PulseAudio 3.0 Released With New Sound Features

[ShadowBane]

If you are getting laggy sound with PA it is probably related to the resample method that is selected in /etc/pulse/daemon.conf. For most processors the default is a good choice, but a faster (and lower quality) method is needed for low end systems.

For those who claim we should all go back to using dmix on top of alsa I would like to point out a few of its failings that PA fixes:
Multiple sound devices. Things like USB headphones, secondary soundcards, etc aren't that uncommon. dmix doesn't provide a way to move streams to different devices.
Sound quality. Pulse actually uses higher quality resample methods, (at least by default) meaning higher audio quality.
Per-application volume control. Really, having to find the application that is making noise and hope that it has a volume control (hint, not all do) is not productive when compared to just bringing up veromix and changing its volume.

[gens]

i use 64 bit archlinux with pulse audio i play many games and i dont have any problems.

edit: skype and mumble works too

when your cpu's memory bus gets overloaded you will, as pulseaudio(and similar "routing" software) copy's data around much much more then just using direct sound(alsa)

[LinuxRocks]

If you are getting laggy sound with PA it is probably related to the resample method that is selected in /etc/pulse/daemon.conf. For most processors the default is a good choice, but a faster (and lower quality) method is needed for low end systems.

For those who claim we should all go back to using dmix on top of alsa I would like to point out a few of its failings that PA fixes:
Multiple sound devices. Things like USB headphones, secondary soundcards, etc aren't that uncommon. dmix doesn't provide a way to move streams to different devices.
Sound quality. Pulse actually uses higher quality resample methods, (at least by default) meaning higher audio quality.
Per-application volume control. Really, having to find the application that is making noise and hope that it has a volume control (hint, not all do) is not productive when compared to just bringing up veromix and changing its volume.

I'll take a look at the /etc/pulse/daemon.conf, but I do not have a low end system - at all . Thanks for the tip; now I have something to go to the command line for .

Yeah rite... Ubuntu exists for what? 8 years? How much total Linux desktop usage changed during that time? Yup, not much... So, they are not doing a good job at it at all...

Plus, they are making Linux look bad, because when beginners try it they face many Ubuntu and Debian specific bugs and think Linux sucks....

Pulseaudio is a great sound server, grow up already all of you...

TemplarGR, were you beat up as a kid (Or are you still a kid?). Lighten up a little . Its almost Christmas!!! Time of joy and peace....

One thing that Ubuntu has done is make it so most "Normal" people (Like my 75 year old mom) can use Linux without issue. Install and go! How many other Linux distros out there provide this? Yeah, thats what I though... NONE!

Joe

[bug77]

Don't listen to me, simply Google for Sound Lag and Pulseaudio - just did it and got 50,500 returns, so, obviously, there seems to be an issue.

Joe

I just googled "Pulseaudio working perfectly" and I got 252,000 results. Google results is meaningless in this context.

[ShadowBane]

when your cpu's memory bus gets overloaded you will, as pulseaudio(and similar "routing" software) copy's data around much much more then just using direct sound(alsa)

Pulseaudio doesn't copy the data at all...

[newwen]

I acknowledge that PulseAudio provides better sound quality, even than better than Windows (this might be subjective).
But Pulseaudio still not working properly. If the USB Headset support is important, so is that their hardware buttons affect the volume of the headset itself and not the master.

[ShadowBane]

I acknowledge that PulseAudio provides better sound quality, even than better than Windows (this might be subjective).
But Pulseaudio still not working properly. If the USB Headset support is important, so is that their hardware buttons affect the volume of the headset itself and not the master.

The hardware buttons on my headphones just send keyboard style volume down commands that get caught by my desktop environment. I don't think that this is an issue that PA or any other sound system can easily solve. (better to yell at logitech and the other manufacturers to ship linux drivers.)

That being said, the headphones do have a separate master volume than the onboard sound card as they are a second device.

[Hamish Wilson]

I use PulseAudio on Fedora and have not had many problems. I have played countless games of varying ages, played music, videos, done some video editing, and have used Mumble for VOIP. Never had latency issues, and for the most part things have just worked. And I have used PulseAudio's features to get around problems quite a bit over the past six months. By the way, my computer is hardly a total beast of a machine either.

One thing that Ubuntu has done is make it so most "Normal" people (Like my 75 year old mom) can use Linux without issue. Install and go! How many other Linux distros out there provide this? Yeah, thats what I though... NONE!

How about... almost all of them?

[Thaodan]

One thing that Ubuntu has done is make it so most "Normal" people (Like my 75 year old mom) can use Linux without issue. Install and go! How many other Linux distros out there provide this? Yeah, thats what I though... NONE!

All this was done by upstream projects and is not distrubtion specific. Ubuntu pushes Linux for non-technic people true but it pushes itself torwards Ubuntu OS and this a greater issue for Linux on the desktop than any other issue.

[GreatEmerald]

PA support in various programs has improved immensely over the last half a year, even. Just a while ago there were issues with Skype and VLC, but no longer, they are now fixed (and it's actually an issue in those programs triggering some bugs, not PA itself). The only real remaining program that does not work that well with PA is Wine - but even its developers are working towards that (finally the out-of-tree maintainer of the PulseAudio driver for Wine and the mainline Wine devs got to a peaceful agreement).