenAL after a while. But like I said, this is not a Cool SL Viewer specific issue (please, see the rules for this forum), and many such issues have been reported on the JIRA already (examples: VWR-11875, VWR-11203, VWR-11947). Please, do the bug report on the JIRA (or vote for a matching, existing report over there). In the mean time, by using Fmod you will at least get the same results as the ones you got with the v1.21.6 viewer, and this is why I made using Fmod the default again in the latest release of the Cool SL Viewer v1.22.11.0: if you change this default and decide to take the risk to use OpenAL, then don't come back here complaining it does not work... |  |  |  |  |
YMMV = Your Mileage May Vary (standard boilerplate meaning "you might get different results"). and as i already pointed out, on my computers here, running opensuse 11.0 and 11.1, fmod gives me inferior sound quality with lots of static, and openAL gives me no problems at all... and to repeat my YMMV: it might very well be the other way around for other people.
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2009-03-20 14:34:52 |
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Allen Kerensky
Joined: 2009-03-23 19:07:48 Posts: 30
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This has happened to me 4-5 times since since OpenAL was made default in the 1.22 rc cycle. Previously, I was using OpenAL to drive a USB headset mic, and the FMOD/ESD/ALSA stuff on my built in sound card for SL sounds, and cannot remember a lockup there. When Fedora switched to PulseAudio, I had a horrible fight with it, and managed to come to some agreement. A lot of it was making sure *everything* went *to* PulseAudio, instead of trying direct ESD/ARTS/ALSA/OSS access. Here's how I got rid of (most?) of the lockups of CV/SL on Fedora: Changing various buffer sizes in OpenAL and routing OpenAL to Pulse. Sample files are below, but here is the summary of what I was looking at in the .alsoftrc * Increase the refresh value to double the default, just guessing. I got pops and lockups when it was default. * Set driver = alsa to tell OpenAL to only use the ALSA configuration block * Set device = pulse in the [alsa] section to route the sound into the Pulse layer so SLVoice and SLViewer can both use sound without one locking a device away from the other * Increase the "Periods = 0" to "Periods = 16" <--- guesswork that seemed to help... I started with 4, heard lots of popping, then tried 8, less popping, and with 16, I only hear popping when system is really loaded. Hope this helps. Sample configs below: My /etc/openalrc: My $HOME/.alsoftrc (reproducing entire thing, since it was hard to find this file format initially!):  |  |  |  | Code: # OpenAL config file. Options that are not under a block or are under the # [general] block are for general, non-backend-specific options. Blocks may # appear multiple times, and duplicated options will take the last value # specified. # The system-wide settings can be put in /etc/openal/alsoft.conf and user- # specific override settings in ~/.alsoftrc.
# Option and block names are case-insenstive. The supplied values are only # hints and may not be honored (though generally it'll try to get as close as # possible). These are the current available settings:
format = AL_FORMAT_QUAD16 # Sets the output format. Can be one of: # AL_FORMAT_MONO8 (8-bit mono) # AL_FORMAT_STEREO8 (8-bit stereo) # AL_FORMAT_QUAD8 (8-bit 4-channel) # AL_FORMAT_51CHN8 (8-bit 5.1 output) # AL_FORMAT_61CHN8 (8-bit 6.1 output) # AL_FORMAT_71CHN8 (8-bit 7.1 output) # AL_FORMAT_MONO16 (16-bit mono) # AL_FORMAT_STEREO16 (16-bit stereo) # AL_FORMAT_QUAD16 (16-bit 4-channel) # AL_FORMAT_51CHN16 (16-bit 5.1 output) # AL_FORMAT_61CHN16 (16-bit 6.1 output) # AL_FORMAT_71CHN16 (16-bit 7.1 output) # Default is AL_FORMAT_STEREO16
cf_level = 0 # Sets the crossfeed level for stereo output. Valid values are: # 0 - No crossfeed # 1 - Low crossfeed # 2 - Middle crossfeed # 3 - High crossfeed (virtual speakers are closer to itself) # 4 - Low easy crossfeed # 5 - Middle easy crossfeed # 6 - High easy crossfeed # Default is 0. Users of headphones may want to try various # settings. Has no effect on non-stereo modes.
frequency = 44100 # Sets the output frequency. Default is 44100
refresh = 16384 # Sets the buffer size, in frames. Default is 8192. Note that # the actual granularity may or may not be less than this.
sources = 256 # Sets the maximum number of allocatable sources. Lower values # may help for systems with apps that try to play more sounds # than the CPU can handle. Default is 256
stereodup = yes # Sets whether to duplicate stereo sounds on the rear speakers for # 4+ channel output. This can make stereo sources substantially # louder than mono or even 4+ channel sources, but provides a # "fuller" playback quality. True, yes, on, and non-0 values will # duplicate stereo sources. 0 and anything else will cause stereo # sounds to only play out the front speakers. # Default is false
drivers = alsa #drivers = alsa,native,esd,null # Sets the backend driver list order, comma-seperated. Unknown # backends and duplicated names are ignored, and unlisted backends # won't be considered for use. An empty list means the default. # Default is: # alsa,oss,dsound,winmm,wave
excludefx = # Sets which effects to exclude, preventing apps from using them. # This can help for apps that try to use effects which are too CPU # intensive for the system to handle. Available effects are: # reverb # Default is empty (all available effects enabled)
#layout_STEREO = # Sets the speaker layout when using stereo output. Values are # specified in degrees, where 0 is straight in front, negative # goes left, and positive goes right. The values must define a # circular pattern, starting with the back-left at the most # negative, around the front to back-center. Unspecified # speakers will remain at their default position. Available # speakers are front-left(fl) and front-right(fr). # The default is: # fl=-90, fr=90
#layout_QUAD = # Sets the speaker layout when using quadriphonic output. # Available speakers are back-left(bl), front-left(fl), # front-right(fr), and back-right(br). # The default is: # bl=-135, fl=-45, fr=45, br=135
#layout_51CHN = # Sets the speaker layout when using 5.1 output. Available # speakers are back-left(bl), front-left(fl), front-center(fc), # front-right(fr), and back-right(br). # The default is: # bl=-110, fl=-30, fc=0, fr=30, br=110
#layout_61CHN = # Sets the speaker layout when using 6.1 output. Available # speakers are side-left(sl), front-left(fl), front-center(fc), # front-right(fr), side-right(sr), and back-center(bc). # The default is: # sl=-90, fl=-30, fc=0, fr=30, sr=90, bc=180
#layout_71CHN = # Sets the speaker layout when using 7.1 output. Available # speakers are back-left(bl), side-left(sl), front-left(fl), # front-center(fc), front-right(fr), side-right(sr), and # back-right(br). # The default is: # bl=-150, sl=-90, fl=-30, fc=0, fr=30, sr=90 br=150
[alsa] # ALSA backend stuff device = pulse #device = hw:1,0 # Sets the device name for the default playback device. # Default is default
periods = 16 # Sets the number of update buffers for playback. A value of 0 # means auto-select. Default is 0
device = pulse #capture = plughw:1,0 # Sets the device name for the default capture device. # Default is default
mmap = true # Sets whether to try using mmap mode (helps reduce latencies and # CPU consumption). If mmap isn't available, it will automatically # fall back to non-mmap mode. True, yes, on, and non-0 values will # attempt to use mmap. 0 and anything else will force mmap off. # Default is true.
[oss] # OSS backend stuff device = /dev/dsp # Sets the device name for OSS output. Default is /dev/dsp
periods = 4 # Sets the number of update buffers. Default is 4
capture = /dev/dsp # Sets the device name for OSS capture. Default is /dev/dsp
[sdl] # nothing yet [dsound] # DirectSound backend stuff # Nothing yet...
[winmm] # Windows Multimedia backend stuff # Nothing yet...
[wave] # Wave File Writer stuff file = # Sets the filename of the wave file to write to. An empty name # prevents the backend from opening, even when explicitly requested. # THIS WILL OVERWRITE EXISTING FILES WITHOUT QUESTION! # Default is empty |  |  |  |  |
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2009-03-23 20:26:42 |
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Alecia Ashbourne
Joined: 2012-01-11 21:14:01 Posts: 7
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I have an issue with sound also in Linux.. it's an Fmod thing. I know Fmod is supposed to be more compatible but I have had this problem many times in the past with different Linux Clients over many versions of Linux and on different PC's, there are a couple of work arounds in the system but its a bit messy and it disables some of my system features, or perhaps someone has a better solution to mod the system or viewer (other than mentioned to date) to fix this ?.. My experience of the problem essentially is a doubling of the audio (parcel audio). The quick fix for me without altering the system is to run a video or some other source in my browser in the background (paused) which forces fmod to throughput properly and the other of course is to use an external player, neither of which are good solution. I noted Henri's response "OpenAL support has been introduced in v1.22, but it alas does not work properly on many systems." But just to say that Singularity (which is a bit of a mish mash) has this solution: Audio Driver Version: OpenAL, version 1.1 ALSOFT 1.13 / OpenAL Community / OpenAL Soft: PulseAudio Default. and this works just fine - is there any chance this could be revisited ?
P.S Excellent work by the way Henri !!
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2012-01-11 22:20:30 |
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Henri Beauchamp
Joined: 2009-03-17 18:42:51 Posts: 6030
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Simply edit the cool_vl_viewer wrapper script and amend it to read:
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2012-01-11 22:54:42 |
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Alecia Ashbourne
Joined: 2012-01-11 21:14:01 Posts: 7
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ty Henri .. its perfect now !! i did look at that b4 but im a bit dim and i didnt figure it out  )
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2012-01-11 23:51:41 |
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